Withcraft Poem by gershon hepner

No witchcraft, potion, and no magic wand
is needed by a woman who with words
can make a man of whom she once was fond
turn without any trouble into turds.
By playing a performance of herself,
she first enchants, then makes him disappear,
and puts him like a used book on the shelf
to make sure he won’t spoil the atmosphere.

Joyce Carol Oates reviews Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence (“In the Emperor’s Dream House, ” NYR, June 12,2008) :

A graceful fool…or perhaps no fool at all. Perhaps someone to be reckoned with. If he had a fault, it was that of ostentation, of seeking to be notonly himself, but a performance of himself… (The Enchantress of Florence)

In the book, the Emperor Akbar fantasizes about Queen Elizabeth I, “the faraway redhead queen, ” declaring in letters to her “his megalomania fantasies of creating a joint global empire that united eastern and western hemispheres.”…When the emperor learned the truth he understood all over again how daring a sorcerer he had encountered….By then, however, the knowledge was of no use to him, except to remind him of what he should never have forgotten, that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough.


6/19/08