 Page from Grimoires Illuminees, by Pierre Richard (France) before 1879 Alarum When I reread my book of spells, it hearkens straight to gods themselves who sit up and take careful note and seek to whom I fast devote this cunning magic’s potent brew and why this sudden cry and hue when sleeping secrets lie for ages undisturbed by fits and rages… Why this one enchanted nostrum, bound to make one’s courage blossom un-affrighted, wrath untethered, world warrior from humble shepherd turned capable of winning battle ‘gainst spirits, demons, raging cattle, fast with sword, and spry of foot, changing worlds where drops are put whether ‘neath a tongue or poured in ear this potion births a hellish fear. It rocks the planet pole to pole. And elder toverdoks will know because the past is prologue for what new wars wage, what fires roar, what madness shall now come to reign, what lessons shan’t be learned again. Truth be known, the draught’s for me, unhappy with what’s come to be, so tired of this weary strife of petty toils that entail a life. I seek destruction as solution: a nihilistic revolution. To make disparate fields all level the best angel becomes a devil. Gary Glauber Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He has five collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit), A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing) and most recently, Inside Outrage (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), a Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur finalist. He also has two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. ** Asylum Even here behind locked doors and high walls meant to keep the world safe from my wild contagion, I can see the angels burning like witchfire in the winter-bare trees. Even in my desperate confinement, they come in choirs, in regiments, tongues flashing sharp as swords, brighter than the sun. They sing the numbers of my bones, promise power and salvation, escape from this shadow world where I crouch, vexed by grinning demons rising thick as smoke, tormenting me with jabs and pinches, nightmares chasing me down at every turn, reciting my sins so loud it drowns the angels song, pushing me into the last dark corner of these narrow halls, where I have no remedy, where no one listens, and I can only write it all down, glory and terror in the pages of my own magical bible, a Grimoire of prayers and spells in black ink figures pinned down and crowding the arcane marks of my litanies. psalms and parables powerful enough to make the devils blush and buy me some small respite from their mad unending torments. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, the Blue Heron Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible will come out from Kelsay early next year. ** Saint du Paradi Puritans and pandits, Parisian nudists strip, rid satin. Unpaid audits strain. Drains spirit in drips. Spirit spits rants. Asp in an urn, Isis snips – disrupts. Standup, upstand, What does it mean to be a man? Ruby Siegel Ruby Siegel is a second-year student at a women's college in Columbia, Missouri. She is a member of the Stephens College chapter of the Sigma Tau Delta English honour society and the staff of the acclaimed student-run Harbinger Literary Journal. ** Pistol Cocked Now you see it, now you don’t, odd pages, scattered leaves, The Fall, a paradisal loss before, cast spell-book here not lexicon, or primer, abecedary, but abracadabra as cabal. Claiming benefit of age this syncretistic patchwork quilt, symbols - sign of codes at work, for esoteric, in the know; tried toxic mix in undertow, a gnostic few tossed in the hue and cry for burning, which at stake but jottings, crowded, more provoked. See glyphs join graphs in saturate, asylum more in raw art script than institute for lunatics. But manic, more researchers’ work; fervour disputes delirium, psalmody, glossolalia, a solipsistic zealotry, cross rooster perched with pistol cocked. Vicissitudes of Lorraine space, where Magic, Revolution, Church, and chanted prayers not understood, by ritornelles, homophonies, compete to claim the paranoid, a wettersegen in the storm. Illuminated manuscript which it both is, but ’ting is not. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** The Magic Did Not Bring Her Back My Leah is gone. The magic did not bring her back. I desperately explored the passages, holding open the grimoire next to her while repeating the supplications. I incanted the liturgy as grief welled up inside. I sang the exhortations banishing the demonic from its imprisonment of her soul. I followed each instruction closely, and I wept. I fought in fury to revive her pallid form and there was no response. I spread the ochre as the text instructed, applied the resinous balsam in my anguish, the ancient balm from the terebinth of Gilead, tendered me through the merchants of Tyre. She lay still. I struggled in agony to command the forces of nature that had wrenched her from my life. Thomas of Chobham tells us that these forces are constrained threefold by sacred