F 3.19 The White Lady A_Magician_by_Edward_Kelly

F 1.19. Gancanagh

F 2.19 pe garaffa bottle foot

 

Don’t Raise the Dead (3,19 The White Lady a Magician by Edward Kelly)

Rising from the crypt-
fiery pins and needles rippling up and down awakening limbs,
sky dizzyingly vast, the fresh air aglow like hellfire.

Better to stay dead and molder in the dark,
every inch of home known.

All is confusion, the unrest,
the intrusion on atrophied senses -moonlight blindingly white,
the hammer blow of tromping feet,
cloying odor of sweat and peat.

Better to stay dead and molder in the dark
Decaying all alone.

Memories, long dormant, erupt in a roiling
chaos of flitting images and sensations.
Glimpses of faces, inklings of voices, fleeting motion.
Grief comes alive.

Better to stay dead.

Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen @boscoedempsey

Edward Kelly, Magician (Image, 3.19, Edward Kelly, A Magician in the Act of Invoking the Spirit of a Deceased Person)

He speaks with angels,
raises the dead,
shares the thoughts of a spirit guide,
gold comes with sharing brides.

And what of his wife? And Mistress Dee?
How willingly did they comply? What did they see?

Magic brings him fame and fortune—
wealth accrued through deception,
arcane words and symbols, hands waved
in half-light—
did he believe in angel-language and alchemy,
crystal balls and second sight?

He rises, but he plumets and bleeds,
a man, not immortal,
felled from jealousy, lust, and greed.

-Merril D Smith

I met Gancanagh

I met Gancanagh in Bedford Park
when we were sprites that didn’t know
that doings in the dark could lead
to the Birch Bog or the carpet of stars.

We raised a glass to London Town,
we raised a glass to Ireland
we raised one to the unobtainable
(although he claimed there were none)
and a double for the next poem—
always the best–—the unassailable;
and we went our way
sent postcards once a year
and on into our lives we wrote the rest.

-Dave Garbutt

The woman in white (again)

She always wears white.
No one would see, in the dark,
if she wore black.

And if no one
were to see,
what would be the point?

Can you haunt
someone who doesn’t know
you are there?

Can you frighten
someone who doesn’t know
who you are?

And where does she go
in the daylight, when no one
would notice

her insubstantial transparency,
and waiting for night, how
does she fill up her time?

I wonder if such apparitions
of dead, virginal women
spring from guilty consciences,

only visible to men
who find it hard
to sleep at night.

-Jane Dougherty

Bios and Links

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

Spriha Kant is a poetess and a book reviewer. Her poetry was featured firstly digitally in the “Imaginary Land Stories”, the poetry featured was “The Seashell”. Her poetries have been published in anthologies including “Sing, Do the birds of Spring”, “A Whisper Of Your Love”, “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” and “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry “A Monstrous Shadow” as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” and many other poetries on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com. She has reviewed three poetry books, including, “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell, and “Washed Away- a collection of fragments” by Shiksha Dheda. She has been a part of the celebration for Jeff Flesch’s launch of his debut poetry book “Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow”.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic,  Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press.  Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Website/blog: merrildsmith.com

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art