Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
three drops from a cauldron Samhain Special 2015 Part One 1 October 2015
e Edited by Kate Garrett
www.threedropspoetry.co.uk
c Three Drops Press Sheffield, England
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Editor’s Note Halloween, or Samhain, is my favourite day. It seemed fitting, then, to join forces and celebrate with other Halloween-and-poetry lovers, especially when it involves a publication already dedicated to myth, legend and magic. The folkloric, mythical and spiritual connections to Samhain / All Hallows Eve are widespread, and worth looking into if you have the time. Some of the work included in this two-part seasonal special of three drops from a cauldron should be able to point you in the right direction. We have magic, horror and reverent ritual lined up next to tricks, treats, losses, and hauntings. Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain – and have a wonderful autumn! Best wishes, Kate Garrett
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Pent Anger
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The Wedding Ghost
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Sacred Festivities (Part 1)
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Owlography
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Twmbarlwm
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Lycanthropy
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Riding Out in October
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Da Vinci Demons
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Blonde
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Witches’ Market
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The Castle Inn
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Souling
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At first I thought
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The Vampire’s Tale
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Red
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A Voice from the Dark Age
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She Watches and Waits...
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Nan Hardwicke Visits Mother Shipton
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Fresh is Best
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The Bee Charmer
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The corner grave
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Invisible Yet Tangible
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Black Magic
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Sometimes they glow greenly in the dark
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Pumpkin Jack's Judgment
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A seasonal burning
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Samhain
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Writers
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Previous Publication Credits
48
Other Three Drops Poetry publications
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Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Pent Anger Five times the bell tolled, Five pairs of hands bound: some young, some old. Five twists of rope looped over heads, Five pits of soil dug for final beds. Five crosses burn in shame for the dead. A.B. Cooper
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The Wedding Ghost I am a ghost at Halloween, an unwanted presence in your home. I'm haunting your complacent dreams like a poltergeist - with poems. Rattling wedding crockery hurling cake plates at the wall. I am a ghost at Halloween, not wanted in your house at all. I am a ghost at Halloween - but it's alright, I'm fading fast. Now in the garden exorcised I'm melting slowly in the grass.. I only came to wish you well (though with my sack of sorrows), I was your ghost this Halloween, I'll be gone from here tomorrow. Marc Woodward
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Sacred Festivities (Part 1) Beware the crackling flames Spitting light as you place your sacrifice Do your deities look down Upon the offerings of last years crop Cleanse the dregs of yesteryear And dance around the hell hot fires Commemorations of death The cycle of life told by the eyes of youngsters Open the flood gates to the Otherworld Release those souls that lie within Reincarnate me, my Lord of the Dead A deeper meaning to the costumed facade Put on your mask to hide Escape the malevolence and trickery Shamans and Druids come to tell Futures solemn, distant and soon Prophesise a dark long winter or a calm survive Thrown your bones or cast a rune Under a full, Halloween moon Jax J. Victor
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Owlography My autumn is a map of owls: a folded sheet of darkness. It shows the contours of their wing-swoops, talons poised to grasp and wrench, their songs a river flowing through the night. Here are the hills and valleys of their anatomy, the towns of their feathers – tawny, brindled, white – the churches of their retinas. Their calls rip apart the vertebrae of stars, expose the minutiae of silver viscera. After digestion of soft tissue they compact tiny astral bones and fur, exoskeletons of clouds, regurgitate the solids under the roosting tree of the moon, pencilled onto the night of this map. Rebecca Gethin
