Fall 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 4

While the sky swallowed the whole of light in one slow breath,

the villagers, along with their ignorance,

knelt beside beds made of straw and tiny bones;

outside,

a creature forlorn paced the crooked stone paths

soul-searching, enticing all empty vessels to bewitch, curse,

make good a bad omen.

Others, in dishevelled forms,

collected debts for their devil

while old haggard crones, black cats at their wrong side,

babbled into dark, fiery cauldrons…

Grimalkins with their tails upended, scowled at the heavens,

filled their charcoal eyes

belonging once to fair maidens turned witches,

transforming at midnight,

twisting their bodies into civet-like features, back again

by day’s dawn…

feasted.

Bony, knotted, entangled talons for fingers,

stirring gurgling dark potions into macabre wishes,

malice-aligned feline eyes spying the innocent,

craving,

their sweet-scented flesh –

tasting nightmares mixed with

soft velvety Celosia, screaming out with

delirious delight.

Should one cross your path,

beware…

a hex has been laid, heavily anchored with old Latin words;

see how the mind and body argue against virtues…?

Now forever the victim is vexed until the beast of dark magic

is extinguished, exhausted by prayer,

a fiery ritual to the death…

returning all damnation back to Hecate,

Satan’s beloved pet.