U. A. Fanthorpe: Not my Best Side

 I

 Not my best side, I'm afraid.
 The artist didn't give me a chance to
 Pose properly, and as you can see,
 Poor chap, he had this obsession with
 Triangles, so he left off two of my
 Feet. I didn't comment at the time
 (What, after all, are two feet
 To a monster?) but afterwards
 I was sorry for the bad publicity.
 Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror
 Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride
 A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?
 Why should my victim be so
 Unattractive as to be inedible,
 And why should she have me literally
 On a string? I don't mind dying
 Ritually, since I always rise again,
 But I should have liked a little more blood
 To show they were taking me seriously.

 II

 It's hard for a girl to be sure if
 She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
 Took to the dragon. It's nice to be
 Liked, if you know what I mean. He was
 So nicely physical, with his claws
 And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,
 And the way he looked at me,
 He made me feel he was all ready to
 Eat me. And any girl enjoys that.
 So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,
 On a really dangerous horse, to be honest
 I didn't much fancy him. I mean,
 What was he like underneath the hardware?
 He might have acne, blackheads or even
 Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon--
 Well, you could see all his equipment
 At a glance. Still, what could I do?
 The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,
 And a girl's got to think of her future.

 III

 I have diplomas in Dragon
 Management and Virgin Reclamation.
 My horse is the latest model, with
 Automatic transmission and built-in
 Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built,
 And my prototype armour
 Still on the secret list. You can't
 Do better than me at the moment.
 I'm qualified and equipped to the
 Eyebrow. So why be difficult?
 Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued
 In the most contemporary way? Don't
 You want to carry out the roles
 That sociology and myth have designed for you?
 Don't you realize that, by being choosy,
 You are endangering job prospects
 In the spear- and horse-building industries?
 What, in any case, does it matter what
 You want? You're in my way.