Tag Archives: magic

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Sad Magician

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What does a magician know of magic when it’s all a lie from beginning to end?

Does he think he does real magic? Or is he caught up in his own illusion, with his cape, top hat, and sleek black slacks,  giving the audience a dark conspiratorial grin, as if he had access to some great mystery others do not?

Perhaps he is. Caught up.

Maybe he simply enjoys the wide eyes, the admiration, the controlling of outcomes, the smiles, the laughter, the sense of being one with the wonder in someone else’s eyes that are not his own.

For when he goes home, and removes his costume, he is alone.

There are no lights following him across the stage to his next trick, no applause, no adoration, no wonder, for him to hold onto.

Just him.

And that sadly that has never been enough for him or anyone for too long.

So he takes a bow
knowing he will eventually return.

And that has to be enough.

For the show must always go on, and he has a part to play for as long as the magic that still lingers within him stays.

By Philip Wardlow June, 2025

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

They Call Her Autumn

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 They call her autumn
because she
wraps around you
like a flurry of golden leaves
in a whirlwind
You WILL fall for her
simply because her
violent nature demands it,
commands it.
A Tempest,
a wild child
which rides lightening
and flashes a grin that
fucking drives you
to your knees
Just try and stand against
the forces within her
and you will be taught
a cruel lesson about
natures full fury
once unleashed.
But autumn she is a beauty
a conundrum
a magical journey
if you be so bold to take it
Be you so bold?
To capture the surreal
and hold it close
Could you ever be so lucky?


By Philip Andrew Wardlow
Inquiring Minds, Poetry/Quote of the Week

Taking the Time

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That first date we road a Merry-Go-Round together because I wanted you to experience the magic of the world that I knew you sought inside yourself that had been so long denied.

I wanted to show you how cherished by me you already were and would be for all our days to come. I couldn’t tell you that just yet, but I felt all the feels for you and wanted to give you my world and share every adventure with you for the rest of our days together.

Five years on that feeling has not changed a bit.

Yet, I have let time steal many a precious moment from you and I. Many a magical moment that could have been, but never were.

Love is not enough, but being present with you, feeling you, knowing you, listening to you, connecting with you in all the ways that matter most like in the beginning is the magic you sought and need.

I let the days drain that magic away. I should have held on tighter, fought every day with my last breath for you in sustaining that enchantment.

Close to you is where I wish to be. Always

I am sorry I let time take that closeness.

It’s time to take it back.

By Philip Wardlow August 2nd , 2023

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Everything and the Nothing

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If I were to suddenly evanesce, to flee, to disappear, 
to run fast and headlong into the bright nothingness of the night,
what ruin would find my absence?

Would their be sick wailing siren calls of the once was
reaching my soul's ears 
through the
nothingness of me?

I hope not. Not Wailing over me.... a tear or two will do, followed
quickly with a laugh.

But I do not wish to know the old world anymore after I am gone.
Why dry up and go, if to only to still receive drops of the
once-was in a teacup, to simply drink bitterly
of.

Remember me or don't, for I will not care as
I lie afloat amongst the stars, dreaming of new
things, new worlds, new excursions to catapult
a frayed mind to healing, to repair a ripped soul
torn asunder.

Cry and smile in the same instant is
all I ask of you if you do remember, for I
liked to be missed in both respects.
So I guess I do care a little at that.

I believe in everything and nothing in this Universe and I
would miss both aspects were I to finally fall into the
abyss of what-not and possibly nothings.
 
I enjoy the Everything of  people healing of the
cuts they give themselves and get,  and its wondrously satisfying
to partake in living in that magical epiphany 
of them 
I do not enjoy the Nothing, in the sense that 
they will continually scratch the scabs to bleeding
every so often and there is no mop big enough, 
nor pail of water full enough 
to ever fully clean it all up.

I am tired of slipping in their blood.
The Everything of them is wonderful
buy sometimes the Nothing of them
becomes all too much. 


By Philip Wardlow Dec, 2021










 





 

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
October

		

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When you are a child you are in touch with the old magic that rides the winds
in the month of October.

It's palpable, tangible, substantial in the air at night when the moon is 
full and darkness descends and the cool winds blow through the almost naked
trees clinging.

Often, you laid in your bed, blanket held high, tight just below your eyes, as you 
stared at the shadows dancing, tapping just outside your window creeping,
because every sound, every movement, outside or in, was more
ominous in the enchanting halls that you called the days of October.

From one to thirty-one you knew you marched certainly to your gleeful deaths 
under the blue shadowed sky cast by a vengeful moon that had nothing better to do than to spy on you as you tried to sleep a fitful sleep.  

