Three Drops from a Cauldron: Midwinter 2015 (Part One)

Three Drops from a Cauldron

H Midwinter Special 2015 Part One 1 December 2015

H

Three Drops from a Cauldron Midwinter Special 2015 Part One 1 December 2015

H Edited by Kate Garrett

www.threedropspoetry.co.uk

H Three Drops Press Sheffield, England

Editor’s Note

7

Snow Day

8

Kitsune

9

Winter Nights

10

Snow White

11

A New Season

12

Eaters

14

Guy de Retz

15

Snow Queen

16

Pastoral

17

Mother Winter’s Embrace

18

Tug of War

19

Midwinter Cookies

20

Skadi: Water Cycle

21

Pinocchio Dreams He Winters in the Alpines

23

Imagine

24

Solstice

25

The Keswick Stones on the Longest Night

26

Don Whillans Sees the Yeti

27

The Abominable Snow Woman Learns to Speak Human

29

Solstice

30

The Night of the Moonlit Curse

31

Icy Limbs

32

Crystal

33

First Frost

34

Worm’s Head

35

Santa is a Shaman

36

Ice Maidens

37

Visitation

38

Writers

39

Previous Publication Credits

43

Editor’s Note Welcome to part one of our Midwinter e-issue!

Within these virtual pages are fairytales, pagan magic, creatures, ghosts, ritual reverence for seasonal change, lots and lots of snow and ice, and a few ideas about a jolly man in a red suit – most of you have probably heard of him.

Thanks as always to everyone who submitted, the writers in this edition, and of course, to anyone taking the time to read our humble publication.

Enjoy the poems and flash fictions – wishing you all warmth, happiness, and peace this winter.

Kate Garrett Sheffield December 2015

7

Snow Day Snow buried the roads to school.

My colleagues were called: Stay home today buses won’t be bringing bundled students.

Forgotten, I hastened in, sliding down deserted streets.

From on top the hill the school building whispered: Your face is cracked and pink like mine.

In the vacant classroom I scrawled indecipherable equations on the board to break the cold solitude.

Suddenly the bell rang and my heart shook as a swarm of unknown students rushed in fighting for the front row seats.

Dennis Trujillo

8

Kitsune fox spirit Any woman walking alone at dusk or full dark could be a fox spirit.

Any woman, looking at the moon.

Any woman wants a chance to be a fox, wants to tilt her pointed chin up, and scream.

Any woman in the night or dusk or light of day in her den, any woman — when she speaks she cries, when she joins crowds to prowl — any woman the fox.

Sarah Ann Winn

9

Winter Nights Outside the house with its fire-lit room, curtains closed, light leaking from slits, this quadrant of the universe is layered with meanings, as though The Plough were stored above the little stone barn and, to take aim with his bow, Orion with his belt had to kneel in my vegetable garden. A gibbous moon frosts the ground, its gaze searching through the library of stars – their narratives hidden when rain dawns.

Rebecca Gethin

10

Snow White I was not the victim of her travesty so much as my father’s weakness. Each day, year after year, he looked into the eyes of his daughter and was reminded of the woman he loved, gone from this world.

For a short time he was seduced by the promise of the future - new love.

But the distraction of this new marriage was short-lived. His grief rose up again and this time with a new power. His new wife felt deceived, her dreams, like his, poisoned by this unresolved grief.

And in the background, there I was, slowly becoming a woman but still very much a girl, the spitting image of my dead mother.

My new step-mother, much like my father, refused to accept her own grief and chose the distractions of first of vanity; then rage and cruelty; and eventually insanity. As my father retreated deeper into himself, she was left to talk to herself in the mirror with her ladies in waiting, quietly horrified with what their new queen had become.

She justified our murders by telling herself that he was dead already. He could have saved himself by choosing a life with her but he did not. But I was more troublesome for her. She needed to consider my death for quite some time before she was ready. But since I rarely left my father’s side, she decided her soul could not be blamed if I was an innocent bystander.

She poisoned the horses with apples. They were agitated when we stepped into the carriage but we never suspected their hearts were already feeling the effect of the poison. Later, we heard their cries from the carriage as they ran faster and faster down the steep road from the castle, terrified by beating of their hearts, until they eventually collapsed and we tumbled in our carriage down the side of the mountain to the river valley below.

My body came to rest, throat cut from the glass in the carriage doors, heart pierced by splintered wood. The blood emptied from my body quickly into the snow around me. They would tell the story of how they found me that day, my skin snow white, so much like my mother’s, who they buried not long ago. You see it wasn’t just my father who had loved her.

