many have pursued their tracks
        past rivers of bloodshed
gagged through that lingering stench
        after flesh ignites,
so it’s cruel fiction, a myth,
        that dragons are dead,
slain by St. George
        and a few fairytale knights.
 
except a malicious dragon,
        no beast can spew
napalmish flames to roast
        teenage schoolgirls at first light
as they flee Mekong food markets
        through swaying bamboo;
or savage Dresden’s pottery shops
        and music halls
to exchange piercing screams
        for opera stars’ debuts;
or seek a higher means
        to terrorize and appall
as Nagasaki skeletons
        rush for sacred parents’ tombs
while flesh is stripped from runners
        before the dead can fall;
their toxic breath blisters and blinds
        as its greenish plumes
strangle entrenched soldier boys
        in Belgium’s mud and haze,
and stuns the already wretched
        in their shower rooms
to adequately fill
        each of Birkenau’s massive graves.
 
only a dragon’s machete claws
        and razor teeth
can butcher a million Tutsis,
        helpless, frantic, and lost
in Rwanda’s thick forests
        of afrocarpus trees,
and in Sri Lankan swamps,
        gnaw at the Tamils’ remains
to prove their appetite
        for flesh cannot be appeased:
 
their vile thirst never quenched,
        always more quarry to maim,
always more towns,
        more fleeing victims to set aflame.

      

---

Raised on the blue-collar (textile) side of a small Southern town, John Michael Sears spent his college weekends rafting the Chattooga River and hiking the area around Linville Gorge Wilderness. He has lived and worked in a number of countries, many of them in the developing world and in places recovering from civil conflicts. His poetry has also been published in Floyd County Moonshine.

---