Locket

I remember a girl,
An acquaintance,
She received a locket for her twentieth,
A gift from her ailing mother,
And from her grandma before her,
Passed down through generations,
Women across the centuries,
Like a relic of Salem witches,

A silver ravens skull holding a crescent,
Amethysts set into its eyes,
Into this token of quicksilver,
She fused all of her hopes,
All of her dreams,
Infused in her most lonesome nights,
They blended with the dreams of her foremothers,
A gossamer tether through the ages,

I do wonder,
When and if the time comes,
Will she too bequeath it to a daughter?
Add a new link to the chain,
I would hope so,
It’d be a shame for this feminine connection to end,
For the locket to be lost,
Forgotten in the mists.

Witch Of White

I have a friend abroad,
A dutiful witch of white,
To whom I owe praise,
You’ve been there for some time,
Though we have never shaken hands,
With your advice and your Dermot Kennedy,
Your temperance and your magic,

You speak to me on electrical channels,
In the wise chords of shamans,
Reaching miles under moonlight,
Even across wave and cliff,
The words and incantations still reach,
Like owls upon the wing,
A true friend.

Thank you Mel.

Scrying Glass

Oh to have a scrying glass,
An obsidian mirror,
Like a witch in a tower,
To peer upon its surface like calm water,
To see across mountains and eons,
To see conversations elsewhere,
To hear music not yet written,

I’d love to be a raven,
In the trees of another’s mind,
Watching and eavesdropping,

I’d love to be a spirit,
In the attic of another’s home,
Learning of their life,

I’d love to be a diviner,
To read the auguries of another’s future,
From my plum tent on the hill,

To be not restricted to one pair of eyes,
I gaze at the mirrors face,
I just want to see what others see,
How are their days going?
What charges their souls with vim?
Do they speak of me?
What whispers to them in their solitude?

Fae Walk

I took a walk with the fae last night,
Not a moment past midnight,
They stole me away,
Upon sorcerous wing,
To play in their viridian realms,
A rabbit hole in my dreams,
A place akin to madness,
Enchanting in its wrongness,

Passing sylphic springs and gingerbread cottages,
The path was like a forest unrestrained,
Ferns and oaks and elementals,
Brambles and Seelie and redcaps,
Unseen by mortals,
Where all kinds of impossible things reside,
Somehow greener than green,
More wild than any notion of nature,

It left an imprint on my mind,
A gift from fairies,
Perhaps a key to visit again,
And even as I awaken,
The dreaming remains,
And my footprints grow ivy and fungi.

Aurora

We’re taught that sorcery died out,
That all of the sorcerers burned,
But if you travel to the isolated places,
Those hyperborean ice fields and glaciers,
Away from the urban funk,
And look to the sky,

There you’ll see the most mystical of sights,
A sky bound phenomenon of green veins,
A jade dragon over the peaks,
A stroke of intangible mana,
As if conjured by some Nordic witch,
Nothing of man could compare,

And so,
This aurora casts a spell upon us,
A gift of sight mystic,
And if such an ensorcelling wonder exists,
What other spectacles may hide out there?
Magic is very much alive,

The sky tells us so.

Mirrored Soul

Do you ever see your soul in another?
Like a beacon amidst the masses,
Dancing for your eyes only,
They’re not you but somehow familiar,
Physically diverse perhaps,
But a spiritual doppelganger,

It could be a stranger,
Or an old confidant,
But within their form,
A flaxen glow emanates,
Your soul reflected,
As if a mirror stood before you,

That spirit in the one before you,
Maybe they were always there,
Perhaps the mirror was too foggy,
Blemished by your traumas,
Perhaps you weren’t ready,
To meet a true friend.

Idolatry

I see those priests,
Clergy of every ilk,
Bowing their heads before stones,
Golden saints and bathomet statues,
Friends that don’t talk back,

They’re speaking in tongues,
Evoking this name or that,
Vocalised necromancy,
Who’s to say if their prayers are heeded,
The idols don’t respond,

After all,
How could they?
What is idolatry,
But talking to ghosts?

Oneiromancy

Dreams are films we watch each night,
With synopses nor subtitles,
They produce not a lick of sense,
Nor storylines of logic,
But they’re not meaningless,
You see,
They’re the language of the mind,
The most foreign of tongues,
Equal parts artwork and insanity,
With themes and actors obscured by fog,

They require a translator,
A diviner,
An oneiromancer,
One who can read their obtuse scrawls,
What the dreams mean,
To guide us through their thorny mazes,
To see where they’ll lead,
To fix their curved mirrors,
What they’re telling us,
What they’re warning us.

Stolas

I met a prince last night,
Great prince Stolas of Hell,
An avian being on stilted legs,
A humble guise for royalty,

He flew,
Crown and all,
From the pages of the Ars Goetia,
The book of demons,

This was no bitter spirit though,
He meant no harm,
He brought not brimstone,
But knowledge and teaching,

He taught me of herbs and jewels,
Of the stars in the firmament,
Lessons spun in infernal tongue,
And then he was gone,

Like the rustles of charred pages.

Precognition

I once met a woman,
In a side street sideshow,
All lavender veils and candles,
A purported soothsayer of old,
A fortune teller,

It was as if she saw the future,
As if an eye had opened upon her brow,
She spoke of things that hadn’t happened,
Conversations and marriages and heartbreaks,
Crashes and illnesses and revels,

She spoke with such artistry and vim,
Firmly and sincerely,
I could only believe her,
It could only be the truth,
Breaks in the dream,

She had also seen the end,
Not of you and I,
But of everything,
Despite my requests and coin,
She would not reveal how.