Month: October 2021

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A World

 Today’s poem is a double golden shovel using two lines from “The Witch” by Elizabeth Willis. 

A World 

a spell is a spell 

a witch is a witch 
she has potions – makes what has 
been her family’s magic 
known throughout the world 
to ward off fear of heart in those who 
cry – the very air of sadness goes 
out first, then 
while she stokes the fire 
her heart warms, then her 
husband reaches into the 
places remote as the planets 
inside of 
her, dry as cardboard, kisses 
the life back in, then his 
image (not in ink but) 
of heartlight beats with hers, then 
a miracle happens – a conceived
child becomes their compass
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Opinions

 Opinions

she flies on a broom and 

will wear a witch hat – you 
know she may make 
things appear or take what 
she wants…if the witch 
has a shadowy form but is 
not real, she is not of the 
seen realm – a possibility 
with every black cat, as 
her spirit in the yellow 
eyes shows her order…
she transforms to one who 
will sneak up and 
have her way into the 
opinions of others – a gift 
about witches often good but 
distant from man’s views of 
cities – unlike his death chamber
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A Coven

Today’s writing is a double golden shovel poem taken from two lines of Elizabeth Willis’s “The Witch”



A Coven 


Isn’t Salem a coven? 

There a witch feels 
something she desires – a 
witchlike wind known to stir 
about the streets. Walk
a block there – rather like a
sleepwalker, more enchanting than one who can’t be charmed, who 
wanders as if carried 
through the village or flown on 
the broom or cart-pushed into the house, taken in by those 
with magical powers – a spell that
matches a levitating cart! 
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Hour of Kitten Prayer

 


My first-ever quintuple Golden Shovel poem, written from 5 vertical 16-word lines of Elizabeth Willis’s “The Witch” (lines emboldened in order).


Hour of Kitten Prayer 


The hour when the black cat appears –when a 

happiness glows on a green skin of a witch 
of Salem, a witch of magic, a witch who may smile 
an hour, who desires a kitten – is the hour to cry 
entire buckets. Something real – hungry, out behind the 
house, prowls beside that witch. She sharply 

may turn. Is this what makes her throw a can at it? 
Be not a stalker – make the night not 

ruined as hers hinges on so delicate a sight

by moonlight. She is binding sticks to make a soup of fish! 
Witch love will hold tight for a kitten by a 

hair on her chin, slip a stirring feeling known 
as touching hearts. It flows like a book of water, criminal 

a word stretching into realms of heartache with dying 

metal cat statues her common ailment, her glimpse of 
cross bearing, a glove of prayer in her hand, quenching her kitten thirst. 
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Change of Heart

 A Double Golden Shovel written from two of Elizabeth Willis’s lines from “The Witch”

Change of Heart 

A frog in an empty cauldron 

(witch as judge and executioner) 
has no route of escape that may have been possible to find, even if
known before the capture – but 
to throw his green body around and 
weep in the language of frogs 
at the thought of a fire under 
the pot is more than a witch with 
sight can endure. Her insensitive way
of evil overcomes her to release
her captive amphibian in an instant,
own her mistake, upturn the iron so the
child, back from frogdom, can spike a win
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Double Double Golden Shovel

 


Today’s writing is a double golden shovel poem using two lines from Elizabeth Willis’s “The Witch.” Lines are emboldened vertically. 

Double Double Golden Shovel 

with herbs and frogs she concocts

a potion which may at first 

glance appear soupish ~ then 
she will call to powers that 
will not be weak but will 
make her stew an acting agent,
rancid only in deed ~
the enemies of a witch sip 
fresh hell from silent spoons, 
butter creamy film residue 
of wickedness from whose actions 
her spell placards exacting
righteous evil are cast upon her
neighbor who soon goes missing….