The Wizard's Gift

 

The Wizard's Gift

It came in a box.

Death wrapped in red foil

and silver ribbon

glowing with night's own light,

the dark knowing of its nature.

The wind brought her stiff broom

to sweep the air clean of brimstone stink

but you stood and laughed and reeked

in the midnight sun.

You wore those solemn robes

like stiff wings freshly feathered.

A pretense of hooded eyes cerulean blue 

smirked compassion through the snarl of

each jetblack lash, yet under your

velvet calm was a constant rustling.

Anyone not spellbound in tranced oblivion

would see the barbed tailtip of your starved familiar

thrashing with a scorpion's steel sharp sting.

You held the ocean out in a crystal cup,

tiny hearts tied to the mast, a thousand ships

set sailing in the devil's brandyglass.

Windtossed I watched the mousemaid's fallen tear

grow the deepest pool in a black moon-strangled grove

where the winking fox set the crippled rabbit free

and one absent swipe rang the raven's dinner bell.

Down down went the chambered shell

to the scarlet aquifer;

you curved your fingered claws over my white hand 

until they twined

and flowed together as grains of sand

merge in a dune indistinguishable

and we pulled the fullness up

to our glittering husks from the butcher's well

to drink together the bloodred wine of hell.

~July 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

I'm the host tonight at the pub for our usual poetic festivities. Come join us in the cool and bring a well-chilled word or two to cut the summer heat. 

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, click below:

the wizard's gift by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: The Wizard, by Edward Burne-Jones

Public Domain, via Wikipaintings.org