Large Fierce Mammal

The Magick of Words

By LFM

When I was but a stripling lad,
Enthralled by tales of sword and sage,
I dreamed of magicks foul and fair,
And words of pow’r beyond my age.

It saddened me that magick seemed
A thing of fiction’s fantasy,
To hold no sway upon the world,
And least of all for such as me.

Yet still I yearned for stories dark,
And whether they stood real or nay,
I rode their thrills with feelings pure
As any felt upon a day.

And then, one day, a glimmer came,
Of power played upon my soul
By stories made of nought but words
That drew me to an author’s goal.

I felt each joy, each plight and pain,
As fully as ’twere mine to bear,
Lived new lives upon a page
That someone else had written there.

And then, as from a lighting flash,
I’d literary loins to gird,
Remember-ed from Sunday school —
Where All began, there was the Word!

I burned my nights from end to end,,
Read grammar’s grimoires dark and deep
And spelling learnt to cast my spells,
To make men laugh or haunt their sleep.

Two words transposed, a comma’s place,
These may make men laugh or baul,
Love or hate or kill or die,
Welcome to  the writer’s thrall.