Witch

[poliphilo]

Witch

 

I dug for the bones

And boiled em up with herbs

And said the proper words

Till the ghost came flitting,

Loose jointed, weak:

I showed him I meant business.

You fetchee and you carry

I said to him with signs.

 

Go to my Lord

Let him not lie easy

Go to my Lady

Poison all she eats

Let the flesh fall from her

Let her daily weaken

Let her lose her baby- and

Be frighted by her glass.

 

No harm, no harm

It’s only crazy Mary

Who lives among the ruins

And was pretty once,

Who buried her poor baby.

Alms pretty lady

(Or you know what might occur)

All for sweet Jesu’s sake.

Comments

[sovay]

Alms pretty lady
(Or you know what might occur)
All for sweet Jesu’s sake.

I like the ballad sound of this.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's sort of what I was trying for. I think we're in the 16th century.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

This is terrific.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Go to my Lady
Poison all she eats
Let the flesh fall from her
Let her daily weaken
Let her lose her baby- and
Be frighted by her glass.


I'm reminded suddenly of a curse my ex-husband often quoted:

May you marry a ghost and
give birth to a kitten.
And may the high king of heaven
permit you to get
the mange.

As for "only crazy Mary," this morning on Our Local Stories ("The Heartland Series," about East Tennessee, a story was told about a crazy woman in the 1800s who wandered around the hills here and frightened children. She had, say old people who remember the story, buried a child and couldn't get over it, so she wandered away and slept outside and wore rags and begged for food at cabin doorways. People told their children that Lizzie would get them if they didn't behave. She slept in the corners of fences, and one night it rained and the rain turned to ice and she froze.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My Crazy Mary is just this kind of a person. I imagine her living in a hovel among the ruins of Hadrian's wall- and popping out to pester passers-by.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've been reading ghost stories again, having found some old books of Kate's that were illustrated by Gorey. He's a delight, with his creepy tableaus--so droll.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ghost stories- and illustrations by Gorey: what a perfect combination.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

I like it- any of your ballady poems about miserable people and magic and curses I seem to like- starting off with of course the Blacksmith's Daughter (is that the title?)

Have you thought about adding a side-bar to your LJ page that could have organized links to all the poems you've written, or at least the favorites? It would be handy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks Mike.

Yes The Blacksmith's Daughter is right.

What I've done is put all the poems in a special file under "Memories". This I think, is the best one can do with the tools LJ provides.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

The problem with that memories tag is it takes some finding. I have to go to your profile then click on the little heart, which has no description of what it is. I thought of a couple of workarounds, in case you're interested- both demonstrated on my old LJ, but both would require you change theme to one with 2 or 3 columns.

1- on the top right you've got your POEMS section, renamed from TAGS. Under this will go a list of all the tagged poems you've got. So you could tag them like you have in your memorable entries, but that would take some work.

2- probably the easier option- add some links to your sidebar, like i have on the left side. At the bottom is a direct link to your poems page. This way people can one click their way to a clearly identified poems section. Also you could put people like me and Al on your 'blogroll' and pimp us to the world regularly- like I've done with your page ;).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm a little nervous about altering web pages- because I don't really know how- but I'll look into it.

Thanks for the suggestions.