karate mouth

I was regaling the children with tales of my quest;
From golden vale and mountain crest,
Through oceans filled with escalator stairs.
And how, with but a walking staff,
My wits and hands, I cleared my path
Of dragons, giants, ogres, flying bears,
Sweet potato minotaurs,
Giant clockwork dinosaurs,
A devil made of aftershave and tears,
A griffin who could sing the blues,
Goblins riding kangaroos,
Giant spiders who ate jam and fear,
A coalacanth with a harpoon,
Baboons the size of two baboons,
A warlock who sold ladles to the Greeks,
Top hat-wearing demon hordes,
With canes that also became swords,
Drinking soups distilled from eagle beaks,
A cyclops sporting a glass eye,
Solar-powered octopi,
Lumberjack-devouring hidebehinds,
A bugbear wrote the alphabet,
While chupacabras played cornet,
A phoenix built a house of melon rinds
A spelling bee champion yeti,
Centaurs made of cold spaghetti,
A djinn that fed on gingerbread and gin,
A hydra keeping soccer scores,
Clans of freckled manticores,
And krakens playing with a skittles pin.
"Weren't you afraid?" "And did you cry?"
"Not once." to the children said I,
Receiving, then, a knock across my crown.
Their mother shushed me, said to them,
"The bravest and most daring men
Are those wise 'nuff not to travel 'round
The keenest of the world can see
Not beast you beat but how you be
A human being no matter where you've been
Is how the who who fits you true,
And tell the monsters all to shoo,
Knows more important ways your time to spend.
So wash your faces, eat your sup,
Your quest for now is growing up
And time it is to venture to your beds."
"It's true," I said, the imps asleep,
"I feared no witch, ghost, fang-clawed creep,
Leviathan, man-eater, living dead,
No beasts of land nor sky nor sea,
Only one thought did frightened me
That you, my love, and home were o so far."
And as we settled in our loft
She said to me, whispering soft,
"The where you were is not the where you are."