words, by healing herbs, and by magic stones. But I tried these, all, and Leah did not rise. The Apostle Mark tells us that invocation by touch is key: They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. I bathed her lifeless body in anointing oil. I cleansed her with rosewater to drive out the smell of death. I touched her pale lips with mine but found no warmth there, and Leah remained unmoved. Finally, and with effort, they pried her from my arms and wrapped her in the winding sheet of death. There was no entry through it for her soul’s return. They lowered her in reverence, into the pit of darkness, and my faith followed. I now tend Leah’s grave, scattering the roses she adored, showering the fragrances she prized. I speak to her of what we had. My tears keep moist the soil above her, and my heart laments its solitary beat, no longer harmonized with hers. Perhaps one day I will recover--but know this well: the grimoire failed. The magic did not bring her back. Ron Wetherington Ron Wetherington is a retired anthropologist living in Dallas, Texas. He has a published novel, non-fiction in The Dillydoun Review, Literary Yard, and The Ekphrastic Review, and short fiction in Words & Whispers, Adanna, and in Flash Fiction Magazine. ** mercy, blue angels don't cross that hexed picket line! the mighty blue angels are on strike doctors guard the entry to hospitals steadfast burns their righteous anger scalpels are swapped with placards appointment notes switched for banners gowned in-patients wait behind them ghostly smiles play on their wan faces and in the distant ivory towers of Whitehall what Grimoire holds the key to the deadlock? Emily Tee [Author's Note: Written on 19 September 2023, the first day ever that both hospital consultants and junior doctors held a simultaneous strike over pay in England, withdrawing their services except for emergency cases and basic ward cover. Further days of action are planned. Whitehall represents the seat of British Government.] Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in Willows Wept Review, The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich, with more work forthcoming elsewhere. She lives in the UK. ** The White Owl Tell the one about the owl as a choir of angels, side by side, their wings as white as any snow squall. I can trace the alphabetical harbingers, I’ll know the songs as if born to the symbols, as if Jesus Christ could raise me from where I fell, over and over. No saint, I could never carry a tune, yet when the pages opened, caught me cruising interstate 84/285, trying to make home before the sun set and the snow began to fly. Hear me singing all the words, pretending I’m Grace Slick, or Annie Lennox, “Sweet Dreams,” calling on the saints, or believing I can become one on this road, when God creates the tunnel of snow, flakes that travel like stars, as if I am hurling myself through the Milky Way, headed for heaven, chanting because all the symbols have become magic in my mouth, the dream one of not dying, my world a loud chorus of hallelujahs, as the curve of invocations rides on the wings of angels, and the white owl, no lie, flew wide winged, and led me home. Michelle Holland Michelle Holland lives and writes in Chimayo, NM. She is currently the Poet-in-Residence for the Santa Fe Girls School and the treasurer of NM Literary Arts. Her poems can be found in literary journals, in print and on the internet, as well as in a few anthologies. She has two book-length collections of poetry, Chaos Theory, Sin Fronteras Press, and The Sound a Raven Makes, Tres Chicas Press. ** Beyond the Sea The aether outstretches like parted hands of Christ, A hole in the sky of which divinity spliced. Fever world spin upon the axis degree, A withered white sun rises for a chosen three. Consider a pledge. Beyond the sea. Across cerulean desert and amidst salted air, The thaumaturge emerges bearing earthenware. Magic smoke rises obscuring turbid, lurking clouds, From incense censer’s foretelling demises and shrouds. Miracleworker born of shared red flesh, Sought forth lapis stone in place of success. Such visceral transmutations of cabalistic rites, Indulge runes, incantations and forbidden sights. The ladder to abyss reaches not the welkin, Ancient citadel fell upon knell whims. Thamuaturge stranger beckons the foolish and fair, Voici un vrai dieu remplaçant, mon frère. Malachite daggers, a comet’s bleak storm, Uphold your savior, mimic cruciform. Take the magician’s hand and be led afar, Beyond insect-bitten roots and moral abbatoirs. Angels plagued sick without Lord to call to, The theurgist who tricks and surrogate consume. Partake in discordant charms, partake a profane potion, Know now we are the sprogs of a since forgotten ocean. The husk of the Father calls forth the obscene, And the insidious Rex begs: Consider all a pledge to the ultramarine. Gehenna endured. Beyond the sea. Baylee Bleu ** Angels Descend The rising sun in holy sin, The lord has come. Bodies of ice, Blood undone, Angels call The time has come. In feathered