Their grief turned instantly to rage and they burned their new treacherous queen and her mirrors.

But even amidst the ash, the grief remained and all they could do was tell the story. They would tell it to anyone who would listen – sometimes a travelling stranger in the tavern. Each time it was told, they reached further into their grief, generation after generation, and slowly, over time, it transformed. The travelling strangers became a prince, the grief turned to love and the story ended happily ever after.

RMJ Graham

11

A New Season I find you walking in the garden; your hands and face are cold.

I call you in a whisper as you tread a path of stone; in the shadows of twilight, your hair the color of wine.

You’re often drinking wine when you’re sitting in the garden, the froth an airy whisper, the fluted glass ice cold.

We watch the play of light on the statues of broken stone.

I remember counting stones when I’m staying in from cold.

Bits of quartz from the garden; shades of sapphire, sage, and wine.

Outside in the fading light the leaves crackle in a whisper.

You return my trembled whisper, your words are sour wine, as you tell me in the garden that your heart has now grown cold.

My body adamantine as stone My thoughts reel, my head is light.

I weep in the dawning light.

In my mind, memories whisper as I drink from a bottle of wine.

We no longer will count stones that were gathered from the garden.

I shiver from sorrow, not from cold.

Your side of the bed is cold, the blankets may well be stone.

No more verse will you whisper over breakfasts of chocolate and wine.

I close my eyes against the light that is streaming through the garden.

12

Infused with moods of gray-blue light, I’m lost in days of wintry cold where I sip mulled wine and whisper of the once verdant garden that has turned to mud and stone.

Monica Shah

13

Eaters When I ate that mistletoe sprig It didn’t half hurt.

I hadn’t imagined that it would rip stripes reaping my soft pink into tattered ribbons. I did it to impress you and upon you the warming winter notion that I love you more than floating whimsy, melancholic folk forays or phoratoxin ingestion.

That charming sprig was meant for us to beckon time to rest under and share each other’s air.

Stomach now pumped – I’m not so sure.

Next year I’ll eat tinsel to twinkle at you.

That’ll work better, I’m sure.

Caroline Hardaker

14

Guy de Retz (ca. 1404-1440)1 high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress2 1 I was born too late for Acre yet born in time to watch Jehanne d’Arc burn as a cross-dressed heretic.

Cyprus was sacked when I was twenty-two yet there was no counter-crusade to punish the be-skirted Mameluk.

At the age of twenty-six I have become an anachronism: what is there left for me to do?

I wander the labyrinthine corridors, brood over viscous intestines, pace like an angry bull.

2 Now comes autumn with its weeping leaves, now winter bringing scarcity.

Now night falls as the lone candle flickers, now semen stains the solitary sheets.

Now Margot sails turbulent seas to found brave new lands.

Now indifferent and unafraid I, Guy de Retz, strive to catch the ocean storm in a fishing-net.

Helen May Williams

Guy de Retz served under Jeanne d’Arc before returning to his Breton family home. He is thought by some to be the original Bluebeard.

2 Epigram adapted from Leonard Cohen ‘Joan of Arc’ lyrics, Blossoms Of Heaven, Ashes Of Hell, 1998.

1

15

Snow Queen Nothing like Elsa. No long blue gloves could stop the freeze of her touch It gave her a buzz to aim that sliver of ice into my brother’s heart. Warned him twice but he was a dope, wouldn’t be told and once he was in the Snow Queen’s hold he paid no heed to me sprinting after, I was the tiresome kid sister and he was the big man riding North to her glittering home at the ends of the Earth.

I rescued him though. I melted his heart.

I hated it when we were apart.

I keep him close. I guard the key in case she tempts him away from me for even though she brought us sorrow I fear he’d do the same tomorrow.

Carole Bromley

16

Pastoral A pack of black wolves has crossed the frozen lake/ moved like dancers cracking the surface of a stage/ every step closer, a victory over thin latticed webs of the verrilion (the instrument of winter) Not invisible but unseeable (there is a difference) in clouds of ink and chimney smoke rumors: our modest slice of the alleged sunset honorarium invaded We never see them, but sometimes suspect we’re merely looking up as they pass by, how passÊ: to be underwater, no one will ever believe me Last year they ate our only optometrist and have become smoke signals to us now, nostalgic for tarnished soup kettles They have ransomed our little town’s only shoemaker, now we too will go barefoot Nate Maxson

17

Mother Winter’s Embrace Along comes creeping Mother Winter with her crunching gravel shoes crunching ice underfoot.

