When I first started this blog it was intended to be mostly poetry, but I’ve allowed myself to be distracted by other language issues and general bits & pieces, and it’s a while since I posted a poem.
This, though, is my 200th blog post, so I think some poetry is called for. The problem with short poems is that it’s almost impossible to know when they’re finished. So, like the blog, this is a work in progress; a draft:
draught
The dragon in the fireplace snorts
contempt for kitchen mortals. He shifts
to find a comfy spot, catches his breath
and coughs, farting a firework spray
of sparks and embers. His scaley hide
cracks open as he settles back to rest
on his vermilion hoard.
don't confuse the narrator 
This one certainly isn’t finished. There are a couple of clichés (“snorts / contempt”, “catches his breath”), both of which are clichés of the worst kind – i.e. once-interesting juxtapositions worn down into common phrases, but not worn down quite enough for their origin not to be noticed.
Is there an “e” in “scal[e]y”? My old OED thinks not, but it’s hardly something /you’d/ be likely to get wrong.
“Comfy” sticks out as being in a different register from the prevailing quite formal language.
I haven’t met any dragons recently, but I thought the fire usually came out of the other end. “Belching”, perhaps? “Burping” would sound better to my ear (even better than “farting”), but again it would be in a different register from the rest.
I preferred the poem in which you compared a mountain to a dragon. This one is rather dull. “Kitchen mortals” and “vermilion hoard” are the only phrases I can work up any enthusiasm for, but the second may be a little too Miltonic, while the first doesn’t quite make sense. This dragon is at least as mortal as the kitchen-dwellers, since it dies quickly if it isn’t poked with blunt spears.
You can (and often do) write poems that are much better than this one seems likely ever to be.
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Hi Peter,
Many thanks for being realistically negative about this. I still think it might get somewhere if I leave it long enough – the other dragon poem took years to find itself; I suspect such creatures (dragons & poems) don’t like being hurried.
I’m too rushed to answer any pf your specific points. Will return later in the week when I have a more reliable connexion.
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