At La Catioroc - Oscar Milde

Friday, midnight, moon is waning,
fortunately it’s not raining,
as three naked women frolic
in a habitat, bucolic.
Drinking potions, chanting spells,
these post-menopausal belles
try to summon up their Master,
dancing faster, ever faster
by the light of a small campfire
made of tinder and of damp briar.
In the bushes lurks old Mourant,
toothless, lecherous, unpleasant.
He leaps out, his flies asunder:
at that very moment, thunder
and a vivid flash of lightning,
simultaneous with this sighting,
quickly shatter their delusion
and they scatter in confusion …
To The Press, the witches said
how they were terrified and fled
and how clearly they remember
Satan had a tiny member.

Oscar Milde

Image : Pixabay - TheDigitalArtist

Burning Questions - Edgar Allan Poet

I am a maid, Your Worships, please:
not wicked, me, I meant no harm.
I beg you now, upon my knees
to please desist, it hurts my arm.
You are strong men while I am weak.
Undo the rope and let me speak.

Last Friday night, I heard a cry:
it was my friend: her name you know.
She is the witch, not I, not I.
We went, by moonlight, to and fro.
She bade me cast aside my frock
to frolic on the Catioroc

and though we danced without our clothes,
I did not meet the Devil there.
From that bleak hill no fiend arose
to ravish me or kiss my hair.
Please, not the fire! Here are the names!
Sweet neighbours, do not fan those flames.

Edgar Allan Poet

The Catioroc Witches - Oscar Milde

Dancing at La Catioroc,
Nell and Dolly, Maud and Alice,
skipping, one rock to the next rock,
sniggering with joyous malice.
Three old witches, laying curses,
incantations, spells and verses.

To invoke their evil Master,
they gyrate and prance at midnight.
Not a stitch on, twirling faster,
ever faster, in the moonlight.
Three fat witches, chanting, smirking,
never guessing who is lurking.

Old Man Ozanne, not the Devil,
in the bushes, drunk and manic,
thinks to join their naked revel
but he causes them to panic.
With appalling shrieks of No, No!
they flee all the way to Cobo.

Oscar Milde

Witch - Richard Fleming

Black shawled, she gathers sticks, views you aslant.
Her cat is black, it has an evil eye.
We tread an extra mile, though we are tired, to avoid her gate.
Our children, in their sleep, cry out in fear
while pregnant women shy away when she appears.
O’Riley cursed her in a drunken rage
and afterwards
his cattle ceased to milk, his horse fell down and died.
They say she rides a broom on summer nights
when shadows cross the moon like ravens’ wings.
Dark toads squat wetly on her windowsill
and croak the Devil’s name in foreign tongues.
No luck, no luck for us while she remains.
She must be gone, like others of her kind:
first by the ducking-stool and pins
while priests intone their cleansing Latin spells,
then by the fiery stake, where she will burn
and burn
and burn
and burn
and burn
and burn
and burn.

Richard Fleming

Le Catioroc - Oscar Milde

At certain phases of the Moon
they’d congregate, toad-faced, to mutter incantations,
where tainted soil absorbed their charnel reek,
and writhe like snakes around
their hairy-hoofed messiah’s horny thighs.
These were no beauties:
in lanes, men passed them by
with eyes averted and a murmured prayer,
while goodwives crossed themselves
and hid away their brats.
When tides, Moon-sung, made pulses quicken,
they’d cast finery aside and, naked, dance a power alive
to curdle milk,
or sour a womb
or make strong men their slaves.

Oscar Milde

The Lament of a Witches Voice - Ian Duquemin

There once was a witch with a whine and a wail
So scared were the children she turned them all pale
Her shreiks and her screams were the sounds of the night
Filling the darkness with fright

The witch with the whine and the wail was caught
Captured and charged for the misery she brought
She stood in the dock of the courtroom and cried
Frightening she sadly denied

The judge with a grudge said the witch she should swing
He accused her of terror... A rope they should bring
The jury agreed and the sentence approved
The witch from the court was removed

The crowd ever loud said the witch she must burn
This judgement on her was a lesson to learn
They shrieked and they whined and they wailed to the judge
Who was quickly regretting his grudge

"This court will abort" said the judge to the crowd
"Compared to the witch you are all twice as loud
Silence in court or I'll set the witch free"
But none of the crowd could agree

The judge put a smudge on the paper and ink
The court was adjourned so the judge he could think
He decided the witch was the only one quiet
And the towns folk were causing the riot

The town upside down in its chantings of hate
The witch was set free, the judge opened the gate
She turned to the crowd, said "I meant you no wrong...
I was trying to sing you a song"

The witch with the whine and the wail of the night
Followed the moon in its silvery light
To the cats of her choir who'd taught her to sing
They gathered around in a ring

So cruel was the rule that the wind and the rain
Howled in the night like a song sung in pain
The song of a witch not allowed to rejoice
The lament of a witches voice

Ian Duquemin