She breathes a plume of dreams into night air crisp and dark fresh with fair winds.

A blessing upon the land she gives with her frost-lace kisses of quiet and solitude inside.

The reflections of the darkest time opens a window to ourselves opened by Mother Winter outside.

We stare into hot flamed fires and shiver introspectively into cocoa while she watches with ice eyes.

Spider-web caresses crack earth frozen by feeling fingertips lovingly touching our cold hearts.

Danielle Matthews

18

Tug of War An ashen sky signifies the first winter storm looming in the Arctic like a sorcerer’s costume.

Inuit in Nunavik look skyward with mistrust and resolve to sway the weather with a contest.

An elder draws a line in soil with a stone spear – ducks (all persons born in summer) you stand here; ptarmigans (those born in winter) you stand there.

He gazes at the murky clouds and quickly disappears.

Then reappears in moments with a sealskin rope; each team grabs an end of it and tugs and tows until one party pulls the other over to its side.

There’s cheering, loud laughter, some heads bowed.

Ptarmigans win, ducks lose and colder weather will prevail throughout the long northern winter.

Mary Franklin

19

Midwinter Cookies I bake cookies during the first snow and instead of stuck in and cramped, I feel mistletoe-y, whimsical, as I splash colored sugar on my dough and wonder what magic would happen if I sprinkled the candle glowing on the other side of the counter. I decide hastily that it would conjure smoke, or a burnt caramel smell. I might try it later on in the year, third snow perhaps, when Midwinter is over, and I’m left with fading holly leaves and stale cookies. I spill some of the sugar on the floor and wonder if I am supposed to throw some more over my shoulder, like salt or something. My cat is already greedily licking it up, and while weird, not unlike him. I put the cookies in the oven, set the timer. The snow is sticking to the window panes and it looks darker than it should, as if the sun had already gone down, and I’ve lost the day. And maybe this time, I have lost the day, in all the swirls of lights and snow and greenery, but tomorrow, there will be more light, longer light, and I’ll chew on cookies and cheer.

Kim Malinowski

20

Skadi: Water Cycle Skadi scried the sky one day.

Blue was Baldur's beckoning eye, Yellow as yew-wood the young god's hair, The clouds that covered the coming sun.

All the east was ought but gold, Blue below, the boss-shield snow, Was Skadi. Sky-scattered clouds Burned as beauty blazed forth Down the deep snow-drowned ravines, White-hot, whelming, whispering secrets.

She melted, and mickle and mild she found him.

So fair his fire she fain would go, To marry the man, from her mountain home.

He unfroze the ice of her eyrie white, Meltwater he made her, merry on stones, Leaping laughing to the land below: The gardened game-field the gods had made, Where spirits spent in sport were happy.

A new game now, to net a husband, Devised they very valiantly.

So fair of foot he fooled the snowmaid, Niord named, not Baldur, The gods' game gave to her.

The sun she sought, the sea she found.

To the ocean the icequeen overland went, Merged at the margin of her married estate With the salty sea as the sun looked on.

Her tears tended trees of kelp.

With watery waves wove she by day, Niord's net-knotting daughters.

With women wily washed she by night, Niord's nine naughty daughters.

Roamed with Ran to rend a dragon, Long laughed loud jeers At mighty men their maids never Would welcome warm and winningly home.

21

She tried to tear her tears away In making men meet their deaths, A special sport a sport to forget, From Baldur's bright beauty hiding.

But said she, "Sundered from the sun forever?

No more!" As mist, from her marriage-bed At Ran's rim, she rose and flew, Glad of a gull's gift of flight, For Baldur abandoned the briny sea, For Baldur broke in breakers white, For Baldur bent her body up, Climbing coastal cliffs as fog, Sailed from sea to sundrenched air.

Yet the young god yearned she for Too high held his head so bright For a foamy flying maid.

Just one jutting jewelled place, In all the upper air was there Could Skadi skiff with skill and luck, As crystal cloud keeping whole, On land to lie and live all winter, On rock and rowan resting, as ice Spread, for spring to spring her up, Waiting wan and wantingly.

The The The The

craigs and cliffs, kestrel-perches, spire-spears, sprite's castles, groves of granite growing high, meager meadows, less milch than stone,

The piney peaks she pined for strong, Where first she felt the fiery sun, Where last she lived a life of joy, The much-missed mountains of home.

