The room, low in lighting, spare in furnishing, enclosed by walls, floor and ceiling painted in cosmic fantasies, existing as a box within boxes, surrounded on all dimensions. Not so much a door as a semi-permeable veil that could, with an intense act of will, be penetrated to take in vast kaleidoscopic tellings of tales, all sides and all seasons envisioned in an eternal play.
…
Officer Mirsky had a powerful hate on for them witchy folk. “Always messing with my head, telling me to do things. And not nice things, either.” They weren’t telling him to find himself some sweet young thang, fuck her every which way to exhaustion, cutting her throat when he was ready, then chopping her body into handy sized bits for easy disposal. They never told him how to get away with such wholesome activity neither. They just wanted him to be happy to serve their fine selves. “Grateful I should be that they keep commerce running ever so smoothly, plenty of profit for all so long as well all know our place. Think they have a right to act all superior to normal folks who leave each other’s minds alone and get by on codes of unmentioned rules that everybody knows. Keep yourself to yourself, fit in, join the crowd and take what you can when no one of any importance is looking. If you’re really swift, become someone of importance by stealing big and making the right moves. This forced cooperation is for migrating birds, not human beings, each man king of all he can compile.
Don’t look at me like that, you witchy folk, all superior, knowing, like I don’t count ’cause you’re better than me. You’re not better than anybody. You’re certainly not better than everybody. We can democratically eject you. Once we get you out of our minds.”
Tune in for more; tune out for internal reflection.
*
*
*
*
Today’s Jam
*
*
Marionette danse
Sad canyon howls
echo deadly sweet sister.
Chants ricochet with
infusion of stardust.
Spindly Purple Witch of wood
caresses soldier boy, cackles bony sorcery.
He grows in appreciation.
M’Dame, M’ Lady, blessing strokes,
charade of bonny play.
Look! Old potty rabbit hops
center stage.
Wary wilder symphony
choreo-fleet, chiaroscuro.
Gentle Pierrot laughter shrieks,
strings a-jerk, akimbo.
Thrush in plume ready to bloom.
Just before the denouement, the riddle.
How brash the Moon.
How cast away the Star.
How close the moment,
performance to applause.
Childish phase unveiled,
balanced on the head
of a pose.
*
warm, resonant purr
catch my aha
my epiphany
my cultivated air of mystery
mist armors me
defense of camouflage
eye to beam
*
caught up in adore, in lust
give up the circus to follow me hormones
semiotic gestalt
a holographic assault
we humans forget
’tis our nature to founder,
open wide to where we once belonged
*
Bertolt and Muriel glance kiss aye to eyes.
Wood palm arabesques.
Zoom astray into caricature throng.
The very paean of life, a Holiday song.
Metaliminal passion play diversive actions.
Foggy notions, risqué crystal robes.
Limbic video bliss.
*
love for your supper
love so you won’t be a whore
burn through sanity; clearly witness
mutually assured derision
*
the antithesis of alien
ps and qs
pleasing cues
amusing pleasantries
*
*
*
*
Tick Tock
*
*
Another clock, another tower
sketched out in the sky.
Long-bearded sage bells epochal secrets
in cloud-talk as flocks wing by.
As clouds roll by in the wanton sky,
no matter, no mind, no derisive spirit,
no sense in these days of wicked ways,
of the wise
*
’round midnight
witches wander. Merry meet in
heathens’ woods.
“up to know god, I tell’s ya”
It’s all about how we arrange to appear.
Scraggly hobo, ascetic seer, abomination
(or a-bomb a nation).
Pitch a well-earned vacation
on points-of-view stocked in
mindbank. Mind blank?
Enjoy the ride.
Twin jugglers set on stage.
Nature and nurture combined
through tidal trails inside
— a seamless tryst with fate.
Hear eldritch tale, my star lit dear
of how we now have wandered here.
Now’s waiting; don’t be late.
*
*
*
*
Early autumn firelight
reminiscent of witch hunts, ghosts of calvary,
dire warnings and endless hide and strike
The game, the funhouse, turns deadly
Sanctuary calls, demanding sacrifice
The noble phoenix fed on frankenseed
can not rise
Skies descend, dark mirroring
Smell the woodsmoke, intoxicating, soft and sweet,
masks the taste of bitter bile, secret vomiting,
starving despite harvest’s gay array of treats
Faded, nearly blind, falling in and out of
shamanic fever, primeval native callings beyond sight,
ripple of tribal beat at the periphery
ecstatic vision dark/light/agony and brilliant breaks
starbright constellations
Traversing worlds
Twilight of Goddess Revelation
*
*
What twisted so maliciously your mind?
