And meanwhile...

[muninnhuginn]

when Brain Patten wrote "I've found a small dragon in the woodshed" we're not sure he meant like this.

.

I've found a small Drache in the garage.
Think it must have come from the Kaiser's collection
because it's damp and gold and memories
of Rhinemaidens pool its eyes

I fed it on many things, tried Sauerkraut,
Bratwurst, shredded rejection slips,
but it hissed at me about its need
for royalties I cannot provide

It swam around its narrow bowl,
Sealed, unlike a goldfish's,
it is out of the limelight here
and is hungry for fame

If you believed in me I would have sent post haste
My manusript to your house to let you publish my oeuvre
but I want instead my hoax
to sell you more copies.

Oops!

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

That makes me think of Tove Jannson's dragon story in Tales From Moominvalley

Applause!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Well, that's brightened my morning (and just in time, as it's 12:20 now!)

synchronicity!

[loligo.livejournal.com]

My husband is an evolutionary biologist, and here in the States we must cope with unfortunate biblical literalists who insist that evolution is a lie designed to test their faith (not just fringe wackos, either -- he gets perfectly normal-looking college students who write on their course evals, "Dr. So-and-so is an excellent lecturer, but everything he's teaching is a lie.")

Anyway, last night he goes off on one of his frequent rants about empirical evidence and the testability of theories and parsimony and whatnot, and he says, "I just read a great example in a book the other day, like, what if somebody said to you 'I have a dragon in my garage', and you said, 'Can I see it?' and they said, 'No, it's invisible. And intangible. But believe me, it's there.'" And then the rant went on from there. But the point being, he'll be delighted to find that the example must originally have been inspired by a poem. (And he'll like the hoax, too.)

Hmm, can't find the text of Patten's poem anywhere on the web....

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

:-)