My magic is gone
Skipped town on a sparrow’s wing
“Wanted: Wand—High Grade.”
My Magic Is Gone
20 Wednesday Sep 2017
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20 Wednesday Sep 2017
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My magic is gone
Skipped town on a sparrow’s wing
“Wanted: Wand—High Grade.”
19 Tuesday Sep 2017
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Where did it come from and where was it going?
This nibbling sensation, tingling through her selfness
Each time a star went shooting or a snowflake fell.
The Gordian knotted, knowing
She had something to be freed.
Tumble, juggle, or dance, which should she choose as the sword?
Thinking blue or better yet the blur of blue,
A purple more regal than a
Monarch’s robes.
Imagining the images of her artful self
Compressed, suppressed for decades.
Yearning to emerge like Venus with a
Preternatural sigh
From a look posed before
That step out of the shell.
She chases created angels
Through orchided jungles and Nordic seas.
Her desire known only in the finest, quiet moment.
To see the grandeur of a line,
Or a space between,
That captures more than the shape can tell.
Demanding now a place of her own,
Her solace, brilliant, unnamed colors,
Celtic perfection, fineness of symmetry,
Wild tropical birds feasting on welcoming flowers,
Splattered in her brain, ready to burst forth,
In full-throated sound, “Today, I began!”
19 Tuesday Sep 2017
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He could have ignored that little old lady,
Waxing poetic and cackling like a hen,
Over an ergonomic chair about to go at auction.
He could have triggered his superior
Financial wherewithal to get it from her
On an easy outbid, profiting in the bargain.
He could have put his smile away, reserving it
For some waitress, gaining points at a cafe
Where free coffee flowed like nectar.
He thought twice, though, smiled again,
And left his hand at his side,
Calmed without a bid.
The chair in all its glory would be hers,
As he smiled shyly, thinking to himself:
What the heck,
It’s Valentine’s day.
18 Monday Sep 2017
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Believe in birthdays,
And the mania
Necessary to perform in them properly.
Stop Earth’s murmur given you,
Gather your right,
Tell the world,
Proclaim existence
At least for one of its days,
Send forth the full-lunged scream,
Today, I began.
17 Sunday Sep 2017
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Admit it.
Probably a grandmother said it to you,
Or a cousin that you called aunt
Because she hadn’t married and was
As old as your mother.
“Absolutely never go out of the house
With a safety pin holding up your slip.”
Admit it.
It struck fear in your heart
And still does
Even though modern women
Rarely wear slips anymore.
Unless you wear things out of sleazy catalogues
Like bras that wouldn’t fit a mouse.
Admit it.
They do come in your mail.
They come in everyone’s
Without request, but you don’t stop them
Do you?
You see yourself in a Merry Widow
That sets you in the Tenderloin or a brocade brothel.
Admit it.
There’s a little touch of the prurient
In everyone, the titillation
Your grandmother
Or spinster aunt suspected.
They tried to save you from it,
In case the coroner was called in.
16 Saturday Sep 2017
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We kiss, we two old ladies,
Each time we say good bye.
As if sealing a bond,
we will meet again,
And talk again.
This vow taken by silent agreement,
keeps us alive.
Unsure where,
Here
Or in another place,
This kiss stands up to time.
Our kiss plays with the universe,
As more than a slight peck on the
Cheek
And less than a full,
Hollywood
Smooch.
No sloppy slobber, this kiss
With its dryness of age
Crackles as we let it linger on the four lips
Unaccustomed to telling lies.
We wonder, first off
Whether the Dames , we admire so, kiss.
Do they lay one on each other,
as we do,
A guarantee of future meetings.
Or are we alone in our gesture,
As we wonder many things.
From our history of kisses
Lost in a mountain’s mist,
Lingering in a neverland of why,
To the questioned when,
when is the day they will
End our conversations
With a final good bye.
Fated to satisfy a gnawing need
For meeting,
Till then
Our two souls, with their kiss,
Punctuate each remaining day.
We giggle,
coming closer for
The just, one more,
Unblemished
Kiss.
Charlene James-Duguid
Amissville, Virginia
16 Saturday Sep 2017
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Now passing
Too quickly
The earth’s sphere.
Nearing the moon
With its
Companion star.
I’d like to fly between the two
Separate
Them
For
A
Moment
So when rejoined
They’d know their love again.
15 Friday Sep 2017
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If Jung could tape my head,
Live in my dreams,
The drama
Of myths
Would seem mundane,
Unredeemable
In dullness.
If only in these dreams
Jung could peer,
At the corner of my images
Held for photostat.
I’d give more proof,
Send him a moment’s
Vision,
Colored,
Framed,
Shiny,
Transparent.
In every way,
Hold him fixed
Within the glory
Of my smattered thoughts.
Out of danger,
Out of want.
A fine rendition,
In standard times,
Of how my dreams are truly made.
14 Thursday Sep 2017
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We sit,
While he cooks.
Stirring the gravy,
The only earthen tone in a pure white kitchen.
We peek through the window
Secretly.
Imagining what goes on
Under the grill’s hood.
We all want to talk,
But don’t.
This is his moment,
This was his kill.
12 Tuesday Sep 2017
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No drama in life
Unless you eat endlessly
Acid persimmons.
* * *
Walking Wounded tramp
Through life’s forest Yeti-like
Thrilled they have survived.
* * *
When fragile larkspur
Bloom, they like where they’re planted.
Do the same for friends.
* * *
Fix what you can fix.
Weave with joy a spider’s web.
Call it Private Fate.
* * *
Pretend yours is an
Antic Spirit overfilled,
Breaking all records.
* * *
When horror strikes you
In your bad dreams, try this trick.
Escape! Walk backward.