Poem: "Opening the Dragon's Fist"
Apr. 7th, 2018 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This poem came out of the March 4, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from
siege. It also fills the "school" square in my 2-1-14 card for the
cottoncandy_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by
kengr. It belongs to the Kung Fu Robots series.
"Opening the Dragon's Fist"
The kung fu robots were curious
about the power of Lung Ch'uan school.
Deep hissing sounds controlled
the flow of ch'i through breath
Long fluid motions ended
in sudden snapping strikes
of clawed fists and low foot-sweeps.
The reptilian smoothness disguised the attacks
to confuse unwary opponents,
and when the counterattack came,
the dragon master was somehow
never there.
Caper thought that this
resembled the weaving pattern
of the drunken master.
Cricket wondered if
the dragon wisdom was anything
like his own master's crazy wisdom.
Citron wanted to know
whether dragons liked flowers.
There was something about it,
always the same, always changing,
the way dragons appeared in art
everywhere even though
nobody had ever seen one.
"I suppose," Cricket said,
"that dragons are
like the Tao that way."
* * *
Notes:
Dragon Style is one type of kung fu.
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"Opening the Dragon's Fist"
The kung fu robots were curious
about the power of Lung Ch'uan school.
Deep hissing sounds controlled
the flow of ch'i through breath
Long fluid motions ended
in sudden snapping strikes
of clawed fists and low foot-sweeps.
The reptilian smoothness disguised the attacks
to confuse unwary opponents,
and when the counterattack came,
the dragon master was somehow
never there.
Caper thought that this
resembled the weaving pattern
of the drunken master.
Cricket wondered if
the dragon wisdom was anything
like his own master's crazy wisdom.
Citron wanted to know
whether dragons liked flowers.
There was something about it,
always the same, always changing,
the way dragons appeared in art
everywhere even though
nobody had ever seen one.
"I suppose," Cricket said,
"that dragons are
like the Tao that way."
* * *
Notes:
Dragon Style is one type of kung fu.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-08 02:55 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2018-04-08 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-08 11:05 am (UTC)I am glad to see this series is still going though... and yes, Dragons are very like the Tao.
Thoughts
Date: 2018-04-08 11:26 am (UTC)Fascinating!
>> I think after reading this, I'll make a point of working a description of it in somewhere. [and just coincidently, it happens to be the style I know. ;) ] <<
I'd enjoy reading that.
>> I am glad to see this series is still going though... and yes, Dragons are very like the Tao. <<
Yay! I'm glad you liked it.