Open Locks-Whoever Knocks

Welcome to my

100 Days Until Halloween

countdown.

For the next 100 Days I will be posting Halloween stories, poems and prompts-

and other little treats to count down the days to Halloween 2022.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

To kick off the big day here is a mind blowing interpretation of the Three Witches in Macbeth

Heads up- they’re not dancing around a caldron in this version.

First Witch

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelter’d venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

SECOND WITCH 
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.

 

Gupta, SudipDas. “Double, Double Toil and Trouble from Macbeth”. Poem Analysis, https://poemanalysis.com/william-shakespeare/double-double-toil-and-trouble/. Accessed 24 March 2022.

From Venus With Love

RDP Friday: ORANGE

A few years ago I watched a show about the planets of our Solar System. When Venus came up the scientist describing it said something like the skies of Venus were orange and red, that it was so hot there lead would melt on it’s surface.

He said it was Hell.

A real Hell.

So of course I’m quite the fan of Venus now and when I need to visualize ” Hell ” for a story I think of the surface of Venus and from there I think, if I was a Hellish creature and looked up at that sky, or into the horizon what I be thinking about? Would I hear music or screaming? Would I be smiling? Grimacing? Would my thoughts be sane or  insane? Would all of my dreams be nightmares? 

The Goddess Venus inspires love and beauty- but her namesake inspires something darker. I’m on Team Namesake all the way-what about you?

Little Windows

Black Diamond Cemetery
Black Diamond, Washington Photographer Unknown

I’ve been to most of these places, so in one way or another they’ve either ended up in my stories or poems.

I keep thinking that one day I’ll go back and do some videos and photograph these places  myself. But sometimes those memories, which are a little cloudy and faded are very inspirational in themselves.

Until then, here are some clips for you to look through:

 

 

Lester, Washington
Photographer Unknown

 

 

I Remember That Road

RDP Thursday: FLASHBACK

I worked in a Funeral Home and at that home, in one of the storage areas we used to store the toys that people left at the graveside for their children. Each of the elements I describe here are some of the toys I remember seeing on one of the shelves together and I remember thinking it looked like a road. So I wrote about it.

This poem is actually a few years old, but I did some edits and decided to run it again:

“Ghost Road “

A baby wrapped in blanket with a box for a crib

a basket of kittens who stopped crying when they heard the wind

a dog with no collar, but he once had been called Finn.

all of them waiting to feel warm again.

Each of them placed with love and care

on this unmarked road under the stairs

then

reluctantly left where the ghosts of could have been

live.