A Map of Fantasy Land

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

Light the lamp and in the soft glow you’ll see

Secrets inked across the parchment set free

Roads long forgotten meander the page

Leading to the knowledge of a lost age

Gold in the mountains, if you can find it

Treasure ’neath the waves, if you can free it

Places to raise your sword and win your fame

Inscribing fabled history with your name

Here be dragons, and there be dark nightmares

Ogres, and witches, and the things they fear

Across the faded map your finger roams

Where will it lead you before you come home?

Fern Fairy

for dVerse

River sallies through the emerald valley;

ferns twine and twist in the soft breeze gently.

While white mist shrouds the valley in magic,

fern queen rests in her living green hammock.

Over seeing her realm of fairies, birds

clover, redwoods, bees; entwined with the ferns.

All hers from great tree to tiny sporange,

prowling cats and fishes spotted orange.

Hers to guard and hers to keep and hold sound-

ly. So she keeps her vigil o’er her ground.

At her woven throne her subjects shower

thanks. And with laurel wreaths they endow her;

spider silk, saffron slippers, almond milk,

acorn caps, mustard seeds, and patchwork quilts.

This is their world tucked between the ferns,

and all this is safe beneath her sojourn.

Sporange - A real word that does indeed rhyme with orange. It is a form of sporangium, which is  where spores are produced in plants like ferns.

Titleless

My family's odd I warn my date

He grins, insisting the night will be great

My mom's a witch, my dad's a warlock

My brothers shout curses instead of small talk

My sister keeps her hydra in the hall

He says he can't wait to meet them all

Walking to the door I'm breathing quickly

My sight's blurring and my stomach's prickly

The banshee on the stairs doesn't phase him

Nor the hydra's hundred looks dark and grim

He greets my brothers super politely

And my sister in a way most knightly

When dad slaps his back I lose my worry

We're all laughing when mom makes her entry

He kisses her hand she calls him a dear

Poof! He's on the table a spotted deer

My family feeds him salad, berries, hay

They say that they like him better this way

He's joining in the wild frolicking

I turn away, they're so embarrassing!