skies, With silvered lies, Angels call Come with me, Children now– Your sun has set. Julie Wiley Julie Wiley is a senior English Major attending Stephens College. ** Evangelist It’s the Sunday morning in which Pierre Richard, a crazy and depressed French farmer (with whom, nevertheless, God likes to talk), begins to write. What did God, or Dieu, say to the French peasant? Did He talk to him about the upcoming Twentieth Century, and about a second millennium? That is the century of Arcadia, when intellectuals loved to tell people that life in the countryside is blissful idleness. Pierre Richard takes his grimoire, goes out on the balcony, and looks out over the countryside. He asks and, therefore, receives. The whole countryside is full of saints and angels like clouds of mosquitoes, a fleet of mosquitoes trying to land. The pages come towards him from the distance, and take the place of his eyes. He writes what he sees, but he doesn't see what he writes. Is he, Pierre Richard, the fifth evangelist? The evangelist Pierre Richard writes seriously, with a sense of duty about his encounter with glorious aliens. After he is returned to his Lorraine, he can’t stop drawing and thinking about their blue auras, not just halos – all the blue in the world. They have eyes so blue, that the blue is all around them. Like flames, as if they were surrounded by sky. Pierre Richard would like to join his hands in prayer, but he cups them and drinks everything. Angelo 'NGE' Colella Angelo 'NGE' Colella lives in Italy, where he writes poetry and prose in Italian and English, makes analog collages, asemic writings and DADA objects. ** Grimoire- Habi mas a denli fantien Great dark spirit hear my plea, bring forth my Request for power, most strong, call on all Immortal souls, I beseech thee, oh Master of blackest night, oh dark one, supreme Overlord – call on me your most loyal servant I do your bidding without pause, I draw upon your Reverence to slay those who oppose your greatness, Enemies of the night, unite in the quest! Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson writes poetry from prompts such as memories and nature, but especially enjoys Ephrastic writing. Her interests include books and music, she advocates for captive elephants and feral cats. Dickson holds a degree in Behavioral Science, has been a guest editor, served on two poetry boards and her work appears in over 65 journals, including Lorlorien, Blue Heron Review and The Ekphrastic Review. ** How to Slay a Demon Use singing bowls in the morning to lure it out from whence it hides. For they are ninjas at stealing in where they’re not wanted. Let it approach curiously. You’ll know it’s nearby as the wheeee sound of the sonorous bowl will change pitch slightly. Then capture it within and put a lid on it. Without further ado, place it in a sunspot somewhere on the patio all afternoon and smile as it shrivels. If you don’t have a patio, any sunspot will do. How they hate the sun. They like fire, sure, but not that type of fire. It’s too holy, too wholesome. Try and discover its name. Ask for the universe to show you a sign. Bear in mind it may be unpronounceable. Whisper it thrice whilst turning widdershins on the night of the full harvest supermoon and you’re home free. Cackle maniacally at anything you find funny. This will irritate the hell out of it. Burn some sage in the morning to bless your dwelling. The cliché is true. Demons hate the stuff. They’ll definitely leave the room. Better yet, smoke some in a joint to be internally as well as externally protected. Drape your pet python around you for protection as you go about your business (perhaps not when you pop to the shops). It approves of reptiles and will look at you in a new light and wonder whether you’re a demon from another realm and not actually a trickster. Either way, it will keep its distance for it is wary, nay, respectful of serpents. If you don’t have a python, not to worry, you can skip this step. Now, they are stubborn to oust for they insist on returning again and again until they get what they want - which is generally all-round destruction in one form or another as it’s the only entertainment they get what with being damned and all - so you have to remain one step ahead at all times and never slack on your demon-slaying routine. As a last resort, call upon the Archangels, the house sprites and the faeries of the garden and bid them cast their gaze upon the feral underling and evict it from your house. That will make it think twice about hanging around. It may end up loitering in the garden however, which could make the faeries think twice about lending a hand. Be as boring as possible. Perhaps spend all day reading books and doing nothing remarkable or noteworthy. Have no parties, watch no TV, spend all day in bed, paint your toenails, have a face mask, then lounge around reading yet more books. It will find you so tedious and dreary it will leave of its own accord. