The Lancashire Witches
by Carol Ann Duffy
(Read by Dan Thorpe)
Check out the official poem written to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials by Britain’s Poet Laureate
Tag Archives: poetry
Magic Words: Nineteen
Magic Words – Nineteen
“With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.”
(Desiderata: Max Ehrmann)
Spellcaster: Five
And the pearly moon
smiled
one sliver of glee as the shell tones
of day-play
dissolved to a smudge
on a fading
horizon of ink.
Then she pulsed to the
spangling
words of –
“So mote it be.”
Spellcaster: Four
Only the roar prevailed
against timely erosions
which puckered
the skin at the edge
of the gnawing ebb,
discharging on the shoreline
its useless,
unwholesome, and dead.
Spellcaster: Three
Peachy clouds shred
the last
veils of shine-time,
draping
their lacy strands
over
violet night’s velvet,
tucking the light in slumber.
Spellcaster: Two
Curled waves
washed footsteps
and melted down sands
into flat unnamed moon dust,
identity
smoothed back to
nothingness
by pre-ordained pulsing.
The Goddess Within
When they thought us wicked, we were really wise
In the Burning Times of world despise,
They named us as tricksters, blamed things dark and worse,
Called cunning and wile a demon’s curse.
Heaven and the Underworld, summoned at will,
Crept on cat-paws to nurture or thrill,
Reading vain futures – balancing humors –
Attending births and healing tumors.
Folklore has always survived the Dark Ages . . .
They’ll never destroy the timeless Sages.
Spellcaster: One
A molten sphere
slid off
the raw edge of evening
like a thumb-spun doubloon
arching the air
before
sinking below denim fields.
Fairy Dust
A few wires –
a leap from reality –
and Peter Pan took flight
through fairy dust
in front of us
on an ordinary weekday night.
And glitter
shone in the eyes of the child
sat there all evening
stock still – grinning –
finger in mouth –
catching his breath and believing
every tick
of the crocodile’s tock-clock,
and each brave sword blow,
walking the plank –
taking the plunge –
without ever needing to slow.
And I ask
myself why the magic is
sham and corrupt,
in failing to
ward off those
pirates of old – our growing up?
(Degrassi Wiki Gif in Public Domain)
Fear
I slid through the gap and into a spiraling whirlpool,
landed inside the gray with a nauseous splash.
Trees stood stripped of dignity, shuddering in the twilight
of winter, naked but broiling with torturous stakes.
As branches drowned in the wake of death their fingers pointed
through ripples pungent with sulfur and blue, bruised blood.
Shock took captive my slipping heart, which spluttered against the
ominous fog creeping in to steal my good eye.
