San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

SEVEN DHAR The Magic Wand

I have a lucky pen.
It never leaves the house.
Silver, encrusted

With jagged

amethyst accents,

Hard to harm,
Harder to hold,
It's almost indestructible —
A stem that scores the hands,
Something to wring

When wandering
in weary lands,

A vajra — incisive as a diamond,
As quick as a bolt.
It sometimes writes alone.
Not good stories, I'm told.
What can a liquid-pencil know?
Fluid, refillable —
It’s no good with prose.
But if it should slice,
It sure can sparkle,
Cut into my hide and know

A rich reward of vermilion.

Glisten and glide, it rolls.
One day it’ll be jaded.
Then we can pen,

pal, and partner,
Maybe even pose
The finest final question,

In search of THE answer,

The ultimate query of all,
The ne plus ultra,
The sine qua non,
The unparalleled
We meant to pose all along,