Your God — Created that greedy leaders may more easily prevail?
Is it guilty shame, seeded by consistent training insisting that you fail?
Lost to balance, whole possibilities, unable to be free or sane.
Eternal life is yours, we scream, while you destroy our birthright
in service to conjuror’s dream of denial.
*
but it’s just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start,
each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart
*
II.
*
Born other than imperial, torn into what we are told is real
without power to protect ourselves from venal brothers of the order
spreading hatred like any venereal disease.
We no longer need to meet you cowering on our knees.
Karma’s a hot potent bitch unschooled in mercy.
Witches reclaiming noble heritage, reframed herstories will prevail.
Though born, forced to service, in our master’s jail,
lost and lonely midst the masses, masked to fit expected forms.
*
but it’s just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start,
each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart
*
III.
*
Listen, little one, watching every moment for our chance,
we will break free to adventurers’ romance; dance away the chill of
foreign hills enrapt in leaves and grass. Hiding in primeval castles,
tightly aligned to a bright inner sphere, holding to hope of life to hold dear.
Learning to fly, ride to some unknown side, escape from the herd hate stone,
can’t be as hard as learning to stand alone.
*
but it’s just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start
each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart
*
*
*
*
We are called.
We answer.
That’s all a witch is.
Self-complete conduit,
self-defined.
No god’s bitch.
Devotion quid pro quo.
Service to learn – unbound
when we know, to go forward.
Self-Creators playing chords of destiny,
witch’s dance.
Pandora’s Cauldron
Encapsulate.
Bubbling up collected molecules
manifest fairy stories of creaky old goblins,
sorrowful witches, ancient deities
with too much to prove.
Effervescence, coated in
bitterroot for resilience.
Caught, an instant in amber,
latent pain layered in ages.
Slow, malignant, poison. Corrosive
drip through epithelial walls.
They call, taunt yet again.
I pretend not to hear, not to feel,
not to want to believe.
They call with raucous derision:
“Dear Hope,” they spittle,
“a flying thing, a winged chariot
pulled by clever orphaned doves.”
Thirst pulls me to their malevolent well.
I dare not drink. It will never kill me,
but torture, weak and broken.
I will never grow whole enough to
venture forward, to seek vigorous remedy.
Jagged mirrors cut skin, vital arteries.
Viscous blood held captive loses oxygen.
Blue and cold wintry depths.
Interred, hidden within this tumbling metal crucible.
Disturbed curses’ icy stinging deny the gift
of sleep.
Dark Magick
In the still of the dark of the moon
after the revelrie has passed on
deep, deep into the frozen fields of dreamless sleep
we, walking, silently, along the riverbed
breathing in ancient ash of woodsmoke
breathing out long-growing tears
to weave ghostly tentacles
along our path
take each others’ hand up to our heart
to pray, to kiss, to whisper
thus casting an eternal spell.
Meta-Science
Magical thinking
creating room for the power
of possibilities,
nuances, shades between,
molecular space
unexplored, unexploited.
The magic of synaptic awareness,
unlikelihood of consciousness,
Dreams, Visions, Reveries,
ineffable emotions
too dear to deny.
See, smell, taste
chemical reactions,
hear reverberating air.
There is no limit
but that I impose.
Strict chanting and ritual
keeps reality in line.
Raising Hell
Not true sacred magick.
Cynical sleight of hand
turns sweat and dreams,
lives of desperation
into neat bundles of greed.
But the pain burns through
not content to be twisted
into fast cars, high-stakes games,
brilliant careers in glad-handing.
It wants its payment.
False wizards of arrogant charm
play with chthonic force
more angry and deadly than flame.
Unaware of the cursed seeds
they cultivate,
now strangling life force from below.
Unsupervised children
playing with matches,
grizzled and gray as some may appear,
laughing at the bright spectacle
as homes burn.
The balance is always paid.
Magick is never free.
Will the lesson ever sink in?
Be careful what you conjure.
Ever After
*
*
Pan, old ugly friend
screams “You’re alive!”
Respond?
Retreat into familiar fairytales.
Witch Waif Warrior
Who emerges from the
cold dark water?
Disgusting wounds ignite
in the presence
*
Making every effort to appear
normal, sincere
(not veering on the edge)
(not dangerously explosive)
“Don’t mistake my weakness
for that loathsome foe
we daren’t name.”
