An Ogre shuffled through his mountain throne room
And slumped beside the moraine of his hoard,
A few loose geegaws at the gradient’s sill.
They landslide, hourly, to the cavern’s floor.
This pile, his wealth, his loot, these spoils, he’d got
Bamboozling a dragon he then rode
On raids throughout the villages around.
He didn’t need the dragon these days, though.
Despite razing their slums and silage dumps
The villagers now cheered him when he toured
Their villages (they’re villagers; they’re dumb)
To pick which of their children to devour.
The Ogre had cut off the dragon’s head,
Scooped diamond eyes from sockets of gold plate,
Grabbed the rubies from its spilling blood
And, garnished with a child, ate up its meat.
The Ogre yawned, the dragon quite forgotten
(He stole some other dragons just last season;
The topsoil smells of smoke although it’s sodden
With blood in villages where they don’t cheer).
And now, amidst the scree of tumbling treasure
The Ogre spots a thing which gives him pause.
He held it between thumb and thick forefinger
And glowered. It impudently matched his gaze.
He turned it on its side in case its contents
Might spill out, then he sniffed it like a cat,
Was going to smash the thing in his impatience
When a tiny spark of Grace flashed in his head.
And thus he saw himself. He saw the monster.
He blinked. Then something else was there instead.
The mirror showed a saint with shaven tonsure
And a halo resting on his stubbly pate.