Dungeons & Dragons

 

Dungeons & Dragons
“Hey, look! The Dungeons & Dragons ride…”

Six friends flushed down a fun-park reality drain,
amazed to find rebirth as weapons of themselves,
take flight through a world of waking nightmares:
Tiamat the dragon with her five hateful heads,
Venger the glowering, gowned and horned sorcerer
soaring on his hell-spawn horse, in eternal struggle
for dominion over a world of rival wizards, 
enchanted valleys, unicorn herds, cursed skeletons,
and enslaved children imprisoned in clock towers.

Dungeon Master, slipping in and out of life
like the world’s most irresponsible grandpa,
always churned their outlook with ambiguous advice.
Prophetic little bastard practically farted lessons,
but only for those stalwart enough to suffer
the long trek to the Hall of Bones, thoughtful 
enough to ponder the Prison with No Walls, 
the many illusions and cruelties of beauty.

Portals between worlds came and went
with taxi-like regularity, but every time 
the kids were offered a way back home,
a promise was broken, and back they tumbled—
this meant they’d grown up. Most of their growing
had been done in an alien world where power 
darkened souls with the speed of disease,
where perfect seductions bloomed like flowers
and mesmerized like mirrors.

Growing up makes nomads of everyone.
Come seeping shadow demons, come catapulting bulliwugs,  
come shrieking bog beasts, cursed princesses, lizard men…
All this witchcraft and shape-shifting
is hard to explain to parents, so they are left behind.
The only way forward is to slog through the riddle,
climb the beanstalk, sink in the quicksand, reach elbow deep 
into the aggressively unpredictable magic hat 
each time you fall ever farther from home.