A Dragon Named Paul

In a faraway land where the sea meets the sky,
And the hills are marshmallows and the rocks are alive,
Live a colony of dragons – the regular sort –
With fire-breathing bellies, who eat children for sport.

They fill children with fear, and animals too
(When there’s no girls for dinner, a puppy will do).
Their breath is appalling, their manners atrocious,
Breeding fear and loathing is their only true focus.

Except for one dragon who’s not scary at all,
A mild-mannered dragon the others call Paul.
He’s not big nor ferocious, in fact he’s quite sweet
(Once you get used to the pong of his feet).

He doesn’t eat children for breakfast or lunch
He doesn’t like dinner with knee bones to crunch.
The others all think he is rather peculiar
Except for his true dragon love, Jumpy Julia
(Who unlike her dragon friends, simply can’t fly,
She jumps round instead, but that’s by the by,
This story’s of Paul and his wonderful nature,
I promise to tell you about Julia later).

This dragon called Paul always knew he was not
Like all other dragons – his breath was not hot.
And his claws were not sharp and his teeth were not long
And he often broke out into loud bursts of song.

He couldn’t breathe fire and would not abide
By the grizzly rules of his kind – though he tried.
He thought he should be like the others, you see,
But he couldn’t be the dragon he felt he should be.

So he went it alone (except for Julia, of course,
And, oh, did I mention they befriended a horse?
And a cat with no tail, and a dog with no nose,
And a boy who had snails where he should have had toes).

They banded together, not alone anymore
For there’s safety in numbers when you’ve been shown the door
By the ‘Normal Folk’ living their lives by the rules,
Who think of the outcasts as idiots and fools.

This rather eclectic and strange looking crew,
Were happy together and started to do
All sorts of good deeds for the poor and the friendless,
They might look quite odd but their niceness was endless.

They travelled together led by our friend Paul,
Who despite his mild manners wasn’t too bad at all
At taking control, and keeping things fair
And making the gang brush their teeth and their hair.

They travelled together doing good deeds a plenty,
And growing their gang which quite soon numbered twenty.
And Paul came to realise he was special and gifted
In making the spirits of the lonely be lifted.

He no longer wanted to make himself be
A ‘good’ dragon because he had quite come to see
That being like others is quite over-rated.
When you are special that should be celebrated.

[A rapidly written first draft of a poem for my friend Marianne’s dragon-mad children]