Tag Archives: trees

A Spell in the Woods by Stella Wulf

13 Friday Nov 2015

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A Spell in the Woods

Wych elm, elder, aspen, oak,
badger’s hideout, hedgepig’s poke.

Dogwood, hawthorn, cherry, birch,
woodpeckers larder, roe deer’s church.

Blackthorn, alder, rowan, ash,
blackbird’s nest egg, squirrel’s stash.

Holly, hornbeam, hazel, yew,
hedgerows, meadows, bird’s-eye view.

Chain saw, bulldozer, open sores,
Tesco, Pound World, British Home Stores.

 

Stella Wulf lives in South West France. Her work has appeared in The Screech Owl, Prolebooks, The Stare’s Nest and Message in a Bottle. In 2012 she won third place in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly poetry competition. She is currently studying towards an MA in Creative Writing with Lancaster University. She is also an artist and her work can be seen on her website: http://www.stellawulf.com

In want of a relaxing countryside walk by John Alwyine-Mosely

03 Saturday Oct 2015

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In want of a relaxing countryside walk

I saw a horse today,
nothing strange about it.
Chestnut, with white patches
and the usual four legs,
not even the head and
body of a man.

I never understand why they can’t wear vests,
the centaur, not the horse that would be silly.
A string vest on a horse
makes it look like a haggis.

Alongside the horse,
the tree, an elm, stretched out
with the arms of a woman,
a young woman that made each
wave of a hand her tears
for the face was hidden by bark
and could not show
what was warmed by morning sun.

This was distressing
for if trees suffered as this
then what pain grows
in flowers and grass?

A walk on a summer’s day
is only pleasant and fine
because we never look
for the arms stretching up and out to the sun.

Perhaps, if the chestnut horse
had been strange with a man’s chest
in or out of a vest
I would not have lost
my solitude.

 

John Alwyine-Mosely is a poet from Bristol, England who is new to poetry but not to faeries or myths. Recent work has also appeared in Stare’s Nest, York Mix, Clear Poetry, Nutshells and Nuggets. Ink, Sweat and Tears, Street Cake, Screech Owl, Abbreviate Journal, The Ground, Aphelion, Uneven Floor,The Lake, Morphrog and Yellow Chair Review.

Dryad by Seth Crook

14 Sunday Jun 2015

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Dryad

This forest is the only church I have.
Nothing numinous is elsewhere.
Beyond these branches
I feel no shudder to the tap root.
Only simple fear.

Not here.

Look around, it is the twist of trees,
roots exposed,
everything slow dancing with the shadows.
Most of all it is the smell,
of death and life in one;
as though fall and rise are just two directions,
rot only a paradise for mushrooms.
There is nothing above the world, or below,
I know. But something huddled holy by the side.

 

Seth Crook taught philosophy at various universities before deciding to move to the Hebrides. His poems appear in recent editions of Envoi, Magma, Gutter, The Moth, Southlight, The Journal, Poetry Bus, Prole, New Writing Scotland, and on-line in such fine e-zines as Antiphon, Snakeskin, and Ink, Sweat and Tears.

Elder by John C. Nash

15 Sunday Feb 2015

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elder by john c nash

 

John C. Nash finally settled down as a self-employed bookbinder and writer in Northampton, England. His poetry has been published in various magazines including Antiphon, Cake, The Delinquent, Verse Kraken and Lighthouse . He co-edited the anthology ‘Making Contact’ for Ravenshead Press and is currently working on a collaborative project with the photographer Sam Webster.

The Elder Tree Woman by Suz Winspear

31 Saturday Jan 2015

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The Elder Tree Woman

As we went into the woods, he said
that there was nothing to be afraid of,
that the story the children tell
of the old woman with the elder-branch staff
was simply that, a story.
He said her sharp teeth wouldn’t bite.
He said her sharp nails wouldn’t scratch.
There was nothing for a sweet young girl to fear
within the woods, or so he said.

I smiled at him
and let him lead me in.
I knew I had nothing to fear.

Even as the shadow-branches
reached out towards him,
he did not understand
that things in the woods are never as they seem,
that the girl who dances light as the sky
on day-bright meadows in the trivial sunshine
takes on her true form
in the shade of the elder-tree.

Even as my roots rose up
to drain his body of the warm and the red,
he did not understand.
And as my branches curled down with twigs like nails
to scratch at his white flower skin
gouging out the dark sweet fruit of flesh,
he still begged me to run and save myself,
thinking still that I was the one to be protected.

Only in those last moments
as the tips of my roots
drew out his senses and his thoughts
and his life scattered like ashes
did he hear my laugh.
He understood then,
just as his scream became a sigh
a dying breeze to ruffle
the leaves of the elder tree.

 

Suz Winspear writes and performs poetry and gothic tales. Her first poetry collection, I do not need a New Obsession , was published in 2013. She lives in a disused church, has a day-job in a Victorian museum, spends a lot of time sitting in the dark, cultivating strange ideas, and is currently writing a novel. She doesn’t see daylight very often.

Silver Birch by John C. Nash

16 Friday Jan 2015

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John C. Nash finally settled down as a self-employed bookbinder and writer in Northampton, England. His poetry has been published in various magazines including Antiphon, Cake, The Delinquent, Verse Kraken and Lighthouse . He co-edited the anthology Making Contact for Ravenshead Press and is currently working on a collaborative project with the photographer Sam Webster.