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Twmbarlwm We snarled in the moon-breeze howling howling until the crone's brew bound to purpose all leapt high over the lick of flame. Smoke mingled with the gathering mist of a Silurian tribe, the thirst of Celts breathed around the greening mound. All mouths drew blood from the mother tongue rolled the dice of bones howling howling as one we leapt into the lick of flame. Phil Wood
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Lycanthropy On clear nights, her silhouette can be seen crouching at the top of World's View: a rag of black silk thrown over a pool of moonlight. She carries her father's markings across her back, his stripes under her chin. She would leave all this behind, but she's snagged herself on suburbia - the thorns of its dog roses, some ancient calling of home. She goes to the mountain to listen to the sounds of the old town below. Her father's voice is a police car, her mother's - a tragedy screaming inside the shell of an ambulance. Their sirens snake together through a land of red lights and drunks, carrying love inside like a thief, or a victim. Poor girl. Only the Old Ones really know what turned her heart to winter, how she became a creak on the stair, a growl in the ghost-house on the corner, with its secrets boarded-up behind the eyes, pain howling through empty rooms. Joanne Key
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Riding Out in October A sudden hush of leaves and face: not-quite-eyes gaze out. The horse shies, stumbling as if to run or kneel. The rider sways, swears, looks back. Gone. Next day, kestrels hover and cry. Prey shiver. Jennifer A. McGowan
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Da Vinci Demons there is always a market for demons let out from ears and the small behind cupboards feeding upon the erotic ends of cabbages that have seen better days but then haven't we all demons have searched me all my life and I have kept one step ahead not looking back whether they carry weapons to bludgeon me at dimly lit street corners that only exist in cities the countryside all hills that you can see the shape of from far away not hidden like men demons have better minds than Da Vinci and read better books they harvest for secrets we would waste on good behaviour and peace making music watch da vinci demons to think how it might be for a whole world of demons in all colours their distort shapes reflective and meaning us nothing but magnitudes demons in the front of you one step ahead got you between the eyes Gareth Writer-Davies
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Blonde Before I knew what it was to be scared, I braided black yarn into my long blonde hair. A dash of darkness to match my chain belt and plaid pants. To match my parent’s rotting marriage, my trendy angst. I pretended it belonged there--that I had grown such a thing. When I became pretty as a punchline to jokes boys made about dumb girls, I twirled it between my fingers. I collected moments of men running their hands through it, tangled and dirty the morning after, sighing about how long it was. You’re that blonde girl. You’re the prettiest I’ve ever slept with. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen at the bars. The magazines say that men prefer it hanging down to the middle of my back. They don’t say that this makes me more of a target. That it can be fashioned into an extra limb to grab, one that can’t hit back. My hair followed me to bars, extending invitations to men without consulting me. And he’d been no different – He’d slipped drink after drink to my hair. Wrapped it around his knuckles and asked it to dance, to let out a schoolgirl giggle. To sit on his lap, its strands draping across the sticky bar floor. It was years before I learned the true story of Medusa. The one with Poseidon as the guy at the bar circling her in a cloud of smoke, an ocean waiting to swallow her whole. The one with her being punished for her short skirt. Her long hair. For the drink in her hand, for her existence, for what he took. Instead we name the one who beheaded her Hero, the one who raped her a God. Instead, we name her Monster. Because what else should you call a woman with power, a woman with a gaze that’s stronger than yours? Back at the bar, my hair was wrapped around his knuckles, his body an ocean tidal waving toward me. I never thought of cutting it before that day. Fourteen inches, two yellow thick tails that had to be bound with rubber bands. The day I left him, the day I left all of them, the twin snakes of my hair writhed on the floor. They grew fangs and I told them your names. Caroline Walton
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Witches’ Market Midnight fell like an old black bird I meant to wait for you. There were tables rich with amethyst and pearls; fragrance by the fistful, mint and petrichor. I meant to wait for you. You drifted through the haze with your knotted bag half-full, and shadow-tongues that flicked above your knees you meant to look for me. Moments ran like mice; a silver pot, a cup of tea. She stank of vinegar and thyme the hand was hers, the heart was mine. Her iron eyes reflected flame; she took my lungs, she took my name, though you had meant to look for me, and I had to meant to wait for you amid the black salt and the brew. Ash for the handle, Birch for the brush, Willow for the cord that binds the twigs. Kathryn King