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani artist, poet and general creative bod based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including Ink Sweat & Tears, Free Verse Revolution, Unlost Journal, Messy Misfits Club, Harana Poetry and Visual Verse among others. When she's not teaching, she's making art or poems. Other than that, she is never not reading. You can find her on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and Twitter: @NusraNazir ** The Year I Went Without Being Saved I shall have come alone. Or not at all. And then I shall say. Let me stay on this chair, Lord. Here in the anonymous dark. For even the light switch is a reach. Is more versed in Your poor servant’s repertoire. And so, let me speak Your name. And the name of all Your associates. Deep inside of my mouth. In that cave of a thousand nights. Where I’ll have dreamt only of sleeping. And in that breath I’ll have held. Till it was the death of me. That haunted house I’ll have shared with not one ghost. Who thought of themselves as a ghost. Or not having a story to tell. O Lord, how a second word gives us a sword. And a third, something closer to You. And the wars you inspire. But then to write it is not. Worth it or the trouble. Mark DeCarteret Mark DeCarteret's work has appeared in 500 literary reviews. ** Hidden Prophecies A magic tome of symbols and spells, Unknown still in intent and meaning, Of writings within, only one foretells. Figures of green jointly compels Letters to words, together convening A magic tome of symbols and spells. Images of blue hides and propels Cabalistic clues weaving, intervening Of writings within, only one foretells. Birds, swords, heads repels Unwanted eyes from gleaning A magic tome of symbols and spells. Hidden messages in fading pastels, Detailing prophecies in brown, demeaning Of writings within, only one foretells. A masterpiece to see for all it tells, One day, of a reconvening. A magic tome of symbols and spells, Of writings within, only one foretells. Katie Davey Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern. She plans to become a member of Stephens College’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta in Fall 2023. She will earn her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024. ** Before Camelot Beyond the dyke, dipping low my indigo clan— scrolling whorls and charms—wait Wait until tarnished knights stumble through the barbs They throng atop our steepled hill beating harmonies of death to ring around the stones Our hoary tongues tut curses that shift ravens from their crags and loose them as the whistley flight of arrows But still the hooved up Roman clods trample down and even crusty Merlin cannot draw the bloody gutter away from our green-bladed valley After all those that dwelt in the forbidden places filled now with chanting men pretending to be God die slowly their fingers out of place—red at the bone telling tales they did not know before I am swift—it has always been my thread to grace but even I cannot outpace the mist whispering at my heel So shrouded in the smoky breath of dragons I hurl Caliburn to crest the setting sun Its bloody pedigree bright and gone Pulled deeply down into the blue-lit world And seen only by the Lady waiting patiently in the lake for another to arrive Adele Evershed Adele Evershed was born in Wales and has lived in Asia before settling in Connecticut. Her work has been published in over a hundred journals and anthologies such as Every Day Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Reflex Fiction, Shot Glass Journal, and A470, Poems for the Road from Arachne Press. Adele has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net for poetry. Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, Turbulence in Small Places this year and her novella-in-flash, Wannabe, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Her second poetry collection, The Brink of Silence will be available from Bottlecap Press later this year. ** Untitled scribble scribble scribble. He is watching me. it must be right it must be holy it must be perfect. i am a scribe for the Lord and it must be perfect. Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. one in the corner another in the middle. an angel here a demon there. He can see me. i’m doing everything i’m supposed to. i’m following His word. sigil sigil sigil one after the other. forgive me Father, for i have sinned but i’m doing my best i swear to you, Lord, i’m doing my best. River Louraine ** Philology Stanley the Cockroach, astral etymologist and subjective violator of many a scholarly work of biographical entomology, devotee of the Shrine of Libation to the Arcane Sigil, cloaked in mystique but bereft of the vanishing banknotes of Banksy, arrived at Singapore Airport after eight hours infesting an airline catering cube. Industrious vermin were paid no penalties. When there was a job to do, Stanley was no slacker. In defiance of a union ban on luxury travel, he jumped quickly onto a trolley bound for Helsinki, premium economy. Stanley took his fill of pre-packaged butter chicken. After twelve hours travail, when the head steward