Ooh I like this idea. Alice Godliman has a book that are all poems / spells and it’s so wonderful I know I will just think ‘oh this isn’t as good as Alice’ if I try.. but I may !!
A list poem feels very unsatisfactory for this unbelievably huge topic but it helped my brain a bit :) Thanks for the prompt Nelly. Hope half term went well xx
The box
Has channels
Tells a vision
Who is owns it
What vision do they tell
What narrative do they spell
The algothithms
Artificial undulations
Like drumbeats of AI cauldrons of dark magic
I command all that is not of Divine Love to be unspelled
All that distorts to be untwisted
I command that all humanity has access, easily, readily and joyously to their innate sovereign divinity!
So be it. So be it. So be it. By the power of three, a perfect trinity. It Is Done.
Was that one you’d already written Alicia? This is so good x
I wrote it just for your prompt! Happy freedom from all that is not divine love! <3 <3 <3
So good!
<3 Thank you
Ooh I like this idea. Alice Godliman has a book that are all poems / spells and it’s so wonderful I know I will just think ‘oh this isn’t as good as Alice’ if I try.. but I may !!
Resists urge to look up said book, if you don’t write your own pls can you share one of hers next week? X
I only just read this post and had exactly the same thought 😂❤️
There's Carol Ann Duffy's poem about the Pendle Witches
‘The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy
One voice for ten dragged this way once
by superstition, ignorance.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,
daughter of such, of evil faith;
in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.
Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,
over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.
On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.
From poverty, no poetry
but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;
sharp pins in the little dolls of death.
At daylight’s gate, the things we fear
darken and form. That tree, that rock,
a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.
Something upholds us in its palm-
landscape, history, place and time-
and, above, the same old witness moon
below which Demdike, Chattox, shrieked,
like hags, unloved, an underclass,
badly fed, unwell. Their eyes were red.
But that was then- when difference
made ghouls of neighbours; child beggars,
feral, filthy, threatened in their cowls.
Grim skies, the grey remorse of rain;
sunset’s crimson shame; four seasons,
centuries, turning, in Lancashire,
away from Castle, Jury, Judge,
huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no grave;
only future tourists who might grieve.
https://open.substack.com/pub/angedisbury/p/antidote-potion-to-the-spell-of-patriarchy?r=2qii2&utm_medium=ios
A list poem feels very unsatisfactory for this unbelievably huge topic but it helped my brain a bit :) Thanks for the prompt Nelly. Hope half term went well xx
<3 <3 <3
Not about witches, but close. Just added a Hallowe’en-themed story – check my Substack. 👻
I'll take your invitation, sounds fun! Here's my take on a spell:
-
YOU'RE GONNA DO GREAT
Lavate las manos, kiddo, it’s time to get to work.
We have some things to take care of today,
And you’ve never done them before,
But that’s okay,
Because I’m here, and my toolkit is amazing.
-
Let me see your palms:
Show me your experience, please.
Without a common understanding,
We cannot proceed.
I work only with the brazen.
-
A cauldron is what you make of it:
Where do you do your work?
Today, we’re potioneering in my lab,
But maybe next time,
We can join forces at your place.
-
Good spellwork takes longer than expected:
We have some time to tell stories before the boil.
What witch-road led you to my door?
You’re under no obligation to share,
But an old woman loves tales.
-
It takes four hands to stir the brew:
Yours are strong and unlined, unsteady on the broom,
While mine show the marks of mistakes made,
Scars moving surely through the steps,
Showing you the way.
-
I’m glad you came to my door.
You should always knock until you find what you need.
Take whatever you require for the journey, kiddo.
You’re gonna do great.
So obviously there is Shakespeares 3 witches from Macbeth. And I rather like that.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
I rather like this prompt, it will fit some of those snippets I have rather a lot of!