As a child, you loved to fear, but feared to know the full extent that your fear could roam
and go, but roam you did. And Fear always got the best of you, wide eyes and all as
you ran to your Ma or Pa.

Secretly though, even consoled, you loved the tenseness of that feeling,
that soul reeling fright, the goosebumps crawling across your skin at night.

You relished that magic, that what-if of awfulness lurking.

Life was alive in you. Breathing  like a bellowed fired, and wanting to escape from that feeling was never a question truly ever posed
in the slightest. 


by Philip Wardlow ~ October 1st of 2021


	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
Mystical You

		

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She discovered me in the darkness, coming to me wrapped in alluring music and
undulating waves of red and blue light, she burst into me
with a beckoning and a proposal to envelope her in
all that was and all that ever would be beautiful
in the universe.
So I jumped,
Fears falling away,
Her soul enthralling
enchanting, calling
to my own that I had
forgotten, and I fell
and fell and fell.





She’s my mystic, my medium,
my witch, and my fortunes
come home to rest
in arms wide open





She’s my princess,my queen
The Milady of my heart





She’s all the magic I’ve ever wanted.





By Philip Wardlow March 2021

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
May the Journey you Take

		

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Let us all embark on an adventure in our lives,

no matter the fog that shrouds our path,

tread with eyes seeing, stalwart in nature,

as we find the lightness in

every rich discovery that

we may be lucky enough to unearth

on our grand journey

in the magical realm

called you.


by Philip Wardlow June, 2020

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
Magical Maria

		

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Do you know of magical Maria?

Some say she be

a sassy sprite with a  bit of a bite,

or perhaps a  nymph

wearing nary a stitch

frolicking and flitting

through the dark forest night,

just as nude as the moon

and as bright.


I was once told she be

a naughty gremlin who

causes all kind of ruckus

getting into much trouble

with no shame or blame

to share,

a real ne’er do well at times

mucking up more mystical

mischief than I ever did see

of anyone that could ever

be.


Ah, but the keenest of tales

say she is a fairy of much

renowned

A beauty of the rarest rare

with eyes of emeralds and

lips of the sweetest cherries

and red, red flowing hair

wrapping around a body soft

as a new born babe.


She rides a Unicorn some say

and if you are lucky enough

on a given day

you perchance may

just catch a glance

of the prettiest creature that

even rivaled the stars to

distraction.


If you be so lucky enough.


by Philip Wardlow 2018

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
Something Wiccan this way comes

		

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“Do as ye will as long as ye harm none”

Maid, Mother, and Crone

all intone.

Walk these woodlands,

inside and out

letting your spirit

thrive from bone, to eye, to mind.

This natural world is your playground

so play proud, head tall, breasts out

Be divine and in turn know divinity.

The hunt is on in fair woods,

Strength is foraged first, followed by Beauty unmarred,

then comes Power in the will coupled with Compassion,

Mirth as you dance the fire, Reverence as the trance

takes you in Honor of all that is known and unknown

as you finally kneel in Humility

to your Goddess

conveying nature’s kiss upon

each of your sisters

to seal the spell bringing

to bear the Cosmos

within the inscribed circle

upon this Earth you now

dwell.


by Philip Wardlow 2018




 


 


 

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work
		

			
Dark Days Perhaps Fade Away – Poem#1 through 3 Collection

		

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Poem #1


Snuggled down deep with the dark at our backs, intense heated light upon our cheeks while tales are told of places and times either long gone or yet to be of the bold; fighting, with either triumph or death to unfold in stories so unreal as to be real for truth lies in the darkest of tales, ever mercurial and seeking a willful ear…


 


 




Poem #2


Lost little monster of the dark auburn woods . She is hidden, ever hidden deep within. A hideous beauty.  Sweet dark girl with eyes that burn with a magic earned in dark fires held sway by an intense and longing angry pain. More fearsome than the darkness that seeks her or so she thinks. Beguiling and devilish yet unknowingly selfless. Just you wait, you’ll see. when the blackness truly and finally comes to knock upon all our doors and hers, she’ll be the only one strong to stand in its way.   To right the many wrongs of a life stripped away.




Poem #3


If there be real magic, I shall discover it in my travels upon my boat, with its sails made of flicks of flame billowing and full, pulling me across a crystal ocean through the night and day of this worn out world.  Alone I shall go, but you may accompany me  if you so wish. But please know dear companion, I shall seek that magic even if I should fall off the edge of it all to find a new more inviting place…


 


 


All poems by Philip Wardlow 2017