Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words spirit and/or specter, totaling up to 150 lines in length including stanza breaks, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PDT on October 20th. No PDF's please. Color and B&W artwork are also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Spirits and Specters will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, October 21st between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Friday, October 20, 2023

gia civerolo

She got off the bus in 1932

 

She got off the bus in 1932

to the smell of yellow

sunshine and the taste of

Hollywood Art Deco dreams

 

She never wants to shine

in the black night sky

She only wants to be a

star sparkling on the stage 

or where everyone will pause

and recognize her name

before stepping on her glitter star

right in front the Pantages Theater

on Hollywood and Vine

 

Even when she was dying 

there was no midwestern hands 

to hold her tight and say good night

She still believed she was going to make it

even when they closed the casket lid

on her just another pretty face

She told them it wasn’t really over

even though like always

no one was listening

 

She shooed all the angels away

They cry night after night 

when they hear her sing

on the stage to an audience

who will never see or hear

all her passion and pain

 

It is only when the auditorium 

Is empty that workers swear 

they hear a female voice singing

No one knows her name

Can you hear her?

Can you hear her please?

 

She still refuses to shine

in the black night sky

She only wants to be a star sparkling 

on the stage or where everyone 

will pause and recognize her name

before stepping on her glitter star

right in front the Pantages Theater

on Hollywood and Vine




spirit love haiku

 

 The spirit beguiled

  

Kissing me all through the night

  

Turning dawn silver

 



love potion #98

 

I feel all alone in bed

lying next to you  

I conjure spirits seducing 

them into sleeping séances

 

Beguiling more to help me 

blend my witch’s brew

“Eye of newt and wool of

bat” swirling elixir around

my tongue

 

Bewitching winds dripping

with images of me for you

to dream

 

I create an altar of apparitions 

along with my 98th attempt 

at a love potion 

 

Why do you still ignore me?

 

I become a changeling in the 

ancient emerald forest

Enchanting fairies

Stealing their pixie dust

Sprinkling it into the sea

of all our possibilities

 

I am the Macbeth’s witches

A coven of one

“Fire burns and caldron bubble”

until the prophecy

becomes perfectly clear

 

Fuck you! 


I am voodooing you out of

my head and out of my bed

I am creating this alchemy

with my beating heart which

will not bleed for you to feast

 

Conjuring this potion to

free me of all our mesmerizing 

made up memories

 

This love poem is now just for me

Happy Halloween!

 

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