Shame
overwhelming homeostasis.
Crawling, mewling on unswept floor.
Unable to gain equilibrium enough
to walk away.
Lock the door; hide behind barricades
made from
blood guts gore
human remains after they have
vermified, defiled.
My core cries
“One sweet kiss. A taste,
sense memory
stasis of desire.”
I leap whole
into eternal fire
beyond pain; burning sensation.
Pan smiles.
Beltane
Brazen witches fly, legends say,
dark Moon nights; arise, stealthy, silent
in their joyous revelry.
Bonded to Earth’s creation;
learning at mother’s breast
to manage life’s gifts and lessons.
Historic Man may proclaim, may murder
for fealty, to swear allegiance to
their hunt’s command.
They may elevate their One True King
to kneel and obey. They may employ
counting measure, ceremony and sacrifice,
taunting and torture or other trials
thus finding for each loyal swan a pond
to plunder, to parade in royal colour,
their place of pride.
Cruelty descends, more master than tactic;
it is the enemy of joy, of flavour,
bonding, works of love and honour.
Yet men, on real ground, work companions
to soil and rain, engineers trained to each
moment’s urgencies, philosophers of stone and mud,
reason and toil, persist. Their sinew and bone feed
the ages, build clay and richness on which
wealth relies.
Wisdom knows the sweat of practiced movement,
flexible to unexpected obstacles, able to modulate
quiet or loud as the crowd ebbs
or grows in credulity.
Where wisdom seeps through, counters
prevailing poisons, invigorates blood to nourish
minds and hearts, look there for blessing.
Arise, lovers! Bring forth better days,
ours to play in open revelry,
neighbors enjoying shared labors and our fruit.
Accept truth of magic; imagine life into this world.
Enchanted Garden
*
*
Homespun among
cozy field of roses.
Gated inside lush technicolor paradise.
Who would think once?
None would think twice.
Overpowered by rose scent,
velvet elegance, dazzling sensation.
Safe from dangers outside
this cinematic fence.
Who would knock once?
Who would knock thrice,
open the spell?
Who would give wishes a
wishing well, instill water with
witch’s wiles under potent roses?
Remember the curse.
Remember fairies bedecked in roses.
Remember you begged for a chance,
a second of sight.
Then begged to forever forget.
Stoic soldiers,
wistful roses of forgetfulness.
*
*
*
*
bird songs
*
*
I’ve been through this before,
pre-dawn morning
birds chirping, infiltrate my airspace,
awake when I should be long oblivious.
Good girls dream of princes,
subliminal desire to be slain
by love piercing enshrined virtue.
Gold hued birds in crystal cages
incant witchery for food —
hair of newt, spleen of worm; smoky
syllables induce pleasure.
Warm hearts beat together, no bond
of pact
or sentiment.
Lore is explicit; no crime to commit.
Vexed, inconvenienced by the regular
comings and goings of
the natural world.
Birds of a feather exchange their
social pleasantries.
It is I who should be sleeping,
conjuring brave new worlds;
ambient noise translated into
neoteric lullabies.
Singing to the Chorus
Getting warmer
Days numbered by travelers,
barbarians rushing in to conquest.
Taken in to longer view,
tumbling through the ages ~
Sundials exchanged for
binary spiders click-clocking,
tabulating the enormous sum,
only a summary of things gone before.
The reality of childhood, striving creatures,
pulling upward from bootie straps,
scrambling for a place in the pile
near enough to the top
that derision, pouring downward,
obliges them to only the fiercest of Lords.
Merrily spending the pocket-change of
dollars flowing upward.
Old games reign under the big top.
Solemn children in the circus stands
betting on which clown will fall.
They speak to you of evil, o’ my children,
Church Fathers swearing to the sky;
cold, withered Mums hoping for a crust
of noblesse oblige.
Evil is the providence of Satan,
cloven-hoofed, dancing in the circle’s
centerpoint, playing the pipes of Pan.
Oceans made of blood boil
Leading edges swelter, crisping into
conflagration.
In Summerland children play, dancing to
rollicking pipery.
Naked under beaming Moon and starlight,
they act out tales well-loved by All.
It’s Magic
Magic is not part of me.
It is every molecule,
holding together by some higher intent.
Tracking the winding trail
stars and moonlight exhale potency
spells, incantations, hidden meanings
flickering in malleable divinity.
Living Earth, patiently moving through rotations,
inhales stardust.
In darkness, creation recycles.
Magic is all.