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
The Castle Inn May waits by the fireplace where she worked in the stable bar staring at the amber flecks reminders of her drowned son’s eyes drowned as a baby by the man who took the fares from one-time lovers who followed May upstairs. William, the landlord, left the maid a sixpence if she’d oblige the sheriff who turned blind eyes to smuggled wine that kept Will’s cellars full. The ostler mooned with puppy longing stole secret glances of her slumber abhorred what evil made her do for shelter when her lover sailed With the early tide the bar door clattered wide Robin threw pots through windows slammed chairs, smashed bottles woke up all and sundry dragged the maid to empty hearth and strangled her for faithlessness then staggered to the cellar drunk with rumour, drunk with venom. In rage the ostler followed crushed Robin’s skull with a horseshoe hammer and turned to see the maid ashen for the father of her child. Anguish took the ostler hung simply from the stable rafter. The boy came to her years later anaemic, hungry, pleading for some comfort reminded of the son who might have been. She soothed his restless spirit. William serves there still leaving new-fangled sixpences for the women who serve well. Sue Spiers
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Souling Hallowmas haw lanterns hang on branches. Clay is harrowed fields furrowed into pages. Quinces are bletted for verjuice and jelly. Cross marked cakes are baked to send souls to rest. Hedges are cut their thresholds open at dule trees as hunter’s ride over the stubble. Kay Buckley
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
At first I thought rain, an unexpected shower on the sun lounge roof, something between a thudding and a rattle. At second I thought I heard a rhythm to it, a varying step, a pattern not a pattering. At third, through the clear plastic roof, I saw the small feet, a thousand, jigging, swirling with the confidence of second nature. It would be easy to say I didn't feel fear, only enchantment, or an urge to clap. It was simple terror. I knew this couldn't be real, but must have real causes in a real mind now not entirely my own. I began to hear their music, a giggling, the sound of a party where I was present but not as a guest. And the eyes were all one colour. Seth Crook
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The Vampire’s Tale A solitary figure that moves without sound, a creature that's born without sight. A flickering shadow that hunts for its prey, and lives in the shade of the night. Weightless, it travels with unfathomable speed, a master of cunning unstoppable greed. That knows only pain and only to bleed its victims who stray from the light. Through pale hollow skin stare cold marble eyes. Haunted by visions, of dead wasted lives. A mixture of fear, that's deafened by cries and feels only pleasure through pain. A smile that entices its victims to sleep to a hypnotic trance where razor sharp teeth pierce the skin where it then starts to seep the blood that they need to survive. Supreme in their power, they work on their own. Grateful, alert and precise. Heartless demons whose souls have been born, with darkness a cold paradise. They live among others, a sinister race, of which humans know nothing Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
confined in their space.. An invisible terror, that leaves without trace and waits till the last glow of light. Lost within time, through centuries past. They change within worlds where nightmares are cast, from the venomous snake to the wings of a bat.. alone in its quest for the night. Eternally born they seek out of like, the blood that they lost with death at a price, soulless demons, condemned in their fight with evil a dark growing breed. Andrea Touhig
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Red1 He sees the girl at the side of the road. She doesn’t wave him down, but he knows she’s waiting for someone to stop, to take her home. The driver speeds up and doesn’t slow until the figure in white vanishes from his rearview mirror. Sleep is a long time coming that night. She sees the girl standing outside the house. The winter breeze tugs at her clothes and hair, animating an otherwise stoic form. Her feet pound out a rhythm of terror as she flees from the girl in white, never looking back. Nightmares take her that night. The girl in the coffin is beautiful. Not even death can strip their daughter of her beauty, not even murder. As mother and father embrace in grief and rage, they look upon their daughter, dressed in red. She will have her revenge. Simon Paul Wilson
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Nü gui (literally: "female ghost"), is a vengeful female ghost with long hair in a white dress. In folklore, this ghost is the spirit of a woman who committed suicide while wearing a red dress. Usually, she experienced some form of injustice when she was alive, such as being wronged or sexually abused. She returns to take her revenge. A tabloid story tells of a funeral ceremony where family members of a murder victim dress her in red, in the hope that her spirit will return to take revenge on her murderer. In traditional folklore, the colour red symbolises anger and vengeance. Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
