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Enter the witches' lair and let them enchant you with their
poetry--
From THE SALEM JOURNAL #1 (former
title):
OCTOBER
by Richard David Behrens
No moon has risen half so fair
as that which through the mist and dour,
Ascends the cold October air;
at this the horrid midnight hour.
Penumtral clouds of vapid gauze
in silence from its secret place,
Reaches out with eerie claws
to mar the beauty of her face.
But, not to be denied her reign,
the Queen of the midnight shy looks down,
Unmoved by the stealthy clouds that strain
to try to wrest her crown.
Her light illumines earth and sky
with oblique and broad diaphanous beams,
While all, who in Death's cold arms lie
are lost within their dreams.
But, something evil must have placed
dark magic in her glistening show,
For every creature she encased
is strangely muted by her glow.
How still the night bereft of sound!
How oppressive the weight that silence pressed,
Upon my body laden bound
which draws but a palsied rest.
The dying embers yet with heat,
cast lengthy shadows through the gloom,
Which once had served as my retreat
and, now serves sadly as my tomb.
The shadows were but shadows thrown,
but there was one which caught my eye,
That cast a shadow all its own
across the bed on which I lie.
Now is the sprawling silence ending!
That muted wave that once did crest;
Transmuted to a pounding pending
pulsing heart within my breast.
The spectre did not move or speak,
but stood within that midnight hour,
Deadly silent, grim and bleak
and stirred my sullen soul to cower.
At length, I did that Shade address:
"Why came thee to my bedstead side,
At this late hour?" (Dare I press?)
"I came for thee!" the Shade replied.
"I came for thee!" he did repeat
over and over, anew and again,
Til the air was charged with his sinister bleat
to dive me very near insane.
Every word that shadow said
flayed my brain til I near screamed:
"Are Thee something to be dread;
or are Thee something that I dreamed up?"
"Illusion or real?" he said, at least,
"things are not what things may seem;
A dream is real in shadows cast;
and reality, friend, is but a dream."
"Are you Death" I asked, "or Shade;
some dark demonic thief to vend,
A recompense for errors made
to bring my life to such an end?"
"Or, are thee Angel from on high,
one glorious in grace and form,
to take me hand-in-hand to fly
above the morass and the storm?"
"Enough of talk!" I heard him say,
"There's nothing further you may gain;
If thou hast a prayer, then thou may pray;
it's time to leave this world of pain."
The shadow darkened and expanded
bleakly filling every crack,
Within my soul til I was branded
with the coldness of that black.
It's then I saw the Shadow's hand
extend to finally touch my own;
He drew me toward a blackened band
which through my bedroom window shone.
The Shade stopped still before the portal,
then pointing toward the dark he said,
"All who enter here are mortal!
None may enter but the dead!"
Thinking this a moment's madness;
spurred by words the Shade had said,
I turned to run, but stopped in sadness
to see my form upon the bed.
"Sir Shade!" said I "It must be so!
(On seeing that shell in silence lain),
Am I to warm in Heaven's glow;
or suffer Hell's eternal pain?"
"Heaven is Hell! The Shade replied,
"and fools as you are much alloyed;
The false saints you created lied;
now step thee deep within the void!"
"Thee sainted evil, sainted greed
and hatred thee did canonize,
And, sought to furnish every need
at the price of the heaven you now prize"
"Thou asks if this is Heaven's gate,
for all the good thou didst commit?
Yes! Said the Shade, "Thy award await!
But thy Heaven lies within the Pit!"
THE SORCEROR
by Richard David Behrens
In an ancient chateau, in an age long ago,
in the darkest of dark midnight hours,
In a circle of white, in an aura of light
stood a Sorceror, of wonderous powers.
Malefic ranting! Nefarious chanting
of anti-liturgical lore;
abusive tirading mid spectres parading
their abhorent forms 'cross the floor.
Some did appear as but blurs in the air;
luminescent, tithe affirmations,
Of the words that he swore, of the powers he bore;
over all of the bleak presentations.
Others there were, more concrete than a blur;
a diaphanous shade they assume;
They came from the mound, they came from the ground;
they came from the grave and the tomb.
Lighting enhancing these spectres' grim dancing
to a thunder unyielding, unbound;
These demons had risen from six feet of prison
in unconsecrated rimed ground.
Midst the hadean gloom of the circular room
stood this Master of dark incantations,
And leading the band, silver dagger in hand,
orchestrated the spectres' gyrations.
His head bore a crepe cap of conical shape
and his robe was of black foreign mien;
It is black that he wore, from shoulder to floor,
on which mystical symbols are seen.
On his face no expression of his mystic profession
but his eyes flash with mystical fire,
As his wavering frame, seems to flicker like flame
to the beat of some clandestine choir.
