Abracadabra (Original title - I am a Deer)

[Magpie]

2nd Edit (TtL, Chris)
I am a deer.
If you want to see cows and horses
go to a field, they will greet you.
I however, will vanish when you blink;
I practise magic.
You are privileged to witness it.

I am a deer.
I command acres
of glorious Highland wilderness,
though sometimes at night I prefer tarmac.
I seem to appear out of thin air;
I practise magic.
Abracadabra.

1st Edit (TTL)
I am a deer.
If you want to see cows and horses
go to a field, they will greet you.
I however, will vanish when you blink.
Silently, gracefully,
I practise magic.
You are privileged to witness it.

I am a deer.
I command acres
of glorious Highland wilderness,
though sometimes at night I prefer tarmac.
I seem to appear out of thin air;
I practise magic.
Neither of us will survive.

Original
I am a deer.
If you want to see cows and horses
go to a field, they will greet you.
I however, will vanish when you blink.
Silently, gracefully,
I practice magic.
You are privileged to witness it.

I am a deer.
I command acres
of glorious Highland wilderness,
though sometimes at night I prefer tarmac.
I seem to appear out of thin air,
I practice magic.
Neither of us will survive.

[Tiger the Lion]

I am a deer.
If you want to see cows and horses
go to a field, they will greet you.
I however, will vanish when you blink.
Silently, gracefully,
I practice magic.
You are privileged to witness it.

I am a deer.
I command acres
of glorious Highland wilderness,
though sometimes at night I prefer tarmac.
I seem to appear out of thin air,
I practice magic.
Neither of us will survive.

Hey Mark. I really love this one. Simple with a twist. Two small things...
I think it is "practise" in this usage. 
And you might also consider a semicolon after "thin air". 
Fun read.
Paul

[Magpie]

Thanks Paul, you're totally right about the spelling of 'practise', I don't know how I haven't noticed that before. I will consider a semicolon in the place that you suggest, however in my time on this site I have come to realise that I have no idea how to use a semicolon properly. I got to the point where I thought it was safer to just never use them. I'll need to do some research and see if I can crack it. If anyone has any brief simple rule about how semicolons should be used correctly it would be a great help.

Cheers for reading and your suggestions, I will edit accordingly,

Mark

[ellajam]

This is from a site Erthona once posted a link to.

writingforward.com

Here’s the lowdown on semicolon use:

The semicolon establishes a close connection between two sentences or independent clauses.

A semicolon can replace conjunctions and or but.

Semicolons indicate a stronger separation than a comma but weaker than a period.

A semicolon is often used in lists to separate items when some of the items in listed subsets require commas.

The semicolon is always followed by a lower case letter with proper nouns being the only exception (proper nouns are always capitalized).

Semicolon use can be applied to separate two clauses or sentences that are saying the same thing in different ways.

As with other punctuation marks that denote the end of a clause or sentence, there is no space between the semicolon and the word preceding it; there should be a single space after the semicolon.

[milo]

and from this site:

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-9691....=semicolon

[Magpie]

Ella and Milo thanks for the links and info this is really useful.

Cheers,

Mark

[ChristopherSea]

Mark, I dug the edit, but I have a couple further suggestions. First, I would drop the 'Silently, gracefully.'  I believe that '...vanish when you blink.'
followed by 'I practise magic' is too perfect to separate. Also, your last line could do better at connecting to the second 'I practise magic.' with something along the lines of "Neither of us will reappear.' Use the play between the magician's famous trick and death. Cheers/Chris

[Magpie]

Thanks Chris excellent suggestions.

I've made an edit and left out 'Silently, gracefully' and that works a lot better cheers for that one. I agree with you also about the last line needing to connect with the second 'I practise magic' and I've went for something that I suppose could be a risk and that is 'Abracadabra'. I know it's a cliche but I was thinking that because it's not used in a normal way and together with the twist that it may avoid being seen as a cliche. What do you think? I also feel as though it adds a slight sinister feel to and I kind of like that, but if it is too evidently cliche I'll have to rethink it.

Thanks for reading and the suggestions,

Mark

[ChristopherSea]

Yes, it's a cliche, but a properly placed one can still be effective in my opinion. Here, it's both sinister and sarcastic, as in 'Abracadabra, you're dead.' It could be used as a title even.

[Magpie]

Thanks Chris, I guess I must be learning.

You're right about having it as the title as well, I wasn't really happy with 'I am a Deer' as the title, it was a bit lazy on my part. 'Abracadabra' works as the title even though it's the last line because the when used the second time it has a totally different meaning as to when you read it in the title.
Thanks for your input, I'm really surprised and pleased with the outcome.

Much appreciated,

Mark