A Voice from the Dark Age Do thousands of black birds still gather and chatter in the winter twilight? Do you stand there now and stare, keeping watch across the flattest lands, from ancient tracks across the mere? See the first crowds of shade arrive on far horizons, massive clouds of darkness sweep the nodding reed beds. Murmuration rises and falls, a dusky rumour, and forms perfect changing shapes against the coldness of a fading sky. Trees are dense with this veil, but there is a lightness in the air – the whispering wind of a million wings. Is this the only sound you hear over the ancient land, as you walk the tracks across the mere? Do the dykes still hold back the water, are the lakes calm and clear; do they mirror the early morning light as you walk the tracks across the mere? When you go to hunt for game, are the swans ruffling in reedbeds and do the seedheads echo the surface calm; and does the bittern’s boom carry across the flats? Or does all the land still flood on the higher tides? and are the tracks then lost below the seas? When the waters rise so high are your boats ever ready; do you like to go out to fish in the freshening breeze? And is Ynys Witrin your constant reference – the point of all beginnings and endings. High above all waterlines, does that sentinel yet watch over this dreamy land? Do you feel us here? Does that island even now hold our power in its hand? Tell me this, come close, are the veils always thin, do the crystals see? Are the great stones silent standing, do you guard that gateway by the old thorn tree? Is the mystery of the magic still at work, is there yet a wildness here? Do the pilgrims ever come looking for their peace, 25
are they walking the tracks across the mere? And do the monks live quietly in their caves, are the hermits sometimes seen through the haze? Do the springs rise again to give you sacred water and do you collect it from the wells? Is it calm and pure and does it heal your ills? Does the stream pour over mossy banks from the rocks where Brighed guards? And does she forever inspire the poets and give new stories to the Bards? Do you meet to rejoice in the seasons here; and the phases of the moon? Is Samhain still the enchanted turn of year? Do you dance with joy at Beltane, walk the fire with lightest step? Do you watch the flames of Imbolc leap? Are the goddesses spinning the web? Are the Pagan deities celebrated, is there revelling and feasting here? And do you still walk the tracks across the mere? Ancient walkways created in the oldest time still cross our watery space, but are they yet there for you? Do our worlds collide in this fantastic place? Do you make to honour all your ancestors? do you feel them in your genes, are they there in your daily chores and in your darkest night-time dreams? Do you remember me? As the days are ending and the veil is fine do you seek out your kinfolk and honour the divine? Do you still walk the tracks across the mere? Do you now gather in the great hall to speak your poetry for all to hear? Is Boewulf’s loud story told at your great feasting nights? Do you long to hear those tales of the monsters and the fights?
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Is the hall filled with voices, is there music and dance, do they drink from golden cups; and do you look for romance? And when the laughing is over and the dawn is here, do you still walk the tracks across the mere?
Jackie Biggs
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She Watches and Waits...2 She watches the snake of men run naked round the lake, the chain of naked women dance in their wake. Straight-limbed and twisted-limbed: her mother still the best crippled dancer under the harvest moon. A blood-red haze: poppy-heads and vine fruits dance where shades rustle. Her gaze fixes on the white swan ‒ her out-stretched neck, her strong wing-span — terror through a burnished glass . . . She watches his body sprawled in her lap, alert, she sits beside her one-night Kern: long petals of flame dazzle his sight. * Immaculate stranger, innocent of blood-shed, they guide his strong-limbed body through the stone lintel. Tallow candles light the steps, worn by the soles of the dead, down to earth-moist sanctum. A bed of unwashed sheep’s wool; a jar of wine infused with sage, clary-sage, vervain, rosemary, wormwood and wild-rose; a bowl of tiny barley-cakes shaped as seeds, grapes and nuts; a pitcher of pure water gathered at sunset from the source they bathed in at noon. Torch-flames recede, shades stretch to caress him . . . he sups from a two-handled cup; above him, lantern roof blushes crimson-red. In his heart he sees the huge orb of the harvest moon hang blood-red above the silver cypress trees.
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Recent research has revealed the presence of a cult structure’ or sanctuary, ‘Les Herbues’, located to the southwest of Tumulus 1, with its entrance oriented towards Mont Lassois. This structure has an internal pit at its centre. The remains of two statues were found outside it to the east.
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
He reaches with out-stretched arms to embrace its vast, elusive womb. She could almost pity him. Flame straddles his lips, slips . . . Wings beat to break his breast . . . He seeks the blood-red blenk . . . He speaks with the dead. * Demeter watches and waits for the dawn’s muffled cry; light bleeds over burnished lake. She takes her keenest knife, greets the joy-filled Kern, then slits his pulsing throat over the waiting vase.
