A Magazine of Many Arts

Cast out from home
By that jealous gnome
Her father married
When her mother passed on.

Vain and younger,
She kept an oval mirror
In her dress pocket,
Always with her.

Constantly jealous
Of her stepdaughter’s beauty
And effortless warmth
With everyone around her,

She wondered
What it was about Snow,
That inspired so many
To love and protect her.

She tested her theory
By commanding her security
To kill young Snow
And dispose of her body.

But they couldn’t.
They’d known her since
She was a baby, watched her
Grow up into a gentle lady.

So they snapped photos of her
Lying “slain” in red paint
Then smuggled her aboard
A very large container

To an island far away
From her evil stepmother,
Where she was adopted by
A group of old dwarven miners

Who had recently lost
Their own wives and daughters
To a terrible outbreak of influenza
That killed almost all the villagers.

She became their hen mother,
Making sure they had hot food
And fresh water, clothes laundered
And no ants in their cupboards,

While they toiled in the dark mines
Where rats loved to gather,
For ore they could trade to buy
Nice things for their daughter.

They were kind to her,
These fathers she’d always
Hoped for, and now she had
Seven to care for her.

Life was peaceful for Snow
And her adoptive fathers
Till visitors arrived
And one snapped her picture,

Posting it onto social media
Where her face had been tagged
Even before she was a toddler,
Emailing an alert

To her wicked stepmother
Who hired a hacker to track
And locate her, easy with
Location embedded in the picture.

Proof of life confirmed,
She sent assassins after her,
Each thwarted by seven dwarves
With large iron hammers.

They would not lose
This precious new daughter.
They’d sworn an oath
To love and protect her.

So Stepmother disguised herself
As a humble villager,
And travelled in person
To find Snow and destroy her.

She had trained for some years
With a nefarious grandmaster
Who had as few qualms
As Stepmother’s own mother.

She found Snow picking herbs
At the edge of the forest
And sent poison-laced flies
To land on her bananas.

Snow ate while she cooked,
Making shrimp gravy for dinner.
It was Brag’s 80th birthday
And she wanted it to be super.

As the poison worked into her,
She felt a strange numbness.
She fell backwards, eyes glazed,
Fixed on the Big Dipper.

Stepmother leapt with joy.
Snow was dead,
The thorn finally
Out of her head.

She boarded
The next ferry
Before the miners
Could pulp her.

Oh, they were heartbroken
When they finally found her,
In the mud, apples strewn
Like petals all around her.

Dopey, the youngest,
Was a prolific healer.
He gathered some herbs
And proceeded to feed her.

She choked and breathed,
Spewing a black poison,
Thankfully neutralised by
Dopey’s concoction.

Snow healed and lived,
Refusing reprisal.
What would that make them?
She reasoned to her fathers.

So they moved inland
Where there was no reception.
Snow believed vanishing
Was the better option.

One day, Stepmother returned,
Just to be certain. Her mirror
Told her Snow lived, and was
Still beautiful and unburdened.

Thor and Brag were there,
Waiting for her by the harbour.
They’d been waiting there
Impatiently, every day for her.

For them, there was
No such thing as safe,
Not until the enemy was slain.
They seized her when she arrived,

Showed her a picture of Snow,
Happy and alive, before smashing
Her head in with their hammers
And gutting her with a knife.

Snow lived out her days
In that peaceful place
With fathers who adored her,
And animals that loved her.

She never again feared her Stepmother
But for the occasional nightmare
That shook and woke her,
Till she sat up, drenched

In tears and horror,
Pulling out her phone,
Watching over and over
The video of how

Her Stepmother was slain.
Only then could she sleep again.

On the slowly spinning planet Kroz,
there is a plain where
frost builds structures layer by layer
over many years,
in the dark of a decade-long night.
As dawn creeps closer,
the frost forms towers,
delicate minarets,
buttresses that hold up no walls,
cities of the finest fragility.

The people of Kroz pay no attention
to the ice.
Those who live in mine towns
plod through their work, day or night
unchanging.
The bulk of the people,
nomadic dawn chasers,
shuttling between the slow morning’s edge
and necessary locations
deeper into night or day,
avoid the plain
in their peregrinations.
So structures grow unnoticed.

In all the planet’s literature
there is no mention of the frost by moonlight,
no songs of sweethearts meeting there,
no legends or tragedies
of the people who once lived within
or the fate of those who dared to sleep inside.

As dawn nears the plain
everything changes.
The planet stops.
Everyone gathers outside
the circle of frost buildings;
no one speaks,
no one records a thing,
no images of any medium.
no songs to recall the sight;
but with breaths held,
all watch the flash of an instant
as the sun turns the frost
to matrices of light.

Then dawn has come, the buildings gone.
They return to their lives,
and only the fleeting thoughts
of ephemeral art remain.

