Tag: creative writing

Ode to a New Journal [7.02.09]

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Like a lover, passionate and familiar;

I will fill you.

Like I have so many others before you.

You give me butterflies.

I think about you

when I’m not holding you open

between my hands.

I miss you

when I’m not caught between

these soft pages

And the rough tip of my pencil.

Are all of you my asylums?

Forming crazy words and ramblings

On tens of thousands of blank pages.

I think I’m held captive in these lines.

My entire life scrawled and thrown down

In graphite and ink blots

For people to decipher.

Sacrifice [3-14-12]

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The eternal love

The last meal

Going into Death’s delicate hands

of love and destruction.

I lay my naked body before you,stretched over the bed

as though it were an alter.

Your blade can swim through my skin

as sharks slice through water.

My flesh will gift you with rubies.

My bare throat catching moans

like small birds in flight.

Witch’s Kit Bag (10-9-18)

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Her gnarled and wrinkled hands, long fingers like spider’s legs, nails like daggers, clutched the black leather bag and its two handles. It had served her well for centuries; larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and only ever weighing hardly anything. It sat aerodynamically upon the tail of her broom and always match her dress. She set the bag down and unclasped its buckle, rummaging through its contents for the supplies she needed for her spell work. It contained innumerable items, both ancient and modern, used for purposes both good and sinister. 


Reference books and spell books and her book of shadows. Crystals and metals and minerals and gems. A portable iron cauldron, a broom repair kit, and charged water from a Solstice. Various bundles and satchels and jars of both fresh and dried, medicinal and poisonous, herbs and plants. Salt and honey and the powdered wood of various trees. Holy symbols and statues and effigies of Gods and Goddesses. Candles of beeswax in every color conceivable. A corn dolly, a voodoo doll, and figures formed of clay. Bottles of ink, and feather quills, and parchment for notes. Ancient rune stones, tea leaves, tarot cards, and a crystal ball. A curved boline, an athame, an axe, and a wand. Burlap sacks, a wicker basket, pruning shears, a mortar and pestle, Alchemist’s refining tools, and grain alcohol. 


These items and so much more. Each one having numerous uses, each one gathered and well-used in her travels. Some fear her, some love her, but most know her work by name. So many years. So many people. So many spells and remedies and ceremonies. Her old hands find each item where it should be, and she lays them out, preparing her workspace, and centering her mind. A witch’s work is never done it seems.

Mummification [10-8-18]

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The sacred ceremony, meticulously documented for thousands of years. Texts of directions and procedures and specific step-by-step ceremonies of tending to the body of the Dead. The long process to prepare the dead, now done with this life, prepared for the journey to the next life. Soul and body would meet again. The Wedjat eye watching over all. The feather of Truth waiting patiently. The priest performing the opening of the mouth. Attending shabtis effigies packed along with worldly possessions. The tomb not a final resting place, only a crossing over, a trip on the journey to the next life.

Perfumes and oils. Resins and linen and medical surgical tools and Papyrus texts. Gold flake paint and incense burners and sacred God-headed canopic jars. Walls adorned with hieroglyphs and burning torches. Natron, layers of cartonnage. Evisceration and embalming, and the mask of a jackal. the heart and the kidneys remain inside. Liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines, and the four sons to hold them; Human, baboon, Jackal, and falcon. washed with wine, and water from the sacred Nile. Sutures and a beeswax ceiling incisions. Amulets carved and imbued with spells. Tens and tens of days of wrapping of the body with anatomical precision. Body cavities filled with aromatic plants and herbs. Eye sockets containing replacements of onions, stone, or glass. Elaborately decorated burial masks made in the likeness of the deceased. 

Farm [1-27-12]

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She rose with the roosters, just before the sun peaks above the horizon, as any farm wife should.

In the early mornings, the small farmhouse filled with the smells of coffee and bacon and eggs frying.

Her long hair braided loosely down the back of her pale colored dress,

The end of her hair touching the place on her waist where her apron was tied.

She stepped lightly and barefoot about the kitchen,

Fresh sunlight and the sounds of waking animals coming in through the open window.

He comes into the room with the sun,

Hair ruffled from sleep and jaw peppered with stubble,

Worn overalls smelling of dust and straw hanging from his squared and load bearing shoulders.

They eat and talk and smile and love.

In the bright of the afternoon she feeds the animals,

Their calls and cries for her from the fences of their fields, matching seemingly to her singling.

Under the high sun, he walks and talks and plows.

His old stocky horses stomping and heeding and dragging the steel plow through the earth.

They sweat and tend and work and grow together;

Woman and man and plant and beast.

I Want [4-4-07]

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I want those country roads that we drove on in a flurry of snow,

My parents talking about moving out of the city,

As they followed timidly behind us.

I want to ride shotgun and hold your thick callused hand,

While we sing to Jason Aldean.

I want that love we had,

As we drove your monstrous red Chevy

To your grandmother’s farm,

Where you said, one day, we’d raise our children.

Coffee Shop Coven [7-27-20]

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I should start a coffee shop coven; girls only, no boys allowed.

We could have themed aesthetic outfits:

Weekends black and gothic and macabre,

Tuesdays and Thursdays for whimsical floral dresses and sun-kissed skin.

Mondays and Wednesdays for battle armor and weapons of war.

Fancy Fridays for formal wear, also known as the

“I poisoned my second husband for his money” outfit.

We could gather and talk and plot and laugh and scheme and cry and debate.

We could meet at midday and dance in the sunlight,

Or meet at midnight and kiss under the full moon.

We’d trace sigils in our cappuccino cream with our spoons,

And build tiny replicas of the pyres they’ll burn us on with our wooden stir sticks.

By day we’d pick herbs and make men love us.  

By night we’d have séances and kill our enemies.

By day the right hand, by night the left.

You need coffee for both; long days and long nights.

Honeybee Sonnet [5-10-18]

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  • Weather is beautiful, the sun is out
  • These two honeybee hives are bustling.
  • They have searched the whole farm, flown all about
  • Their endless work ethic is becoming.
  • They find pollen, nectar, resin, water,
  • Their buzzing can be heard across the yard.
  • Pollinating each and every flower,
  • Flying heavy and crooked like a drunkard.
  • Red orange yellow gold, white and black and brown,
  • These are the many colors of the hive.
  • Ruling them all, a Queen in her golden crown,
  • Millions of years, they’ve known how to survive,
  • Meditation and a calm state of mind,
  • Make these honeybees a friend, and most kind.

Steaming Kettle [7-27-20]

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I gather pinches of the various dried herbs and flowers from their various jars and pouches. My mood today is out of body; distant and detached. I open the tap, filling the fat hollow of my kettle with the cool water of the well. My days have been blending together. I have cravings that can’t be satisfied. I smell my earthy fragrant mixture, stimulating something in my memory. Lavender blossom, chamomile, raspberry leaf, rose hip. Valerian root, orange peel, sage, and mint. Most from my own garden. I need something; a physical touch, intimacy, violent passion, and passionate violence. I watch the honey drip from my spoon and pool in the bottom of my mug, which reads “Pretend this is the skull of my enemy”. Gods what it would feel like to be a warrior again, to know the feel of a man again, and to bathe in blood instead of the crisp waters of spring. I use an old short sword to stoke the embers inside the wood-burner as my kettle begins to whistle and scream. The boiling water in my mug, causing intense clouds of scented floral vapors, the taste of which does something to clear the fog of my mind.