The Monastery of Saint George
The Monastery of Saint George
There was a saint and its home up the hill
It had big walls for it protected the food and drink and dill
Every once in a while down to the town came the monks about
Carting the meats and greens into all the bellies even not devout
But as a week, another and one more passed and the monks were not around
Folks gathered to climb up, knock and finally take it out
Some worried to their cousin; some nun, converted out of self-doubt
(But most ordered by the pig Lord's big and hungry snout)
First knock a silence, second knock a shout: "Hide!"
"There is no meat here no longer but the priest's body and mine!"
A coward, it seems, with barely any courage or a spine1
"All the others are gone, devoured by the vengeful dragon!" They claimed, terrified
Be through tongue, force, another gate, a good ploy
Or even the secret passageway for the priest's current town boy
The cloister opened all around the buildings and the huge church
Truth, the coward's words foretold, even with no further research
Many a place one could find if given a loop and a search
Abandoned bed rooms with flies and dung built out of white birch
A long foul refectory for all the monks that here once could perch
And center loomed the one
church - where the food was - its stones and glass windows with not a smirch
Among the rooms the Priest's chamber was, up a tower to deter
The secret passage here as well, hidden, made by hands of no amateur
In his room, a painting, secrets, a book, darkened cover of some leather or skin
The pages dirt with time and blood, dark hexes made true by sacrifice and the right sin
All left was the church; "the others went inside, the fools. You can also go in,"
"But naught came out but the smell and the screams from within"
For the heavy doors of the church lay unlocked
Its altar bathed red with the Priest's deadly concoct
The skin of a hand, a leg, a chest, a head, all chopped
Covering the statue of Saint George, its image now blocked
Each belonging to a different person, as written in the black book, it seems
The lives of those devoted to his name leave him mocked, by all means
Hear hear, it's the food! Found at last, below the crossbeams
But the horrors are still at large, beyond the wildest dreams
Older priests, young nuns and monks lay dead on the old walls but also the floor
Of the stairs down the crypts as they echo with bloody screams of gore
A heavy sound and thud, as the coward locks the church door
"Here, Priest, I found others! I am devoted to thee, I implore!"
Out the stairs climb the Priest, now with a scaled body of a Beast, with a hoar
But the bloodthirst eyes and tusks of a dragon of lore2
"Please, sit and eat; boy, gather the town, for I wish to feed all on a feast"
The coward goes, glad to abide, for their master saw fit not to see him deceased
The Priest or be it Beast up the altar went, for good intent he claimed the least
But betrayed he is by the drool on the deformed mouth of the Beast
A sight of nightmare he were, for he believed his goodness unfeigned
Even with the Saint above him, blind and ashamed
He smiled and invited all, louder than the screams from below, half maimed
First to eat, and to any believer that comes, to be eaten, proclaimed and reclaimed