Helen May Williams
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Nan Hardwicke Visits Mother Shipton She were a hard faced bitch that mother Shipton, and lazy as they come. Born in a cave, lived in a cave, sold prophesies, turned the kiddies toys to stone, never helped no one, but always ready with a curse. And always whispering into her hair. The bitch didn’t know what’d hit her, her stony face a picture, when I kicked the lazy cow out of her hovel, prophesized she’d get a mop, clean the cave wash the lime off the walls. A cave, I ask you, who wants to always be sleeping under drips? Prophesies my arse. I could prophesize and bitch and moan the cows home, and laze about all day turning crap to stone, but I don’t. What’s the point? A stone teddy hanging outside her cave, its just a trick, no real skill, a lazy use of the gift. She had a stone sock, always, in her pocket, she thought she’d cause, the bitch, to crack me with it, once, when I prophesized rats would come to her kitchen, prophesized that caves were prone to mould, the stone stank, and so did her clothes, the bitch scuttled into her slimy, dingy cave and muttered into her hair. She was always whispering into her hair. It were a lazy Sunday morning when I left her, a lazy morning, picking hawes, She’d prophesized us being friends forever. That she’d always keep a bed in her cave for me. A stone doll, in my shape, was hanging on the cave door, I took it well, her funny ways, funny bitch,
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
her lazy, work shy ways, her heart of stone, no harder than mine, her prophesies, her cave all a front, like mine. Always needy bitches, us witches. Wendy Pratt
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Fresh is Best Since moving from the city, Tara has enjoyed exploring the countryside. At the end of a long walk, she is delighted to discover a quaint stone cottage on the edge of the forest. It has the prettiest garden she has ever seen. Above the ground-hugging daisies and bluebells, showy foxgloves and delphiniums tremble in the breeze. Behind them an aromatic lavender hedge shelters under crepe myrtle trees that are dressed to impress in gorgeous ruffled trusses of pink, mauve and purple. The effect is so magical that Tara only notices the old woman in the shadows when she speaks. “Hello, dear.” the old woman says. “I haven’t seen anyone out this way for a long time. Can I offer you a nice a cup of tea?” As the old woman makes the tea, Tara admires the garden from the kitchen window. She wants to know how the old woman does it. “Blood and bone, dear,” the old woman replies without hesitation. “I swear by it.” Tara fancies starting a small garden of her own and asks, “Where do you buy it?” “Oh no, dear, I don’t buy it,” the old woman replies, approaching Tara from behind. “Fresh is best.” With one deft stroke, she slits Tara’s throat from ear to ear. “I like to make my own”. Irene Buckler
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
The Bee Charmer The swarm will remind you because they’re keepers of memory, and because even in the midst of blood and madness, you’ll forget because that’s what they all did. Metal will scrape bone, a wound in the form of a question, but the answers are hard to find. He’s not behind you until he is, those dark eyes suggesting a wet history full of misery. Still, it’s only a game, you say. Five times, you say the name they gave him as he writhed in a field, untethered and butchered, screaming for release in a sunlit apiary. The cacophony breaks him, a hundred, a thousand, a million tiny voices waiting to be heard above his grief and agony and the high, sweet smell of clover. Five times, you whisper, just to be sure. Just to be sure. Just to be. Amanda Crum
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The corner grave Old Cemetery, Owensville, Ohio Rain had worn down her secret, left few letters and a stone leaning low after a century of winters. I pretended to know her: ‘Elizabeth, wife of ______’, said good morning every day before school, though she’d long ago sifted down to dust and bones beneath the roots of our village. I invented a tragic death, looked for signs, willed her to haunt me. I imagined skeletons with high collars and tangled hair hiding behind the dresses in my closet. Halloween: I dressed in cream linen, bobbed for apples, waited for Elizabeth, scanned the fields for see-through shapes on our hayride. She didn’t show, but I still insisted a handprint, red paint smacked against our shed window, was hers. Kate Garrett
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Invisible Yet Tangible It cloaks my slouching shoulders, hoods my thunder and lightning head, holding taunt the strings of ‘The Witching Hour’ lullaby within me. As I dig away inside my battered soul, amongst the bruised and broken bits of memory and fragmented wonder, for the magic and the fire hidden almost always just out of reach. Paul Tristram
