Winning Words: Taming Dragons in a Soup Bowl

 

A bunch of surfer dudes,
sun-bleached blonde and sun-browned,
inch their way across the rocky shore,
Soup Bowl bound,
tentative as firewalkers
treading unshod on red coals.

Then, with jaws firmly set,
breasts pressed to boards,
these knights of the sea
paddle fearlessly forward, 
to face the fabled dragon waves,
whose lair is the Soup Bowl. 

Soon, the knights are all miniature 
dolls in the ocean expanse—
dragon-taming dolls, bobbing around, 
each patiently awaiting his chance
to ride and conquer 
a snorting, bucking beast.

Again and again,
tossed from a heaving back,
clambering each time onto their boards, 
they face every watery attack
of thrashing tails 
and raging fury.

Despite the power and passion 
of the monstrous dragons,
the knights of the sea,
in true fairy-tale fashion,
bone-tired and salty,
paddle back to shore, victorious.

And everyone, 
dragons included, 
lived happily ever after.