... and the dragons are dead?

I sometimes think I write nothing but emails, however I have recently managed to write a short radio play, and I am in the middle of an extra scene for Wigton Theatre Club's panto and a short piece about Kathleen Herbert for my old students' magazine, as well as planning a play for said theatre club's 60th anniversary next year.

While I was looking through some papers I came across a poem I wrote years ago, and I thought I'd give it an airing here- appropriate perhaps for the Eve of All Hallows:

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Monster Munch

Early morning mist upon the marsh…

The twisting spirals drawn up by the sun

Took strange forms last night-

Will o' the wisps and marshy monsters.

We live in the morning;

Marshes with their lurking horrors drained,

Or preserved as Heritage.

All is explained

All sanitised

The dragons all are dead

And Grendel's mother nothing but a fairy tale.

We understand the atom and the universe,

And there are no longer more things in heaven and earth

Than thought of in anybody's philosophy.

We've conquered all

We've drained the marsh

We've killed the beasts

Exorcised the ghosts

Explained away the monsters-

But beware-

They still walk in our dreams.