Her grandmother would nurture them,
teasing them out from beneath stones,
unsnagging them from damp moss.
She’d keep them in her apron pockets,
which were always damp. “These tiny
thingeens are ancient creatures of the sea.
So ye must keep them moist, girleen.
Otherwise they’ll dry out. They’re only tiny now
because their seas have long vanished.
But keep them with you and their seas will return.”

Grandmother kept them safe there in her apron for hours.
Then would let them go again. But before letting them go
she’d hold them on the tip of her forefinger
and lift them up to the sunlight. Then she’d bid
her grand-daughter to look at them. The first time she looked,
she could see that they were transparent under the light,
the inner workings of their bodies like cogs in a machine.
“Mind these thingeens as if they were money,” said her grandmother.

She didn’t really know why her grandmother
put so much importance upon them,
but she trusted her in all things.
That is why she always nurtured them herself,
keeping them safe and moist in her pockets, or else
always had some in her purse or a side section of her handbag.
She came to realise their significance only as she aged,
as she became bent and baggy.

She could feel the sea in her hair,
even though she was miles from any ocean,
and knew that it was the woodlice who bid its presence.
And she could hear waves, ancient as space, crashing all around her.
In time she could hear the woodlice themselves,
their voices like small timepieces ticking seconds.
And seconds that added up to minutes and hours and days and weeks,
and months and years and forever. All of Time was their
conversation, and she listened to every word, until she
was part of that eternal noise. And that noise was creation,
imminent and transcendent. And she knew finally the importance
of minding those woodlice, and wished now that she had someone to tell.

painting: Sitting girl with black apron by Egon Schiele

My witchery awakens
with the rising season.
My winter-faded soul
gains strength with each day
we creep past the equinox.
The earth’s aching
with growth so I tie garlands
into my hair, go dazed-headed
from the light —

In this season
the ground-up remains of road-grit
turn into goblin-dust.
Aeroplanes on a clear star-night
become dragons, scales flashing.
I change too, shed my dull winter skin.

Yes: I see the world
through a witch’s lens.
It’s spring, and I awake. We awake.

Photo by I, Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2590826

By AYArktos – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1043913

Stolen by Nazis,
hidden by priests,
surviving the onslaughts of war
as Warsaw fell around its tomb,
Chopin’s heart, preserved in a jar
of cognac like fruit in a bottle of liqueur,
forebore the years, the visits
of the faithful.

Now scientists amass, eager
as crows on carrion.
Robed in the mysteries of formulae,
perfumed with formaldehyde,
they descend into the crypt,
pry open the vault
that’s played nothing but rests
these two past centuries,
and assail the heart.

A few quick cuts,
the tiniest of samples,
and the organ’s returned
to its jar, the wax resealed,
re-entombed.

What, they wonder,
does it have to tell them?
They ask and ask
but it doesn’t speak.

Chopin’s heart knows but
a single language,
not the one they’re listening for.

It pronounces tender nocturnes
in the glare of the noontime lab,
singing of moonlit emeralds glinting
on Aurore’s unclothed breasts.

The scientists continue probing,
attuned to their test-tubes,
to the samples simmering in chemical soups,
to the percussion of the computer’s beeps.

The heart despairs,
wanders through minor-key impromptus,
a blizzard of sharps,
thunders in angry polonaises
that promise tigers rioting in Montmartre.

By Coyau / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15459524

1. Two tickets to the opening performance of La Terrestrienne.
2. A miniature sarcophagus carved from Denebian chrysoprase.
3. Four silk shirts, dyed in unfamiliar colors and subtly mis-cut.
4. Self-inserting unhemmed wormhole pockets (don’t match shirts).
5. A velvet-lined case containing 3 uncut amethysts.
6. On closer inspection, inclusions in the flawed stones wriggle.
7. A lyre whose frame has bitten all who tried to grasp it.
8. Books bound in scaled skin. All pages are black. Some stick together.
9. An angular brass whistle bearing the image of something like a dog.
10. A pamphlet explaining how to exorcise the thing like a dog,
    once the whistle has summoned it. The last pages are missing
    and appear to have been both burnt and chewed off.
11. A sensory dodecahedron half-full of tourist vidrecordings.
    In the last recording (calm sea, deck chairs, solicitous stewards)
    a whistle is heard. Then there is screaming.

Photo by Bill Bertram – Bill Bertram, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=565917

i hope someday
they develop
artificial
intelligence
because then we
can act like HIM

plug ourselves in
to design a
new world of peace
by piece construct
first the beasts of
land and monsters
of the sea pests
will come next and
birds of the sky

artificial
flesh will be hard-
est to produce
and fingernails
and hair patterns
and different
noses because
they would need to
change for growth to
initiate

square sonar waves
artificial
intelligence
parades started

l33t 5p34king lives
trading market
downloadable
genocide

worship the chip
the motherboard
and connect to
everything with
one single wire

O Cormorant Queen,
long-necked Lady of black plumage,
can you hear me,
so far from the isle of river reeds
and cormorant-crowded estuaries?