Erin Lale

22

Pinocchio Dreams He Winters in the Alpines Weeks before his first Feast of Epiphany, anise pizzelles begin to line the pockets of neighborhood boys, their waffle print green to a puppet's eye.

Geppetto knows this restless mischief, chuckles about apples never far from trees, and sets to whittling magic only a father can: a shepherds pipe and two new feet, their little carved sandals humble for a caroling yuletide. When Pinocchio sets them both a straw too close to the fire, Geppetto doesn't understand his carelessness. What could be the matter?

His boy was to have ten perfect toes! Exposed from a fine-grained oak. Feet more like his mirror image, feet to go pipping with the other boys like a real boy.

When asked why he did it, Pinocchio prefers no response at all, but instead promises to be good. But lately Pinocchio has been sleeping poorly. Last night he dreamed he pulled a man named Ishmael from the sea. Geppetto chuckled at that: a man swallowed by a whale? Sounds like a man with a lesson to learn, leans in to tell his son of other foreign beings: at Christmas, in England, elves craft Santa's loot for the good boys and girls. Like here? Asks Pinocchio. Yes, replies Geppetto, Like here, no toys for the naughty boys. But the Northerners! Merry on his wine skin, the Italian man erects his fatherly advice, his pointer finger skyward, Much closer and they're worse! And so tonight Pinocchio dreams of Krampus and switches.

How to celebrate what hurts.

Rhiannon Thorne

23

Imagine Her sword pierces the moon.

Teeth dyed black, she ascends.

Imagines a lake on ice, too cold for her puma.

She hurls a storm. Splits earth.

Slices adobe walls of chipped, aqua paint.

Inside, a mother weaves pine needle baskets, lingering scent, for a stranger.

Cindy Rinne

24

Solstice On Midwinter’s Eve we sit around our campfire, two couples in awe of the endless Outback night and its infinite bounty of twinkling stars. Kakadu is a spiritual place.

I shudder, my superstitious core touched by an unexpected frisson of Dreamtime magic.

“Let’s build a bonfire like our ancestors did – to protect us from bad spirits,” I suggest, and everyone thinks it would be great fun.

The surrounding scrub is dry and makes excellent fuel. As soon as our bonfire is ablaze, we break out the whiskey and settle in to toast the winter solstice, but soon our carousing gives voice to old jealousies and secrets best forgotten. The night ends bitterly.

We are subdued in the morning. In bruised silence, we break camp and pack our cars. We drive away in opposite directions, over the ashes of our friendships, the scrub we destroyed and a scattering of empty bottles.

No bonfire can protect us from the bad spirits of our own making.

Irene Buckler

25

The Keswick Stones on the Longest Night Hunched over in the rain that points heads toward the center shoulders and arms rounded as a cradle hands as cups for rattling dice (in the corner a craps game has started) the circle is called to order the agenda announced: trains are to be made to run on time parking spaces assigned the number of crisps in a packet defined. Two stand guard at either end of the circle collecting passwords and handshakes (under the knee with rumps bumping) —the first to greet and let through sunlight upon its return three hours from now. In anticipation thirty-eight get drunk on a five-finger punch of power jostle to next hold the speaking stone and vow reduced waiting at the checkout speed limits on mudslides and cyclones the onset of menopause delayed another ten years.

Tributes to the poor and destitute recited as sonnet or sestina move the group to tears —if only there were more of them to help bury the dead.

They hold rolling races down into the next valley and try to count the number in their circle but the number keeps changing: the luckless are topless (having lost their shirts in a snake-eyed throw) topple over dead while the legless crawl away to sleep it off dream of chasing the local birds heifers and sheep included and wake rock hard.

Charles Lauder Jr

26

Don Whillans Sees the Yeti “I’m not reading that crap. It’s full of fucking faeries.”

- Don Whillans, on Lord of the Rings.

If you weaken, they will bury you – and thus, they bury each of us in time; under snow, under age and under whiskey.

This much you already knew by that night at Machapuchare under the moonlight that lit its shape as it went: four limbs in the drifts and moving at pace into the distance.

Whillans, you saw the yeti.

You swore you saw it go until your dying breath.

They weren’t there.

They would not wait, too ready to shuffle back down the paths they had picked for themselves, to base camp, thinking they were conquerors and you were mistaken of a bear.

