23 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Byron Haskins, Cassandra Arnold, David W. Landrum, fairy tales, flash fiction, folklore, frog prince, James R. Mack, Kristen Figgins, Margaret Holbrook, Mary Bach, mythology, Nina Lewis, Noel Williams, poetry, Sammi Cox, selkie, winter, witches
Welcome to Issue 10 of Three Drops from a Cauldron - our last outing of 2016, and the last issue before our web journal goes monthly. Continue reading
11 Sunday Dec 2016
Posted in flash fiction, poetry, Seasonal Special
The nights are at their darkest in the Northern Hemisphere, and the days are short and cold. Grab a cup of tea (or mulled wine, or something stronger) and stay warm with our Midwinter 2016 special. Continue reading
09 Wednesday Mar 2016
Posted in poetry
Tags
Canada, folklore, ghosts, legend, Marc Woodward, North America, poem, poetry, spring, winter
Ice Hole Ghosts
I quit my job in San Francisco
when I heard the Klondike news.
Got myself a pick and shovel,
swapped work boots for my shoes.
I bought a year’s supply of food
to drag behind me on a cart,
joined the rush up to the Yukon
with a young man’s eager heart.
The Chilkoot Trail was harder
than any of us guessed
some turned back, others died,
the weak ones just got left.
I teamed up with a Prussian
to look out for each other,
side by side we hauled our loads,
two bending, wheezing, brothers.
We lit blazes on the permafrost
until the clod had thawed,
shovelled out the dirty grit
then lit our fires once more.
When the April melt got hold
we built sluices out of wood
and sifted through the dirt for gold,
seizing any grains we could.
The following winter winds
had me hanging by a thread.
The Prussian took with frostbite
and the Ice King left him dead.
I bought another plot of land
and thereon staked a claim.
I turned a profit not from gold,
but from selling on again.
I came down from the goldfields,
left the dreamers to their toil,
bitter for my losses buried in
the strip mine’s grimy spoil.
I’m now back at the Chronicle
where I write the best I can,
but the ordeal left me broken,
I’m a whisper of a man.
‘Thar’s gold in them thar hills!’
the laughing printers nudge and tell,
but I’ve left the ghosts of Sourdoughs
digging ice down into hell.
10 Wednesday Feb 2016
Posted in poetry
Tags
darkness, greek mythology, Jane Frank, light, Persephone, poem, poetry, spring, winter
Persephone
Half a life is better than none,
though sometimes when I wander
through the fields of Asphodel
I imagine what having it all
would be like.
Love and light?
When I returned
to this sunless world,
felt leaves crunch
under my feet,
I was almost glad.
The Fates weave as they will.
Four pomegranate seeds
and any chance of eternal spring
gone long ago
along with hope.
So forget me as I was
when we danced
in fields of flowers.
I am a dark Queen now.
I produce and destroy.
I curse the souls of the dead.
It is good enough.
Jane Frank’s work has recently been published in Australian Poetry Journal and the Bimblebox Art Project in Australia, as well as Skylark Review and Southlight magazine in the UK. Jane teaches a range of writing disciplines at Griffith University in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. She has just completed a PhD examining the rise of the global Book Town Movement.
27 Sunday Dec 2015
Posted in poetry
Tags
Boxing Day, celebrations, Christmas, David Callin, folklore, legend, poem, poetry, winter
St. Stephen’s Day
The wren’s untouchable, except today.
Once upon a time, we all turned out
to chase her through the village, all the way
to messy ends in middens and in ditches.
With drums and whistles, in a merry rout,
we solemnize the harrying of witches.
David Callin lives in what he likes to call the Deep South of the Kingdom of the Isles. On a clear day he can see almost everything. He has had poems in The Journal, Envoi, Cake and Prole, among others, and also online in Snakeskin, Ink, Sweat & Tears and Antiphon.
18 Friday Dec 2015
Posted in poetry
Jawbones Strong and Poisonous
Draw me back into myself.
Please, give me
a page half lit by mother sun.
I will use it to find who I am—
lift this fog and I will find my way to the labyrinth’s center.
The complex core of me
woven intricate
wool carpet gives in bedrooms
where only women sleep.
Ghost awaits the return of coyote-cry,
presses fingertips to leaded glass
and fogs it with her haunting.
Her love letters
shaped of what remains—stacked stones.
Hard frost.
*First published in Still: The Journal
Wild Soft makes her home on the banks of the Ohio River. Her work appears in such places as Stone Telling, Room, Wild Quarterly, and Still; her first chapbook, in these cups, is forthcoming (dancing girl press). She is the collaboration of poets Nicci Mechler, Hilda Weaver, Wendy Creekmore, & Kristin Koester. Blog: wildandsoft.wordpress.com.