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Black Magic I know black magic when I see it, The way the smoke curls at your fingertips and you beckon and I come. Witch. In a past life, I'm sure they drowned you, I'm sure your waterlogged corpse bobbed amongst the reeds. I'm sure they defeated you, purged you from their towns and villages, brought the wrath of God down upon your wicked ways, on your sin. `We do not suffer a witch to live`, they would have chanted, watching the thatch roof of your house take light, the books and the bed and your home kindle the flame of wrong set right. And when you tell me about your breakdown in Amsterdam, I really wish I didn't give a shit, About your new boyfriend at university, about the men you text whilst I'm sitting right here. Any license your headaches gave you expired years ago, yet still you leave it in your purse, Whip it out when I need reminding. Witch. I'm begging you, don't make me care, Don't say those magic words, don't put your curse upon me, don't drag me down to Hell with your blood and bone magic, with your rituals bitten into my skin, your brand to mark me, to hold me in some salt circle, So I will never be anyone else's ever again. It's all pentagrams and altars, isn't it? All hair dye and cigarettes and the feel of grass on bare legs at summer's dusk, Or the crunch of snow beneath the boot, Under a winter's frost blue moon, and the thrill of it, racking the name of God, Abjuring the scripture and the Saviour Christ. You dance the seasons in and out and I swear by change, yet still remain come four and twenty, come midnight's strike. Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Witch. And I come because you beckon and your nimble fingertips still curl the cigarette smoke. I know black magic when I see it. Amy Kinsman
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Sometimes they glow greenly in the dark “Knowledge is night.” ~ professor Abdullah Nightingale
I hear trouble is coming to your town: imagine the headless rider, the riderless horse, the horseless head, crashing through the dark. Flash. An abandoned bandstand surrounded by upright stones and mysterious flight patterns of purple foxgloves. A chance encounter by a stile. Sedition. Outsider art. Don’t die of innocence. Crumbling warehouses, ripe for demolition, loom under the paling outlaw moon at Finisterre. Here, a large black shape rises from the water -(There’s weird shit about; take this, it’s for luck.) -- like the princess Anaesthesia. Her soft belly. Secret plainsong of the canaille. Splinters of light. Long hemp ropes and hawsers of milfoil. The night train. The tin roof. Its quiet defiance. The hypnotic spell of phosphorescence. Corona. Contraband technology dealing with the undead, ambiguity and contradiction. Sparks of dark. Now. Light a candle, strike a match for anyone hiding out in a derelict biscuit factory during the Great Eclipse. Jane Røken
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Pumpkin Jack's Judgment There are no treats on Hallow's night. Avoid your tricks and evil pranks. Then cross your heart and give your thanks, 'Cause Pumpkin Jack will bring you fright With twisted grin and haunted dreams. He savors all your frenzied screams. He'll stalk the streets with dark delight; Bring judgment in a righteous swirl On every little boy and girl, And see if you have strayed from light. For if you've sinned or just been bad, Jack's grin will flip and he'll get mad. Then snatch your soul and hold it tight. So, young, or old, or in between, Be careful every Halloween. Robyn Hemington
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A seasonal burning As October limps away, bestowing sound advice on brash November Give it a while before the first hard frost, but not too long, and don't forget the sloes I am drawn to the idea of a burning to signal summer's end, to take away the errors of the year and see them off in a cleansing conflagration. Jinnie the witch jumped over the house with mayhem on her mind: to fetch a stick to lather the mouse she was inclined. Then all sing hop tu naa. Having pondered that, we may enquire after Berrey Dhone is she at home behind the door, smiling like Lizzie Borden with a little shiny axe, or is she walking on Barrule in the green places, where her girls come, at Michaelmas, to see their lovers' faces in the sly equivocal pools? These are the cobwebbed fragments of our atavistic dreams, old inherited curios we don't know what to do with. Under layers of weirdness resides something deeply weird - unexcavated, averse to light, immune to all benign exegesis, something not quite coming into focus, something chthonic. David Callin
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Samhain Raven sits at the threshold, his jagged shape sails low as the pale sun, parts mist with dogged wing-beat all is well and woven, dark must have its time. Blood moon rises as I call the names of those who’ve gone to the Summerlands. I jump the fire and pray the Lady will see me safe till light returns, the god born new. Here a twist of grass and scabious from Lughnasa’s liquid light, when we fitted like cupped hands. Forgive me for unplaiting our dream, I sought remedies for your heartache, tried to mend it with kisses. I wind it with a strand of my hair, place it in fire that’s hot and bright, watch it burn and spark for what this year has given for what I must leave behind.
