Welcome back to Midgard!
The remnants of Cain’s vast descent
Examined her with their knees bent.
As Alva Dagmar came to be,
The offspring of a deity
Inbred with such a demonic flare.
The child of Angrboda’s dare;
Her father Loki’s lavished glee,
And thus she shared her line with three-
The Midgard Serpent, seething snake,
As well as Fenrir, wolf to make
An end for Odin one fine day.
And Jörmungandr, too, would slay
A deity well known as Thor.
And that left Hel, half flesh and gore.
The ruler over all the dead,
Importing souls to bind her thread.
And lastly, Alva Dagmar came …
A dragon spirit’s burning flame.
Unlike the others, all her heart
So beat for Midgard from the start.
A mission simple in its stead-
To fill the lands with hate and dread.
Enamored by the scale and tooth,
She crafted dragons as her proof:
No other of her kinsmen’s shared
The gift for forging creatures snared
Within the wake of their design.
For this, the dragon wraith could sign
And set herself apart as one
Akin to Loki, deeding done
The manner of the gods in craft.
Exceeding measures in each draft,
Perplexing those whose worldly ways
Created from the dawn of days,
The measure Alva Dagmar craved
Succeeded in the paths she paved.
And there before the chosen few,
The Midgard horrors, kneeling to
Respect the deity in sight.
Thus Gandolina’s scheme took flight,
Enlisting now her siblings, three,
And best of all, her deity.
A nephew and another beast
Completing those to share her feast.
Before the world, her eager swell
Expressing lust in every spell
In short would change the face of man.
And so she offered up her plan …
The angels God had crafted flew
Above in Asgard, this they knew.
And often times, they flew too close,
Entangled in the notion, gross,
Abstract and foreign to the rest.
As such these few had failed the test.
Intoxicated by the span
Of mortal life; to mate with man
And so create the monstrous strain,
The offspring dubbed a child of Cain.
The very same she came to see;
This dragon spirit deity …
Enthralled, she was by their design.
Amazed by Gandolina’s shrine
And all her siblings’ skills could do.
No other monster held claim to
The gift of true creation’s scheme.
And yet with magic’s fueling stream
The stream of conscious altered shape,
Transforming humans toe to nape.
As Gandolina spoke to all,
Remembering the angels’ fall,
The woman she configured new
Exposed her fangs and changed her hue.
As green to blue came into sight,
The creature posed herself to fight.
Perplexed by what was going down,
Her actions brought an angered frown
That spread across to every face
Among that tired and ancient race.
As Alva Dagmar lashed her tail,
The wargs around them loosed a wail.
The giant wolves began to growl,
Until at last they freed a howl
And thus attacked the woman changed.
Her shape and size she rearranged,
Amassing longer arms with claws,
As serpent tongues within her maws,
The double jointed mouths she bore
Ensnared the wargs and ripped and tore
The furry flesh right off of them.
They died in fits both dire and grim.
Completing this, the woman came
Again to size and shape the same
As what she was before the fight
To there destroy and munch and bite.
Thus Gandolina spoke in turn,
“You see, my plan will rage and burn
Above the lands of Midgard’s hold.
The secret kept has now been told.
My victims can slay even those
Who challenge us; a simple pose
And change of pattern, much like we
Can alter our reality.
As Alva Dagmar has so come,
My sisters, brother, we are from
Another time; another place.
All creatures of a fading race,
And as is such, we must survive!
We can through what I bring alive.”
And no one argued with her scheme.
The dragon deity’s own dream
It seemed would soon be welcomed in.
In parting, Gandolina’s grin
Allowed the others all in scope
The needed faith; the wanted hope
In all their sister shared that eve.
Before the dragon turned to leave,
A flaming breath burned what remained
Of those two wargs whose blood had stained
The floor around to prove a point.
The time had come; she would anoint
A title over one whose heart
Had blackness coursing from the start.
And so it came to pass between
That Gandolina was their queen.
A gift to all was given there;
Empowered in their skin and hair …
James Matthew Byers resides in Wellington, Alabama with his wife, kids, a dog named after an elf, and two tortoises. He has been published in poetry journals and through Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, AL, where he received his Master’s in 2010. His epic poem, Beowulf: The Midgard Epic, is coming soon from Stitched Smile Publications, LLC.
Find James Matthew Byers at:
Twitter: @Mattbyers40
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/Mattbyers40/
Wordpress: http://jamesmatthewbyers.wordpress.com
Stitched Smile Publications 