Can prayer ascend without voice,
rhythm shriven of melody,
on heartbeat’s punctuation?

Cobalt-glass lamps swing their twilight
beneath silk-tented ceilings,
transforming the tenants of the room
into dreams.
They are shadows, only shadows.
I shift upon my satin couch,
peering at them with a hawk’s regard.

Those puny pink- or brown-skinned men
who visit seeking ecstasy,
quake at my height,
deem the blues of my flesh
—like spillage of tattoos’ ink
without the blanched page underneath—
unholy, alien, animal.

Some worship me
in the way of precious things.
These deposit sapphires at my feet,
carved beads of lapis lazuli,
as if to say without the aid of speech
(believing I can’t comprehend)
we, we are unlike the rest,
we know your worth,
would chart the rivers, gulfs, the seas
of your amazing skin.

Indigo Mystery,
they call me,
the Blue Odalisque.

Seven years ago I washed ashore
with all the other jetsam,
wreck’s relic wreathed in wrack
and my dead captain’s arms.

Loss still tendrils me,
tender as a lover.
When you give yourself to a man
for the spice of his lips,
for wave-green eyes, sand-gold hair,
heaven-blue arms,
you get what you deserve.

I lie.
It was not just for this that I followed him.
He seduced me with his ship,
blue maiden at the prow,
red sails, strong timbers
that creaked with the jolt of the sea
like a bed of pleasures.

Sister of Sorrows,
Daughter of Thorns,
some have called me in their tongues,
believing I still mourn a lover
drowned now seven years.

It’s not his loss that brims my eyes,
leaves me shuddering,
adrift.

Nor is it merely homeland I pine for,
who traversed mountains just to heed
their winds’ secret dialects.

Not even freedom’s loss
drags my lips into their purple frown,
no matter how I long to trade
the stale stench of gardenias for
shores’ brine or hay-sweet meadowlands.

No, it is language I mourn.

Not inarticulate,
merely untranslatable, I—

I could sing the song of the smoke,
recite the epics of the moths of the moon,
chant the ballad of the wine
till my listeners sweated from the sun
that once fell on the vine.

How can I tell my tales?
How can I let my heart be known?
These foreigners lack the grace to make
the subtle shifts of note and vowel,
gesture’s aid to naked speech,
that give Jenaharese its eloquence.

How many secret mornings have I
grunted and stuttered
in a hundred un-blue tongues,
finding their words veinless,
old parchment rubbed dry and torn,
maps on which the lines of
rivers, roads, have vanished.

So I recline,
cloaked in kingfisher feathers
and mute misery.

O Cormorant Queen,
hear these prayers that flutter
to you on frayed wings.
Let my voice dive deep
into my listeners’ hearts.
See me home.

Meanwhile, the waters of Jenahar
still flow in me,
blood’s blue currents
sing the ancient tales for me alone.
I sway, listening inwards.

Understanding dawns in the eyes
of the little sister at the lute.
Her sure, swift fingers
echo the unsung songs
that rise from the prison
of my dusty throat,
from my damp blue body which,
clasped daily by a multitude of foreign arms,
also gives itself to no one.

These letters wait for your return.
I write them when I should be sleeping.
The babies wait for your return.
These letters wait their chance to burn.
The days are full of burping, feeding.
I still have energy to yearn.
These letters wait for your return.
I write them when I should be sleeping.

Sevilla’s eyes all watch the wharves.
Your voyage is this eight-days’ wonder.
Unless it’s New World, it’s ignored.
Sevilla’s gossip floods the wharves:
your name, the risk, what you might plunder.
I hold my breath; you’re sailing foreign shores.
Sevilla’s eyes all watch the wharves.
Eight days.  Eighty.  Now just I wonder.

You’re not the only one with dreams.
Wealth, yes, but most:  stability
and nights of drip-less, arid dreams.
You’re not the only one who dreams:
I want a husband and a family,
a home in Portugal with no view of the sea.
You’re not the only one with dreams
but mine lack waves, crave rock stability.

The streets are flush with orange scent,
evening guitars, lovers out walking.
A young don holds his elbow bent.
The streets are flush with orange scent,
my heart beats faster just from walking.
He talks of gold, and you, and I stop, gawking.
The streets are flush with orange scent,
evening guitars, his footsteps walking.

I’ll find you in the underworld.
I predecease you—and you don’t return.
You nearly circumnavigate the world
but all the roads in hell are curved.
These letters wait for your return.
Was it new?  Or just more same-old world?
Better than my body’s world?
The babies wait for your return.