Monster-Slayer for Hire (part of an epic, of sorts)
The world was full of monsters in those days
–when isn’t it?–but those made better tales:
dragons, giant boars, and ladies whose gaze
would turn men into statues that might be titled
I’m Just Leaving, or Sure I Like Your Hair.
If all the local braves were gulped or glazed
like pots, testing the depth of monster sleep,
the best resort for fed-up towns, or kings
with daughters underfoot for lack of prospects
–”A heap of bones for dowry!” they would wail!
–was to spread word of prizes worth a hero:
glory for sure, the throne when it came vacant,
the hand of that articulate princess. The call
would draw a crowd of thick-legged brawlers, who’d swill
on the town tab, claiming to wait for omens.
The hope was that some brand-new Hercules
would bull past lesser bullies, kill objectors,
get the princess pregnant, and fight sans contract
for love of mayhem. He’d bring a tourist trade.
But monsters build a record. Word gets round
that casualties are total, the herald’s voice
booms to fast-emptied squares. One course is left:
to hire, cash in his agent’s purse beforehand,
a monster-slayer by trade. His references
swear that he is proof against all wonders,
whether of malice or distracting good.
No one you’d give a crown or princess to–
more like a trapper than a demigod–
he pledges to kill the vermin or drive it off..
He rolls in like a circus, tall with plumes
and bright in cheap gilt armor, knowing that yokels
expect that for their fee. Lagging behind,
two seamy helpers and a mule-sized hedgehog
of poles and spears. One sidekick, the town learns,
is crazed but has sharp ears; and one knows ropes.
Word spreads that the hired slayer is morose
in his cups, with few words even then. He says
he’ll settle some day in a town like this;
no local seconds the thought. He strikes the Lair
in dawn mist: youngsters who slip close report
the crack of splintering trees, billows of smoke.
When he comes back, blood-smeared and scorched, the town
goes silly with relief, until it learns
his mood is black, abusive. If what he met
was snaky, he tells the town it’s python-fouled.
He’s drunk a bellyful of smoky venom
and spews it at the tawdriness he rescued.
If he destroyed a gorgon, all the men
worth knowing thereabouts had turned to stone
before he came: as for the living, their gold,
soft stone, is all they have worth fighting for.
The town officials call it shock from wrestling
such foulness at close quarters. The first day
the townsfolk whisper as if shocked themselves
but soon, their honest memories become clothed
in proper stories: his burdened ass turns horse,
sprouts wings and soars above the monster’s claws.
The people knew the story before it happened:
for even mercenaries step onstage into
the oldest of old plays, the battle with Fate
(whose role, unwittingly, the monster played).
The hero owns—must own!—an birth that shows
why he could act while we got used to monsters.
He is betraying victory itself who comes back
small and sour, as veterans often do,
and are resented for it by old neighbors.
It must be true, they think, that conquering souls
see far beyond us! How else could they dare?
And how else can we know that fate’s clenched fist
does hold the hopes that tease us? A cynic victor
almost makes us want our monster back.