threatened to dip him in chocolate and serve him as petit four in place of sultanas, he took advantage of the sick leave provisions of his industrial award, pleading a gastroenterological emergency. His sole intention being rest and recreation, he rode in a taxi to a hotel at Ullanlinna, where the restful aspect of his lustful ambition was frustrated by a four o’clock check-in. Stanley waited, in this city where life starts later. When, at eleven, the Design Museum opened, he crawled across the threshold and skittered down the stairwell to playfully relieve himself across walls of graffiti that philologists were destined to misread, for several centuries, as modern Sumerian cuneiform. When, at last, his room was ready, he ran around foolishly, soiled the linen curtains, cavorted with the bed bugs—an afternoon of fun, finished by sharing the butt end of a smoking hot roach. Back at the museum, those philologists worked conscientiously on a theory of relationship of languages, linking the literature of ancient Mesopotamia with the damage done by silverfish to first edition Finnish print runs of the Kalevela. Among the reference sources attributed as seminal to this semiotic dreamwork was a hieroglyphic tableaux drawn by the nineteenth century alchemist, the Master of Moselle, whose grimoires turned up recently in an antiquarian bookstore in Metz. Stanley’s myriad offspring celebrate his naming day, in solemn memoriam of the time their ancestor revolutionised philology, the day he doodled all over the walls of the Design Museum. Andrew Leggett Andrew Leggett is an Australian author and editor of poetry, fiction, interdisciplinary papers and songs. His work has placed or been shortlisted in various literary awards including the Joanne Burns Microlit Award, the Bridport International Poetry Prize, the Australian Catholic University Poetry Prize, the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, the Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award, the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Award and the IP Picks National Poetry Manuscript Prize. His latest collection of poetry Losing Touch was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. In addition to medical degrees and postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry and psychotherapy, he holds a research masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and a PhD in Creative Writing from Griffith University. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry. He was editor of the Australasian Journal of Psychotherapy from 2006-2011 and prose editor of StylusLit from 2017-2022. ** how the king dances tonight stand on your throne, wretched beast, fur coat kissing the soil-stained floor. gurgle bloodied delight, teeth crimson-coppery and, we the peasants crawl in on raw knees, backs hunched with horror sing! folk, sing for your king, howl anger into symphony. how the earth rears her head, you ride her emotion, sobbing laughter through clenched jaws, pained, teeth clicking together and, strike the poppy tiles with your staff, cry! king, cry for the people from which you hung souls onto hooks and, tonight you step down take a peasant girl by the hands and, dance! monster, dance, face touching hers, and your eyes blaze concealed guilt. laugh! wretched beast, laugh the horror into cruelty, and the peasant girl screams into your shoulder: how the moonlight stares, silent, down upon a cursed dance. Aisha Al-Tarawneh Aisha Al-Tarawneh is a nineteen-year-old from Denmark and Jordan. Some of her favourite writers and poets include Vladimir Mayakovski and Nikolai Gogol. She enjoys watching KHL hockey and practicing recurve archery, as well as kickboxing in her spare time. ** To the Golden Son An Alchemist sits at his table, jars and glasses surround Lapis lazuli paint etches the pages, thoughts and theories abound. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit The person searching for potions That are most arcane. Gold for the purest souls and lead the person’s bane. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Searching through the obscure, searching for something of substance. Refining matter to reach perfected amounted conductance. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Hoping to reach Jesus Christ and his four Holy Gospels, Following the teachings of His many heavenly apostles. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Documenting his research written in gallnut inklings, Searching through the angelic properties that are slowly dwindling. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit The Alchemist diligently works to stand beside the Son. To work towards the Philosopher’s Stone that hundreds of minds have spun. