The Sorcerer's Bequest
Constance Cooper


When fiery tongues lick these old books, what secrets they will taste--
A hot melange of conjury, with thaumaturgy laced!
Subtle scrolls well-seasoned with a sortilegious savor,
Compendia encrusted with a blackened-magic flavor!

The curries of the Orient, my friends, are blandest pabulum
Contrasted to the gusto of my tamest incunabulum.
A malign marinade has permeated every folio;
My codices of curses are all pungent with malvolio.

The relish of forbidden lore for me has never soured--
It's fitting that my spells should be so scorchingly devoured.
When I am gone, no mage will loot the treasure on my shelves;
I'm leaving it to you, my dears, to share amongst yourselves.

Beyond my death, there's one thing that I know you've always craved:
To eat the enchiridia by which you were enslaved.
Ah! Nothing's like the hunger of a demon as it dines
The crackle of consumption, and the sound of snapping spines!

This feast will make your faces glow and ember eyes blaze bright
Your breath will smoke with eagerness and searing appetite.
Alas, I won't be there to see your joyful burning looks,
When first your fiery tongues taste my delectable old books!

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Marcie Lynn Tentchoff is an Aurora Award winning poet/writer from the west coast of Canada, where she lives in the middle of a rainforest with her family and various animals, both invited and not. Between the raccoons in the roof, the deer in the garden, the chocolate-stealing skunks, and the occasional visiting cougar, she's written poems and stories that have appeared in such magazines as On Spec, Weird Tales, Dreams and Nightmares, and Illumen, as well as in anthologies and online publications.

She says: The first poem that the word "cherries" causes to spring to mind is probably "Goblin Market," with "The Stolen Child" by Yeats following after. After that my mind springs swiftly to Poe, but I'm really not sure why. Back to Table of Contents.