And yet with all those letters bestowed upon them after every public school boy surname it is you the mountain chose from amongst them to spy the sight within the glass eyes of your binoculars.

You hadn’t felt the wind rise like that since those days back in the moors when it flirted about the peaks and stole your cap away as its keepsake of its time with you.

But those were old hills and these ones are new, yet to be worn by the passing of eras and fuck it, all you’d ever wanted was a fight you couldn’t win and uphill battle that didn’t end and disappoint, that never eyed you so curiously, half-surprised, extended well-meant praise until blind with drinking you saw it revoked in the newspapers, which said you’d been a villain all along.

27

But you always knew that men could be wrong from one foothold to the next and plummet downwards faster than any ascent would have seen them go.

Coming down was just as hard as going up, this much they would all forget and here was the summit, the pinnacle of all achievement you had dreamed back in your days in Salford in your plumber’s uniform.

The yeti, glimpsed as but a shadow through the falling snow, heard as just a bellow in the thinness of the air, captured in your memory for just a bare moment.

Whillans, you never scaled such heights again and when the time came for burying, you chose it under whiskey.

Amy Kinsman

28

The Abominable Snow Woman Learns to Speak Human In the beginning, she starts to talk of human things, uses their words as toothpicks, icicles for eyeliner.

Later on, she sings to their bodies, cries over their wedding rings, stripped bones.

Her man says she must keep the language of snow - its blank face, word blindness.

He says she must stay a simple, silent, glimpse in the distance. Her man tells her night tales of those monster folk, but she has emptied their backpacks and suitcases. She has read their baby pictures and dictionbooks.

She has eaten their tongues. On cloudy days, she files her claws, combs her white fur with a human hand. Some days, she paints herself into Little Red Amazinghood.

She can't tell him how reality slides down her bare walls when his eyes are frozen shut, or that every sunrise slips a harness over her shoulders so she can pull a sledge of her parts behind. She doesn't know how to say there are pieces of herself she can't name. He has many names: he is Wild Man, Man Bear, Snow Man, Yeti.

She has nothing for herself, only the possible Ava Lanche. Nothing can clover this abomination. She devours another book.

She must make her own way to say how it is and translate her topsy hybrids into light so she can illuminate the painsleigh of a snowife, the constant howl of bonespit, the split and meltdances of life. And the lipgames she must serve to the mountain every time she is inches away from a whiteout.

Joanne Key

29

Solstice Christmas week in a Dublin clinic, shrivelled leaves scrunch under tentative feet, Silent Night is playing.

Over the years - ancient potions, herbals, fertility rites melodious prayers inviting miracles from Brigid.

Mother’s faith in the sacred heart becomes unbearable Light is ebbing, tests are done, I can go home a consultant’s calm nod and steady eyes tells all.

Walking in soothing rain, drops brimming like tears of light on austere branches.

I notice the sun has gone.

Rona Fitzgerald

30

The Night of the Moonlit Curse Somewhere between the Harvest Moon and the Winter Solstice, Poppy fell mortally ill. It was the only time of the year she would be vulnerable, and there was only one cure. Draped in a red cloak with a hood that would shadow her sunken eyes, black as coal, she set about to grandmother’s house. There, she would find all the magics and herbs she required. Like every other year, Poppy dragged her aching body through the woods. Three miles would be an arduous journey in her condition, but she could not afford to put the trip off any longer. The train would have been quicker, but it was too dangerous. It was important that Poppy stay away from the general populous until she was healed.

A mile later Poppy’s knees grew weak and the insatiable hunger she so feared began to creep up her throat. Stopping to rest, Poppy leaned against a large oak tree, and nestled herself into the snow. The cold seeped into her bones, easing her temperature. The frost buried itself inside of her, numbing the pain (or distracting her from it). Poppy let her eye lids fall shut and tried to let the quiet of the night soothe her. But it was no use; in the distance she could hear the flapping of a crow and the hoot of an owl. Her eyes shot open, her fever spiked, and a gluttonous yearning overwhelmed her from head to toe.

Afraid of losing control, Poppy sprung to her feet and continued her trek.

She was careful to direct herself away from the temptation, even if it meant adding another quarter of a mile to her route. Hurrying now Poppy tried to ignore the increase in her heart rate, and her heightening of sense of smell.

Another mile later, Poppy could feel a tingle under her skin. She recognized the sensation, but it had been many years since her curse had gotten this far.