Rachael Clyne
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I
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Writers A. B. Cooper has had a range of poetry published online and in postcard form with Paper Swans Press with whom she is co-editing an anthology entitled ‘Schooldays’. In addition, she is currently setting up a poetry mentoring service for young poets. She reviewed vampire film 'Byzantium' for the horror site 'The Slaughtered Bird' and is also working on her first novel - a ghost story for adults. She enjoys all things dark and delicious. Marc Woodward is a poet and musician resident in the West Country. He has been published in anthologies from Ravenshead Press, Forward Press, OWF, and in various magazines and web sites including Ink Sweat & Tears and The Guardian web pages. A twenty something writer living in East Anglia, England, Jax J. Victor has been an avid creator in many forms since a young age. The arts have been a constant outlet with writing being the beginning of it all. He lives surrounded by books and cats while musing over topics and themes to write about that appeal to his deep set love of all things fantasy and horror. Rebecca Gethin lives on Dartmoor. Her collection A Handful of Water was published by Cinnamon Press (2013) who also published her two novels. She is a gardener, a children’s book seller and runs poetry workshops in Devon. She has a website: www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com, and her Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccagethindartmoor. Phil Wood works in a statistics office, and enjoys working with numbers and words. His recently published work can be found in online publicationsLondon Grip, The Recusant, The Stare’s Nest, Streetcake Magazine, and The Screech Owl. Joanne Key lives in Cheshire where she writes poetry and short fiction. She won 2nd prize in the 2014 National Poetry Competition and has previously been shortlisted for Poetry for Performance, The Bridport Prize, Mslexia Poetry Competition and The Plough Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared both on line and in print. Completely in love with poetry, she writes every day and her work is often inspired by elements of fairytale and folklore. Jennifer A. McGowan obtained her PhD from the University of Wales. Despite being certified as disabled at age 16, she has published poetry and prose in many magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Rialto and The Connecticut Review. Her chapbooks are available from Finishing Line Press, and her first collection, The Weight of Coming Home, was published in June 2015 by Indigo Dreams Publishing. Her website can be found at: http://www.jenniferamcgowan.com. Gareth Writer-Davies was Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition in 2015, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Erbacce Prize in 2014, Highly Commended, Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize in 2013 and 2012. His pamphlet "Bodies" was published this year and is now available through Indigo Dreams.
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Caroline Walton teaches high school English in Central Arkansas where she tries to convince teenagers that poetry is actually cool. She represented Arkansas at the 2013 Individual World Poetry Slam and placed second at the 2013 Arkansas Arts Center Ekphrastic Poetry Slam. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Germ Magazine and NAILED. When she’s not gushing about poetry, she’s gushing about feminism, The Office, or her dog Holden. Kathryn King is a sometime artist and poet living in south-central Vermont. The natural world in all its various expressions is probably her greatest love, and the intricacies of human nature one of her greatest fascinations. She carries a short list in a shallow bucket – mostly it reads, 'Shouldn't you be outside?' Sue Spiers lives and works in Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in South, The Interpreter’s House, The Dawntreader and are forthcoming in Dream Catcher and Under The Radar. On line work has appeared in Ink, Sweat & Tears and StepAway magazines as well as the Poetry Map of Hampshire. She is proud to be included in Hallelujah for 50ft Women, a Bloodaxe anthology edited by Raving Beauties. Kay Buckley lives in Barnsley. She was overall winner of the 2014 York Mix poetry competition. Her poems have been published in magazines such as Antiphon, Butcher’s Dog, Brittle Star and Proletarian Poetry as well as included in anthologies by Paper Swans Press, Pankhearst Press and The Emma Press. Seth Crook taught philosophy at various universities before deciding to move to the Hebrides. His poems appear in recent editions of Envoi, Magma, Gutter,The Moth, Southlight, The Journal, Poetry Bus, Prole, New Writing Scotland, and on-line in such fine e-zines as Antiphon, Snakeskin, and Ink, Sweat and Tears. Andrea Touhig lives in Wales, and has been writing poetry now for over 20 years. She has written for magazines and anthologies, where her writing tends to dwell more on the spiritual and supernatural. She has recently been involved in writing and illustrating a book of poetry and is in the process of writing a novel. Other interests lie in Archaeology which she studied at Bristol University, Roman History and the Classics. Simon Paul Wilson is the author of Yuko Zen is Somewhere Else, End Credits, and has had short stories published in the Pankhearst anthologies, Heathers and Mermaids. He is now dipping his toe into the exciting waters of poetry. Originally from England, Simon travelled to Asia and found a second home in China. Heavily influenced by his time in China, Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand, Simon’s stories often feature kooky Asian girls and ghosts with very long hair. When not writing, Simon listens to post and prog rock at a very loud volume. He also likes to play air-guitar and other assorted instruments. Jackie Biggs is a freelance writer, editor and poet. She has had work published on websites and in magazines and anthologies. Her first collection of poetry, The Spaces in Between, was published in September 2015 by Pinewood Press. Some of her poetry (and other work) appears on her blog: http://jackie-news.blogspot.co.uk.
