Leafy Green and the Evil Gnome

Once upon a time there lived a lad named Leafy Green.
He lived in an English castle with a King and Queen.
He would pull the rope that raised the drawbridge o’er the moat;
an evil gnome beneath the bridge always got his goat.

“You cannot lift the bridge!” the evil gnome said one day;
“It’s too heavy for you lad, your strength has gone away!”
Leafy Green began to cry, his doubts began to grow;
but then he heard a pleasant voice coming from below.

It was a catfish in the moat who heard Leafy cry;
“I can hear your sadness lad, I have to wonder why.”
“Oh fish, it’s that evil gnome who tells me that I can’t!”
Leafy spoke more to the fish—it was much like a rant.

“Don’t let the gnome decide your course—success rests on you!”
“When someone tells you that you can’t, you say, I can do!”
“Those words that come are negative, they have little weight;”
“It’s what’s inside you that’s of worth, that decides your fate.”

When hearing this, the evil gnome backtracked to the dark;
(his little ears concluded that the words were too stark.)
The catfish twitched a whisker and submerged with a splash;
Leafy Green was of the mindset that his tears were rash.

Leafy Green took to heart what the catfish had spoken;
he ignored what the gnome said, his will was not broken.
Leafy Green lifts the bridge and he’s very delighted;
those that enter are happy that they’ve been green-lighted.

24 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
9-16-19