Panicked, Poppy focused on the sound of her heavy breath and on the sight of the warm air releasing itself from her lungs and into the crisp night air. The aching was deep inside of her now. Hugging a tree trunk for support, Poppy heaved forward as her skin burst open to reveal her true self. Her teeth grew, incisors extended and sharpened. Her nails lengthened and thickened until they were strong enough to rip into the tree itself. Soon, her paws would be the size of her head. Her body wrenched backwards and forwards as the transformation continued, filling her with excitement and desire.

Under the moonlight, Poppy was made a wolf. The curse complete, the cure too far away, she took off on all fours to find the flap and the hoot. Perhaps on her way, she’d find something more satisfying.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen

31

Icy Limbs Just north of December, a howling gale – biting and frosting and warping the pale metal of erected street poles and car doors. Of sapphire ice and elongated sinister fangs forming conspicuously on eavestroughs; of sidewalks slick and gleaming like a marble wet with the mornings dew. A storm has come and with it rides the harsh, taunting chuckle of deep laughter.

Frozen felt and stiff archaic leather. Skin pale and numb – eyes great and white and peering out from behind ice sheets that tinkle with alchemy. Hair black and smooth. A taunt; a jest; a call for the children to come out and play, and slide and freeze.

Frost covering all; gnawing and crystallizingbranches growing transparent limbs, and the trees moan with sharp agony. His laugh, clear like the ice, echoes and bounces and rides freely on the wind.

Matthew Laing

32

Crystal This song caught up in the back of my throat this little human song I cannot express, how can I release it where… when and why let it out for the yell of yellow orange red leaves on the pavement?

Our garden redbreast sings in a new season and I’m in a town such as this, a bright for winter already place, where the voice of a choir rings down the street.

In my shop I arrange crystal skulls, set tiger’s eye next to copal - young amber, consider lapis lazuli, held to be good for the voice.

Susan Taylor

33

First Frost Frost giants once ruled the tundra; now only fair Jรกrnsaxa remains. She occasionally devours a reindeer from my herd, but keeps the wolves at bay. When she awakens, I will ask her to marry me, come the first frost.

C.R. Hodges

34

Worm’s Head Silent creature of the sea, Stagnant, monolithic, free.

Crocodile in sleeping state, hypnotic ruler of ghostly gait.

Aberration of natures soul, born out of a serpent’s icy hole.

Loch ness monster "Arise to me!

Prisoner rise up from the sea" watching, waiting, baiting, breathe...

Among the sheep and shepherds grow green fields of carpets dust in snow.

What planet, place of death is this? of lush green lunar escapist.

Beauty hides its deceitful face while fantasy mocks and takes its place.

As sirens lull with sleepy eyes I'm drawn into this world of spies.

Floating in a sea of dreams, and lost amongst the rapid wings...

Andrea Touhig

35

Santa is a Shaman Santa is a shaman when he rides across the sky, his reindeer totem animals that carry him on high.

He wears a cloak of feathers for all the stories he has told each one a tale that's full of wonders to behold.

Santa is a shaman when he beats upon his drum he beats a rhythm round the world, and all the children know to come.

The animals of icecap, tundra, wilds, and northern climes awaken at his presence through all the seasons and the times.

He brews a magic potion that gives him the power of flight and he can circle round the world entire in the span of a single night.

He has travelled out beyond the moon, beyond the shining stars and measured universal limits that lie beyond the powers.

Santa's been to planets where the winter never comes and there the alien creatures have never heard of drums.

But when he beats a dancing beat those wild, wild creatures can't stop their feet.

Those creatures make their own wild noises some bleat - some crow - some speak in voices.

Some stamp their paws, some paw their hooves some wrap their tentacles up in grooves.

Santa is a shaman when he's been to many worlds and every world he goes to he brings gifts for boys and girls.

T.J. O’Hare

36

Ice Maidens We herald the advancing freeze: invisible, though keenly felt, we weave our song upon the breeze.

We bring the Summer to its knees.

Pale Spring? Red Autumn? Long-since knelt, a herald of advancing freeze.

We whistle through denuded trees, through frosted forest, blasted veldt, and weave our song upon the breeze.

From glaciers to berg-locked seas, an ever-strangling icy belt – the herald of advancing freeze.

A vanquished force, the Sun-disc flees and leaves no hope – no thought – of melt.

We weave our song, still, on the breeze.

As Winter's crystal fingers seize a world where warmth and light once dwelt, we herald the advancing freeze and weave our song upon the breeze.

