Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard

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Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard

Whoever gave me magic told me lies.
This laying on of hands works otherwise.

Every whirling part of me is warm
Yet I come down on here like a snowstorm.

I speak the word that might unlock the rock
But hard upon that word my two jaws lock.

My sleeping power gathering to leap
Leaps tooth and claw into a deeper sleep.

The love potion I slyly pour for one
Is by another seized and swallowed down.

I learned the speech of birds; now every tree
Screams out to me a baleful prophecy.

Into a statue's lungs I breathe my own.
Sighing, it fills me with this sigh of stone.

My answer to the riddle bears with it
A greater riddle and more desperate.

All all runs wild, all wild and uncontrolled.
A toad hops from my mouth instead of gold.

Copyright ©Naomi Replansky