The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Cat Magick
04:03 Jun 30 2007
Times Read: 797

Tail and whiskers,

Claws and fur,

Spells cast by a gentle purr

Call the Moon when night is dark

And charmed by faeries on a lark.



Eyes like Witch-fire

Green and glowing

Speak with silence, quite foreknowing.

in the night your magick thrives,

Enhanced by each of your nine lives.



-from Priestess and Pentacle

by Gerina Dunwich

The Bull Calf : by Irving Layton (b.1912)
22:55 Jun 24 2007
Times Read: 804






The thing could barely stand. Yet taken

from his mother and the barn smells

he still impressed with his pride,

with the promise of sovereignty in the way

his head moved to take us in.

The fierce sunlight tugging the maize from the ground

liked at his shapely flanks.

He was too young for all that pride.

I thought of the deposed Richard II.



"No money in bull calves," Freeman had said.

The visiting clergyman rubbed the nostrils

now snuffing pathetically at the windless day.

"A pity," he sighed.

My gaze slipped off his hat toward the empty sky

that circled over the black knot of men,

over us and the calf waiting for the first blow.



Struck,

the bull calf drew in his thin forelegs

as if gathering strength for a mad rush…

tottered…raised his darkening eyes to us,

and I saw we were at the far end

of his frightened look, growing smaller and smaller

till we were only the ponderous mallet

that flicked his bleeding ear

and pushed him over on his side, stiffly,

like a block of wood.



Below the hill's crest

the river snuffled on the improvised beach.

We dug a deep pit and threw the dead calf into it.

It made a wet sound, a sepulchral gurgle,

as the warm sides bulged and flattened.

Settled, the bull calf lay as if asleep,

one foreleg over the other,

bereft of pride and so beautiful now,

without movement, perfectly still in the cool pit,

I turned away and wept.



I wanted to share this with those of you who either love or hate animals. This is an extremely sad poem. I am an avid animal rights activist.