Sarah Doyle

37

Visitation A flickering woke me from half-trance a Solstice candle left burning now a coil of flames snakelike, silver paint peeling, reeking smoke, crone fingers reaching. I had to snuff her out rapture giving way to fear like autumn to winter, light to dark. I turned on the lamp the room full of clouds.

Now the windows are gaping the summer fan spinning the night after Yule sending silver smoke sliding out across the snow.

Shannon Connor Winward

38

Writers Dennis Trujillo was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. He had a twenty year career in the US Army followed by a fifteen year career as a middle/high school math teacher. He now resides in Korea and is employed at Shinhan University in the city of Dongducheon. He runs and does yoga each morning for grounding and focus and for the sheer joy of it.

Sarah Ann Winn’s poems have appeared in Entropy, Hobart (online), Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, and Quarterly West, and in her chapbook, Portage (Sundress, 2015). She’s been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Her chapbook, Haunting the Last House on Holland Island, is upcoming from Porkbelly. She has an MFA from George Mason University, an MLS from Catholic University of America, and is currently a free-range librarian in Manassas, Virginia.

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 bookseller, and runs poetry workshops in Devon.

She has a website: www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com, and her Facebook page is: www.facebook.com/rebeccagethindartmoor.

RMJ Graham is an unpublished writer who has just recently let herself fall from the nest to see what could happen, and she's letting you in on the secret. People who know her and pass in and out of her life each day would be surprised if you told them she's a writer. For now, you're the only one who knows and hopefully you'll find a bit of magic in her secret.

Monica Shah was born in London and grew up in various small towns in the UK, Africa, India and North America. So it’s no surprise she embraced the fairy tales of all cultures, certain that English pixies consort with Persian peris and Incan huacas. Her writing often dwells in the juxtaposition between identity, culture, myth and nature. Her poetry has occasionally appeared in small press publications and sometimes even in her journal.

Based in the far north of England, Caroline Hardaker is a bard, storyteller, artist, poet, and philosopher. Her reflective non-fiction work has appeared in print in magazines and e-journals, and her fiction writing has appeared here and there on stage and online. She is currently writing and illustrating a collection of poems based on mythological and fantastical creatures. You can explore Caroline’s artwork via knittynudo.wordpress.com and knittynudo.etsy.com.

Helen May Williams is Associate Fellow in the Department of English, University of Warwick. Her poetry has been published in numerous small press publications, including Hearing Voices, Horizon, Raw Edge, Roundyhouse, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Three drops from a Cauldron, Allegro and the collection, Bluebeard’s Wives, Heaventree Press 2007. Her poem, ‘Vix Princess’, received a 39

special commendation in the Welsh Poetry Competition 2015. helenmaywilliams.wordpress.com Carole Bromley is a teacher from York. She has two pamphlets and a collection from Smith/Doorstop and a second book, The Stonegate Devil, was released in October 2015. Carole is the stanza rep for York, blogs at www.yorkmix.com and from October will be running poetry surgeries in York for the Poetry Society. Her website is www.carolebromleypoetry.co.uk Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. He is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently "The Age Of Jive" and the forthcoming "The Whisper Gallery". He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He discovered poetry as a boy the way other people find religion of drugs and hasn't looked back since.

Danielle Matthews is a published writer from Manchester, UK, where she lives with her books, and they're all very happy together. www.facebook.com/daniellematthewspoet Mary Franklin has had poems published in print and online in Iota, The Open Mouse, Ink Sweat and Tears, London Grip, Message in a Bottle, The Stare’s Nest, Three Drops from a Cauldron and various anthologies. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Kim Malinowski earned her BA from West Virginia University and her MFA from American University. She is a current student of The Writers Studio. Her work has appeared in Mythic Delirium, Melancholy Hyperbole, and forthcoming from War, Literature, and the Arts, as well as others.

Erin Lale is the author of Asatru For Beginners. She writes the Pagansquare blog Gnosis Diary: Life as a Heathen. Her latest book is No Horns On These Helmets.

Rhiannon Thorne's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Midwest Quarterly, and The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. She is the managing editor of cahoodaloodaling, a book reviewer at Up the Staircase Quarterly, and an editorial intern for Sundress Publications.