With waves of his hands the ominous bands
of spectres whirl madly around 'em.
They cannot desist, they cannot resist,
the Sorceror's magic that found them.
Each demon more frightening (framed by the lightening);
frenzied and madly creening,
While the Master invokes with masterful strokes
great lines of obscure mystic meaning.
And then with a wave, slash and stroke of the blade
imposing his powerful careening,
Every spectre and shade ceased their maddened parade;
every form in the room stood dead still.
The Master surveyed all the forms that he made
then uttered, at length, a farewell;
"Get Thee back all Ye Dead! Get Thee back to thy bed!
Get Thee back to Thy mother in Hell!
And then, with a wave toward these forms from the grave
the Sorceror's blade drawn and bared,
He thrust out the blade toward the demons he made
and these creatures from Hell disappeared.
But, a singular Shade seemed to fear not his blade
and lingered in spite of his power,
Then it spoke to the Master portending disaster
and said, "Thou hast met thy last hour!"
Then continued the Shade, "For the errors thou made
thou hast but till the hour of three,
When the dark ground shall split and down to the pit
thee will fall with the others and me!"
"Thee shall suffer forever, for being so clever;
for thy sins have no valid defense;
For the path that thou trod and thy crimes against God,
it is time for thy earned recompense."
Then the Spirit just smiled, in a spirited style,
and slowly dissolved in the thin
Electrified air with a magical flair;
until all that remained was its grin.
And, that grin lingered on, til the Master was gone;
for his fate was not now left to chance,
In the mystical clime, in the pit, for all time;
in the fires of Hell he must dance!
RITE OF AUTUMN
by Richard Davignon
The orange circle
in school windows
proclaim the death of weeds,
the reaping of fat pumkins. . .
soon to be transmuted
into Jack-o-Lantern gods
upon kitchen table altars
by nine-year-old priests
dressed in strange clothing
bearing kitchen knives
and fresh candles.
IN THE PARIS HOME
by John Grey
At the feet of Tituba
they sat, listening,
her black face shining
in shadowy lamplight,
telling strange stories
of the Caribbean Islands,
laughing, exalting, crying,
as the demons in those tales
blazed out of her eyes,
danced across her cheeks,
her nose, her lips.
And at the end of the
story-telling,
she would call back
what she had set free,
gather these devils
in her fat fist,
press them inside her memory,
never realizing that
a little of that darkness
had spilled,
been picked up like a loose piece
of thread by two children
who did not know the danger,
who danced with these serpents
as if they were new toys.
DUSK WITCH
by Wendy Rathbone
I stir dusk brew
Luna-balm for the rising
my recipe becomes
all things of night:
water, shadow, moon
The winds call the bats
from their feasts
from their insect-ringed lamps
The Empire of Night
releases stars
I open the dark
Jackel-guards
line the other land
in rows miles long,
the candle-land
where light is testless prey
The newt comes to play
his eyes naked as
the sputtered wick,
the cold stone
heaven has become
SUCCUBUS
by Gregory E. Harrison
Passion bubbles forth from the dark
pit of the night's belly,
while fragile fingers soothe the surface,
and cold darkness flows through my veins.
The incubus sprouts greedily in the
fertile marches of the mind,
and I am shaken by the dream's
sudden reality.
Strange features of embedded emotions
seem to taint your soft skin
as a love of vendettas grow
out of our impious sin.
Smiling grotesquely, we stalk the hidden
paths of twilight,
and as we succumb to fervent touches,
the shadows of evil seem to fade,
leaving only desire to pour into our
dark, red hearts.
We lie on the ruby petals of roses,
as the sharp, warm thorns caress our skin,
and our crimson blood flows with a vengeance
over the forest's green.
And as our deceitful love subsides,
the night suffocates me into a slumber
of forgotten sin,
and from the coldness of the heavens,
comes the nightmare once again . . .
SHE SPEAKS WITH
SHADOWS
by George Chadderdon
When dusk embraces the autumn sky
With sable, ebon cloak of shade,
She speaks with shadows by and by
Which gather ‘round as twilight breaks.
To lay upon her gentle ear
Their tales of woe and dark regrets,
Of shattered hopes and bitter years
And restless yearning in their breasts.
They beckon her with whispered cries
And silently she listened,
And in her stormy hazel eyes
A dewy tear glistens.
What comfort is her frail form
To such benighted eye.
Her gaze is soft; her voice is warm,
And to her side they fly.
Alas, alas, my fate, alas.
To be a shadow yearning
To walk with her when Dawn awakes,
Her frosty torchlight burning.
But with my shadowed heart I bless her,
Hoping this might bring her bliss,
And sadly wonder as I wander,
Would she take a shadow's kiss?
MORE TO COME!
