his name is electric
a dragon poem for Oscar
His Name is Electric
What do we want to give each other as we park under the sign of the Electric Dragon?
David Bottoms
I made a dragon for the one Santa forgot
to bring me. Electric, like my heart
and crimson with a blue tongue. Fiery.
Often silent. Santa is not a father, but I am
the father of this dragon, mine, built
like an arrangement of stars, with a tail of fire
and thorns of roses on his wings, the teeth
of leopards in his skin. I know what claws out
of myself, what Electric (half-cat, half
dragon) will claw into the calf and the ankle of
the world. I will never let him attack his
brothers. He is the eldest sibling of the Sphinx
and Unicorn and younger than the Phoenix,
Griffon and Werewolf. They are a family.
They all transform themselves to stay
upon the earth, with us.
We must imagine at least one being coming alive
for every dream inside us. We. Us.
Santa, I made my dragon with cut paper, broken
shells and red paint. There are no jewels to thieve.
I made him a gold shield for a heart and a mossy
cave and a well of dreams and nightmares to protect.
I bring him gifts of water and stones like stars every night.
Santa, it's miraculous! The dragon you forgot to bring me
knows he is loved. He’s sure of it. And when I scratch his back
he stretches up and sharpens his crescent moon claws
against the dark sky to show me how.
This poem was written for my friend, Oscar, after doing a lot of research about dragons that lead to reading lots of poems featuring dragons but especially Dragons by John Ciardi and Chinese Dragons by David Bottoms. Like threads of gold on a cave wall, some fragments from those poems appear in my poem. I didn’t set out to turn Oscar’s dragon, Electric, into a half-dragon, half-cat creature. I think happened because there is a jungle in John’s poem and a red leopard in David’s poem. In fact, I believe my catdragon and its claws were there waiting for me in David’s poem (…I know what claws out of the sky and into your arm, what will claw into my calf and ankle). When I wrote this poem I was also thinking about how children become one with their toys and how the world of their imaginations is as vivid as real life while they are deep in play and conversation with their creations. I feel the same way when I write poems. The world of the poem takes over. And it is a good feeling. Maybe it’s silly to say this but for me it feels like salvation. Which leads me to a little note about Santa, who pops up in lots of my poems and seems to be interchangeable for the lowercase god in my heart. Santa is always guilty for having forgotten or neglected something important alongside precipitating an incredible creative discovery. If Santa had remembered the dragon, there would be no poem.
LOVE.