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Mads Christiansen Mads Christiansen (any and all pronouns) is an author/illustrator from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. They are a member of Sigma Tau Delta in Stephens College. Currently, they are working towards finishing their English Bachelor's in May 2024 and plan to do their Master’s next in Library and Information Sciences. ** The Garden She had a vision—that’s what she told them, after. The ones who remained. In it, God promised that they were chosen to make a new world, an Eden. But she lied. There was no vision: no choir of singing angels, no holy fire lighting up a bush, no cinder that burnt her lips with the truth. Instead, there was a chicken. It stopped producing eggs, and so she wrung its neck like her mother taught her, and fried it up. She didn’t know what to do with the beak and the feet; it made her too sad to dump it like trash. She buried the beak, the feet, and the bones near a rose bush. It seemed a peaceful place to rest. A week later, a bulbous, baby head sprouted like a cabbage patch doll where the chicken bones lay. She should have drowned it in gasoline and burnt it to ashes. Was it guilt that stopped her? Or was it because it looked vaguely human—chubby cheeks, but green skin; brown eyes, but no irises. She found herself treating it like a stray kitten: she gave it water, fed it bits of the leftover chicken with her fingers, and scolded it when it bit her and drew blood. She brought out an umbrella to shade it from the sun, blankets to warm it by night. She sang lullabies for it to sleep, read Green Eggs and Ham over and over again, interpreting its quivering leaves as laughter. When it grew vines and scarlet flowers that smelled of sulfur and smothered her flower beds and veggie patch—she called its jealousy over zucchini and roses adorable. When the HOA fined her $500 for the unruly weeds, she laughed at their snottiness and threw away every other warning without reading it. In late Summer, the flowers died, leaving large husks in their place. The vines strangled her mailbox, creeped in the cracks of her windows and door frame, laid roots in her sink. Shoulder’s appeared, then a stomach, and webbed, finger-like leaves. The epidermis resembled that of a sunflower–dark green with a fuzz of prickles that snagged her shoe laces, her clothing, the ends of her hair. She started carrying around a pair of scissors, cutting off whatever got caught, be it fabric or hair. Her friends asked questions: had she heard from her ex recently? Was her boss acting like an ass again after the whole HR drama? Was she involved in any cult? No to the ex—fortunately. Yes to the asshat boss—unfortunately. And come on, a buzz cut is so anti-cult, she protested. The next door neighbor’s fourteen year old chihuahua disappeared around Halloween. By this time, the pseudo-sunflower stood like a scarecrow on two thick, leg-like stems. The bizarre head remained, wreathed by yellow petals, but stoic. Blank. It obliged her by letting her drape faux spider web over it. The husks had molted, revealing brown beady eyes and chubby cheeked baby heads. She spread a black tarp over them–to keep you warm, she explained—and dressed the tarp like a graveyard. The neighbors’ teenage kid knocked on her door, asking about the dog. She listened, then told her theory (coyotes). But when the kid stumbled into one of the obscured baby heads, she held her breath, waiting. The sunflower bent its head, a vine-y arm outstretched—and then the kid ran off, unaware of the danger. She knew then where the chihuahua went. It went where her chickens had gone. Where the zucchini and roses and her own hair had gone. She should have done something then, rather than stand and smile blandly at the creature towering over her. In December the not-so-new plants burst from the black tarp—head, shoulders, stomach, feet. She binged Hallmark movies, eating take out (she gave up cooking in the kitchen once the vines snaked from the sink, into the fridge). Hearing leaves rustling, she cranked the volume, telling herself that they wanted to watch the cheesy movies with her. When she left for work, she noticed that they were forming fake pine trees, winding leaves and vines around the youngest growths. They accepted the strings of twinkle lights she offered, but when she added a blow up Santa in the center—they popped it. A vine stabbed through its cheerful head. And when the first snow came, coating all of the growth in ice and white, it filled in the gaps between vines, petals, and leaves transforming them into something more substantial. The oldest of them, her nameless friend, appeared to have wings. She started daydreaming it was an angel, a divine bringer of justice. Somehow, it would make everything okay again. The boss who grabbed her breast “as a joke” would be fired and blacklisted. The ex who took the TV, the last roll of toilet paper, and her favorite fuzzy blanket, but left his dirty dishes on the counter when he moved out—would wreck his precious motorcycle. The annoying HOA president who called her every day at 6:45pm, threatening to sue her for negligence—would come home to find it burned to the ground. She came home that night. The fresh snow sparkled under the headlights of her car like the most delicious answer. She grabbed the leafy hand of the fake angel, ignoring how her