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Helen May Williams is an Associate Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, The University of Warwick. She is completing an edition of memoirs by her late mother, who worked at Bletchley Park and for E.C.I.T.O. Her poetry has been published in a number of small press publications since the late 1970s, including Hearing Voices, Horizon and Raw Edge, I Am Not a Silent Poet and the collection, Bluebeard’s Wives, Heaventree Press 2007. Wendy Pratt was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1978. She now lives just outside Filey. She is studying towards her MA in creative writing with the Manchester Metropolitan University and a PhD at Hull University. Her first poetry pamphlet, Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare was published by Prolebooks in 2011. Her first full size collection, Museum Pieces is also published by Prolebooks. Her latest pamphlet, Lapstrake, is published by Flarestack Poets. Wendy is the poetry correspondent for Northern Soul, where she writes a regular column called ‘Northern Accents’. She is also part of the womentoring project. She won both the Yorkmix and Prole Laureate competitions in 2015. Irene Buckler is a retired teacher, a person who has always enjoyed making things and teaching others how to make them. Over the years she has written many educational activities and programs. Now that she has the time to explore other kinds of writing, flash fiction are her favourite, because it is a perfect fit for our busy times. She loves the discipline involved in creating a complete story in so few words. Amanda Crum is a writer and artist from Kentucky. Her first novel, “The Fireman’s Daughter”, was published in 2008 as part of her winnings in a novel contest. Since then, she has written three more books and has seen several of her short stories published in magazines and journals such as Dark Eclipse, Blue Moon Art and Literary Journal, and SQ Magazine. Born thirtysomething years ago in southwestern Ohio, Kate Garrett has lived her entire adult life in the UK. She writes poetry and flash fiction, and edits other people’s poetry and flash fiction. Her hybrid fiction and poetry collection Bewitched and Other Stories was released via Pankhearst in August 2015, and her pamphlet The Density of Salt is forthcoming from Indigo Dreams in 2016. In real life she lives in Sheffield, England with a cat, a man-poet, and three trolls who call her “mum”. On the web she lives here: www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet. Buy his book ‘Poetry From The Nearest Barstool’ at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326241036. And also read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/ Amy Kinsman is a poet and a playwright, but mostly she works in a supermarket and violently resists getting "a real job". This is probably best for everyone. She performs regularly at open mic around Sheffield and her work appears in the forthcoming Slim Volume: This Body I Live In (Pankhearst). Find her online at akinsman.tumblr.com.
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Jane Røken lives in Denmark, on the interface between hedgerows and barley fields. She is fond of old tractors, garden sheds, scarecrows and other stuff that, in the due course of time, will ripen into something else. Her writings have been published in many different places, mostly online. Robyn Hemington is an English teacher from Ontario, Canada. She is currently working in China, but escapes the humdrum of an honest day's labor through her computer and creative community at Writing.com. Although her personality is bright and cheery, her shadowy alter ego can't stand rainbows, kittens, or unicorns. Two of her dark writing credits includes "Darling and Morrison", a short story in the Pankhearst anthology "Moremaids", and a poem in The Literary Hatchet. David Callin lives in what he likes to call the Deep South of the Kingdom of the Isles. On a clear day he can see almost everything. He has had poems in The Journal, Envoi, Cake and Prole, among others, and also online in Snakeskin, Ink, Sweat & Tears and Antiphon. Rachael Clyne lives in Glastonbury. Her new collection, Singing at the Bone Tree, concerns our search for the wild self and won Indigo Dreams’, George Stevens Memorial Prize 2013. Rachael belongs to both local groups and the online poetry group, 52 Anthologies: Book of Love and Loss, The Listening Walk. Magazines: Poetry Space, Stare’s Nest, Interpreters House, Domestic Cherry. Collections: She Who Walks with Stones and Sings. www.rachaelclyne.com
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
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Previous Publication Credits ‘Fresh is Best’ by Irene Buckler was a recent honourable mention in the Australian Horror Writers Association Flash Fiction Competiton. ‘The corner grave’ by Kate Garrett appeared as an earlier version under the title ‘Elizabeth’ on Melancholy Hyperbole ezine in October 2013, and in its current version in the author’s pamphlet The names of things unseen (one-sixth of Caboodle from Prolebooks, 2015).
Three drops from a cauldron / Samhain Special 2015
Other Three Drops Poetry publications Available in print Three drops from a cauldron lughnasadh 2015 anthology Forthcoming in print Three drops from a cauldron imbolc 2016 anthology Forthcoming e-issues Samhain Special 2015 Part Two (October) Midwinter Special 2015 (December) Beltane Special 2016 (April) * We are also open for pamphlet and chapbook submissions until 15 January 2016. Visit www.threedropspoetry.co.uk/submissions/pamphlet-chapbook-submissions for details.
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