17 Thursday Dec 2015
Posted in flash fiction, poetry, Seasonal Special
Tags
Boxing Day, Christmas, fairy tales, faith, flash fiction, folklore, frost, ice, legends, myths, poetry, religion, snow, winter, wolves
After a short delay, I’m happy to present Part Two of the Midwinter Special 2015!
Featuring poetry and flash fiction by: Jackie Biggs, Linda Goulden, Bethany Rivers, Cindy Rinne, Dennis Trujillo, Mary Franklin, Chris Hemingway, Ruth Sabath Rosenthal, J.S. Watts, Marilyn Finlay, Irene Buckler, Rebecca Gethin, Allen Ashley, Matthew Harrison, Paul Tristram, C.I. Selkirk, A.C. Grant, Monica Shah, Lynne Viti, Nick Romeo, David Callin, Fanni Sütő, K.M. Ross, A.B. Cooper, Andrew Blair, Marija Smits, Louis Cennamo, and Gareth Writer-Davies.
01 Tuesday Dec 2015
Posted in flash fiction, poetry, Seasonal Special
Tags
Christmas, fairy tales, flash fiction, folklore, ice, legend, magic, myth, poetry, santa, seasonal special, snow, winter
Part One of our Midwinter Special 2015 e-issue is now live!
Featuring poetry and flash fiction by: Dennis Trujillo, Sarah Ann Winn, Rebecca Gethin, RMJ Graham, Monica Shah, Caroline Hardaker, Helen May Williams, Carole Bromley, Nate Maxson, Danielle Matthews, Mary Franklin, Kim Malinowski, Erin Lale, Rhiannon Thorne, Cindy Rinne, Irene Buckler, Charles Lauder Jr, Amy Kinsman, Joanne Key, Rona Fitzgerald, Shyla Fairfax-Owen, Matthew Laing, Susan Taylor, C.R. Hodges, Andrea Touhig, T.J. O’Hare, Sarah Doyle, & Shannon Connor Winward.
22 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in poetry
Tags
cold, fairytale, hans christian andersen, love, poem, poetry, snow queen, Stella Wulf, winter
Once Upon A Winter’s Tale
a cold wind rattled through the litter of the dead,
snow bees swarmed in a swirling cloud - the Queen
smothered the world in a bone white shroud.
Paths became slippers of glass and beauty slept
in a feather soft bed as deep as the sea,
for a hundred years it’s said, if it weren’t for the pea
which prodded and nosed through its berth
pushed past the roses sunk beneath the earth
to breach the crust in drops as white as snow.
Such perfection should have melted our hearts
but we are a thousand leagues apart
frozen forever in a puzzle of ice.
It seems only love can rid our eyes of splinters,
disgorge the poison from our throats,
kiss the dormant beauty back to life.
Love can turn Winter’s curse to a magic spell
an incantation for a different chapter,
put a twist in the end of the tragic tale
and we’ll all live happily ever after.
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
25 Sunday Jan 2015
Posted in poetry
Tags
age, fairytales, folklore, frozen, ice, love, Michele Brenton, winter, witches
Frozen in time
I peek between the curtains
my nose hit by the cold
watching the hailstones
driving against the glass.
The wind seems to be quieter
if I stare at it hard.
I’m not like Elsa
the cold bothers me
and I’d like to build a snowman
anyway.
Icy lumps gather on the window frame.
I close the curtains again
tuck them behind the radiator,
wrap myself in a blanket,
debate whether to
turn the thermostat higher
or pull my hood up high
to conserve my body heat.
Today I feel old,
C-old, older than I’ve felt for ages
past the stages of youthfulness.
I think of Allison Gross
and wonder why she didn’t
just magic her chosen one
to see her as lovely,
maybe she wanted him to
love her truly and without
recourse to glamour
and then I wonder how cosmetic
companies would survive
if modern women took her
lead and mine.
I never bothered with glamour either
although my husband doesn’t see
the lines around my eyes,
the grey in my hair,
the drying of my skin;
what he calls visual impairment
I call the eyes of love.
Michele Brenton was born exactly 47 years after Dylan Thomas within a few hundred feet of the exact spot he was born. As @banana_the_poet she was voted the most popular human poet by the Twitter community in the Shorty Awards 2011. She writes poetry and is delighted, surprised and honoured each time her work is included in a publication. It happened first in 2001.
Michele Brenton’s Amazon Author Page
Michèle Brenton’s Poetry Page on Facebook