skin burned from the millions of burs in its skin, and met its gaze for the first time. The truth—the ugly pointy reckoning—she destroyed the world. No vision prompted her, no demon or angel. It was just a question. She cultivated it for months, feeding and coaxing the decay until it was ripe with hunger. She only had to ask. Annalee Simonds Annalee Simonds writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review's Challenge series. This year she has read The Crucible five times in a row with her students and can't stop quoting it. When she's not teaching or writing, she dabbles with watercolour. She lives in Utah. ** Magic Magic is illusion we enjoy willingly suspending disbelief. Demons are diversions we deploy damning them as curse and cause of grief believed because of all that we deny, for which in worthy measure we're to blame, becoming random risk that we defy and innocence we falsely dare to claim is yoked to faith from which we've turned away that, glistening with envy's emerald green, we vainly see as augury of sway still there by incantation we can glean invoking without penance precious Grace dispensed as if by magic we embrace. Portly Bard Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Blue Bowl "Some sorcerers do boast to have a Rod, Gather'd with Vowes and Sacrifice, And (borne about) will strangely nod To hidden Treasure where it lies..." Vingula devine "Kiss the day goodbye And point me toward tomorrow -- Can't forget, won't regret What I did for love... what I did for love." Marvin Hamlisch/Edward Lawrence Kleban What I Did For Love "In the blue eye of the medievalist there is a cart in the road..." Another November, Stanley Plumly I watched my daughter's fingers shape the earthen clay into a soup-plate, a shallow void in its center to hold the rain; shadows mingling in the water to prognosticate a pattern, why gypsy-lovers can't come back to cast their spell, telling fortunes in a tinker's wagon filled with tarnished silver. Aya is The apple of God's eye -- what I could never be -- my gift the tragedy of poverty born, as I was, into a time before I could know a divining rod is shaped like a sling-shot, a "Y"; how it sends a stone to skip 4 times across the pond beneath the Ash tree where Aya sits and reads of passion and success, magic secrets of The Grimoire Illuminee; why she will choose blue glaze azure as the sky, with v-shaped instructions on the manuscript page; and blue as the sea beneath a fat, full moon, a dotted "I" (God's Eye) over the turbulent ocean. We had no books in a sorry beginning, and no boats only our dreams, and magic that would lead me to this brilliant, fearsome night, illuminee where you would say I was to be your history, how we would wake to the call of the weathervane cock as nature funneled knowledge in the earth's vibrations -- La radiesthesie sourcier -- the children warned again not to swim in ground water; to wait (O God, spare the rod!) as prophecy promises gemstones and gravesites; forty-seven tones in Indian music; an angel with sword and lyre, and nine women floating through the spheres wearing hennis -- capriotes -- cone hats their metaphorical megaphone to hear the stars and the messages encoded in my daughter's plate -- Aya's scry bowl, rainfall itself a kind of divination tomorrow waiting in a dusty corner -- bless'd art thou in the future's workshop. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp's book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the surreality of life itself as did the ancient "grimoires" used by magicians. At a time in history when Christianity was at a crossroads with old world magic and the tenets of religion, all forms of "magic" --necromancy, fortune telling, divining rods, scry bowl readings and Tarot cards -- were taboo in church doctrine. A study of Hindu mythology and old Irish language used in early legends required the poet's use of the Sanskrit Dictionary (a formidable task!) which revealed the multiple meanings of words such as Aya, used in "Blue Bowl." It is a feminine name meaning "wonderful, amazing, a miracle" with an underlying meaning of the strength of the goddess, forty-seven tones of Indian music, the ancient Indian science of the creative arts, AE as a letter in the Old English alphabet, the number 4, and the ash tree (like a blue tree trunk or spinal column on the page of Pierre Richard's Grimoire.) The capriote (cone hat) indicates the penitent's attempt through penance to get closer to God. It is remarkable for the complexity of meaning on Pierre Richard's page that it resembles a child's drawing. which seems to make the picture an example of primitivism, art naif, a magic "how to" to explain the artist's inner being.
1 Comment
DB Jonas
10/14/2023 02:11:06 pm
A great ekphrastic challenge, this mysterious grimoire. And some great responses here, notably Michelle Holland, Mary McCarthy, Adele Evershed and Aisha Al-Tarawneh! Kudos to these wonderful poets. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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