Cindy Rinne creates art and writes in San Bernardino, CA. She is the author of spider with wings (Jamii Publishing), Quiet Lantern is forthcoming (Turning Point), and she co-authored Speaking Through Sediment with Michael Cooper (ELJ Publications). Her poem, “Mapping” was nominated for the Liakoura Award by Pirene’s Fountain. Her poetry appeared or is forthcoming in Naugatuck River Review, Zoomoozophone, Eternal Haunted Summer, and others. www.fiberverse.com 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 is her favourite, because it is a perfect fit for our busy 40

times. She loves the discipline involved in creating a complete story in so few words.

Charles Lauder Jr is from Texas and now lives in the UK. His poems have appeared internationally and his pamphlet Bleeds was published in 2012 by Crystal Clear Creators. He is the Assistant Editor of The Interpreter's House.

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 Slim Volume: This Body I Live In (Pankhearst). Find her online at akinsman.tumblr.com.

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.

Rona Fitzgerald was born in Dublin and has been living in Glasgow for 20 years.

She is a member of the Federation of Writers (Scotland). She was the featured poet in the Dublin based literary magazine, The Stinging Fly in July 2011. Her first pamphlet Oidhreacht/ Inheritance was published in December 2012 by Perjink Press. She has also been published in a number of anthologies published by New Voices Press from 2011-2015. In April 2011, she was one of the four winners of the Lonely Voice short story competition organised by the Irish Writers Centre.

In 2013, she was a finalist in the Glasgow Women’s library competition, the Dragon’s Pen competition. In 2014, her poem ‘Mammogram’ was included in ‘The Wait’ Poetry Anthology, By George Sandifer-Smith. 2015: her poem ‘Nocturne’ included in Scottish Book Trust publication Journeys.

Shyla Fairfax-Owen is a tech writer by day and a creative writer by night. Her interest in speculative fiction and dark narratives drove her to pursue a master's degree in the Arts, for which she specialized in Horror. She now has two publications and frantically posts her flash fiction on her website beyondthethreshold.co.

Matthew Laing lives up north in Canada's barren winter wonderland, and writes poetry and fiction for enjoyment. He has had poems published by Three Drops from a Cauldron, The Literary Yard, and by Bewildering Stories.

Susan Taylor lives on Dartmoor and tries to capture its wildness in her poetry as much as ever she can. Her two most recent collections are The Suspension of the Moon and A Small Wave for your Form from Oversteps Books. She co-edits South West poetry journal, The Broadsheet with Simon Williams and runs Café Culture, a monthly cabaret of spoken word and music in Thrive Café, Totnes.

C.R. Hodges writes all manner of speculative fiction, tales of ghosts and Martians, dolphins and Valkyries. Fifteen of his short stories have been published in markets 41

such as Cicada and EscapePod, and he is the 2015 winner of the Pikes Peak Writers Zebulon Fiction Award for urban fantasy. When he is not writing or playing the euphonium, he runs a product design company in Colorado.

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.

T.J. O’Hare writes short stories, novels, song lyrics, poetry, plays and film scripts.

His novel “Amnesiak: Blood Divinity” is at www.smashwords.com/books/view/260414. He co-writes with many musical collaborators, including Edelle McMahon (check out her performances on Soundcloud). He has songs on Brigid O’Neill’s EP Arrivals & Departures, (brigidoneill63.wix.com). His plays have been staged in Northern Ireland and Belgium. He is married to Jean, and has two grown-up sons. He lives in Northern Ireland.

Sarah Doyle is the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s Poet-in-Residence. She has been widely placed and published, with her first collection, Dreaming Spheres: Poems of the Solar System (co-written with Allen Ashley) published by PS Publishing in autumn 2014. Sarah co-hosts Rhyme & Rhythm Jazz-Poetry Club at Enfield’s Dugdale Theatre. More at: www.sarahdoyle.co.uk Shannon Connor Winward’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Pseudopod, Gargoyle, Pedestal Magazine, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, Eternal Haunted Summer and Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, among others. Her fiction placed in the semi-finals of the Writers of the Future Contest, and as a runner-up for an Emerging Artist Fellowship in Literature by the Delaware Division of the Arts in 2014 and 2015. Her poetry chapbook, Undoing Winter (Finishing Line Press, 2014) was nominated for an SFPA Elgin Award.

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Previous Publication Credits ‘Pastoral’ by Nate Maxson was first published in Damfino Press, and is forthcoming in his collection The Whisper Gallery.

‘Skadi: Water Cycle’ by Erin Lale was first published in Mythic Circle #18.

‘The Keswick Stones on the Longest Night’ by Charles Lauder Jr was originally published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Issue 11, 2007.

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