‘Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse/ Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent,/ Farre from the view of Gods and heauens blis,/ The hideous Chaos keepes, their dreadfull dwelling is’ from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. She’s finding the pattern in empty packets of crisps across the living room floor. There’s a river running through a valley between mountains of pizza boxes, a waterfall over rocks of scattered shoes. She’s not going anywhere but here is the world in miniature. One day (soon) she’ll gather it all up, put it on a boat and sail this Italy and the Alps all the way to the tip. Then the room will be the Gobi desert, lizards hiding away during the day but chasing spiders and scorpions throughout the night. She doesn’t feel ready for that yet, adds an empty sweet wrapper. She knows you can’t step in the same river twice, and as soon as the river meets the sea, there’s a reckoning. First she’ll watch how silver foil glints in the midday sun. About the author:
Hannah Linden has struggled with depression and anxiety most of her life. She’s a survivor of multiple traumas, including the suicide of her father when she was a child. Her poetry explores many kinds of impact from mental health challenges and she is particularly interested in the way trauma, and the experience of marginalisation, is explored in folklore and fairy tale, in both negative and positive ways. She has a Northern working-class background but, for many years, has lived in ramshackle social housing in Devon. She is widely published and, most recently, won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, and was Highly Commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky, (V. Press) was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023. X: @hannahl1n
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Beauty is a simple passion, but, oh my friends, in the end . . . —Anne Sexton Do not doubt me. Magic mirrors never lie. And do not try to break me. Magic mirrors never crack. But you will reap the seven years bad luck just the same. Controversial though I am, most of what you see in me is just your own reflection. Yet you are more transparent than you think, albeit rippled. Indeed, I am no omniscient god. On some days, cloudy skies shed no color on the waters. And some pools are murky, bogs heaven-laden with frogs . . . In the end, I could barely discern her, the troubled queen, hidden behind her demon, Arabesque. Lightning strikes where it will. I am but an interpreter of shadows. better a mile in ruby slippers . . . red hot iron shoes About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats.
The poisoned apple was her idea. She shunned her angel side and hooked up with a demon. In scarlet silks she loitered in the cellar, dungeoned herself like the doomed, whorled up frothy potions, cast spells that stained her dainty fingers black and blue. Yet the princess returned with a prince! After that, nothing I said could appease her. She tried to break me, hurling a wine goblet at her reflection. But when that failed-- for magic mirrors never break just as true as magic mirrors never lie—she threatened to toss herself from the balcony. I summoned a premonition into view: her body, warped and twisted in the weeds, devoured by death like Jezebel’s dogs. “What end could be worse than that?” she snapped and locked the door of her bower. a lover all in green-- the hounds smiling About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats.
A road seldom trod takes you somewhere strange. A shooting star, smoking in your hand, lights the woodland path, portends your axe will soon drip blood. Beyond the pine trail bobs a red hibiscus hood-- grasped in her fleshy grip, a wicker basket, wafting freshly baked bread; some would simply huff, “obese.” And yet, you know these miles too well, smell a wolf, suspect his wiles . . . Through the windowpane of the crone’s cottage, a candle flares. You limp forward, confound the old wound, fog up the glass as you peer in. There, mostly covered by a quilt, too, too much hair! That wicked goat! You splinter the door. Your blade flies through the air. Peculiar deliverer, like a fish gutter, so clever, you free her, free her! wood smoke ghosting the tarn hunter’s moon About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats. |
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