Much of magic is sourced in the manipulation of attention. I actually believe in this way there is no difference between life and magic. Some of magic is the control of powers. In this way too there is no difference between life and magic.
This Is Not Right
I got distracted
just for the one spare moment
and when I turned back
it had all been changed.
I do not know how that all
happened, like a knife.
I don't know how to
get it back the way it was.
Why am I the same?
February 3, 2009 8:29 PM
******************************
Some difficulties arise in associating with a magician. Here is one.
Your New Magic
I looked at myself
in your mirror. Some kind of
weird bird looked at me.
This backs me up some,
like I come to your new house
only to discover
I have changed my shape
to do it or worse, you have
done it with your new
magic.
February 4, 2009 8:56 AM
Contraction
1 week ago
The uncanniness of arriving somewhere new but being the same. I don't think I like that. I think I'd much rather arrive changed. Every journey should grant a changing imprint, even if only in the slight of hand.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I firmly like to be in control of my transformations, or at least party to the shift. I shouldn't like to become something new by surprise or someone else's doing.
Unsettling me, Christopher, and usually I play to music's ear.
I get distracted
ReplyDeleteFor a fleeting moment
And turning back
Discover I am not the same.
How did this
happen, hey-presto!?
How do I find my way
back to who I was?
Why did I change?
~~~~~
I took liberties, sir, for which I hope I may be forgiven. I once wrote, long ago, about turning inward and losing time - sometimes weeks - before I found my way out again, bewildered...and this reminded me of that...struck a chord...and I felt like writing something with your words, juggling them, looking at them from another perspective, taste them with a different salt.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
hmmmm, maybe i didn't quite get it, but i do like experiences like that, where suddenly everything changes and i somehow am the same
ReplyDeleteor in the next poem the other way around. Very liberating in a way, to be a strange bird after all. :)
Love the way you write it.
Erin, me too. I long ago figured out that I am okay with change when it's me that's doing it, but really dislike change when I am not in control. Actually, to be painfully honest, I dislike responsibility too, and so really what I like are the changes that let me pretend I control so I can look like a person in control, but that really takes me for a ride. Heh.
ReplyDeleteKyddryn, you are welcome to do that poetizing here any time you choose. I like that.
Jozien, the Brits sometimes have called women birds but they don't mean shape changing. In the States some matrons are hens or crows, but that usually is meant sort of as a small insult. Older guys are sometime buzzards. I know there are more.
Since time is mysterious, you think you look away for a second but it may have been much longer in earth time. We all get distracted, darn it, we are only human.
ReplyDeleteThe second poem I cannot do. I cannot look into my own mirror, much less anyone else's. You are braver than I am.
Magic can be subtle and peculiar, the feel of which I think you've captured well. And another case of your two poems linked by a comma that makes a meaningful title. :)
ReplyDeleteI think the only sure thing is that things will change. Of course, there's a comfort in sameness, but change certainly keeps you on your toes! New magic - that's a nice way to think of it. I like this, Christopher.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erin, we are constantly changing. Like you said, like magic, one minute things seem one way and a glance away and back will reveal something new. Life, is a mystery!
ReplyDelete;D
Sometimes several times a day even....this is so true and happens so often that, mostly, I don't even fight it anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt even gets hilarious....
sigh
xxx
the magic of the human aging process....
ReplyDeleteBoth poems really spoke to me, Christopher, but especially 'This Is Not Right,' which captured so well a familiar sensation.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why different people have such different reactions to change ~ it terrifies some, unsettles others and is often simply accepted by still others. I'd like to consider myself in that last category, but sometimes change catches me by surprise and that's when I really feel 'this is not right.'
Good writing!