A Poetic Sequence by Douglas Luman

BY DOUGLAS LUMAN

Author's note: These poems take on the occult through means of alchemy, created out of a book of practical magic: Perkins, Henry, and Barrington Haswell. Parlour Magic. Philadelphia: H. Perkins, 1838. 
 

The Magician: Sight & Sound – Imitative Haloes
 

Spring suddenly burns in

a rosemary, the ruddy

color of lit charcoal,

artificial light, or

things a person intends.

You are told moonstone. You

are told moonglow. A chip

from the edge of the Earth;

you picture it, the slip

of a boy’s pop-gun. Two

minutes of crystals of

whispers. O, such a small

quantity leaves wanting.

An ounce of crow. One dram

of you. To change places?

Simple: fill an appearance.

Look from the moon’s long view

a blueness. But from here

a dark brown knot of dirt,

body shaken of moss.

---

The Magician: Sleights & Subtleties - Curious Experiment with a Glass of Water

Pick a mirror, hollow

glass; a highly polished

dish filled with the right air,

quicksilver, water, &

a scruple of alum.

Convert scruples to grains

to drachms—the apartment

of the palm, hold it,

vitreous animal.

The candle’s spirit turns

violet, turns indigo.

Even shutting the eye

they burn themselves from rest.

When Sir Isaac Newton

found fire, it was dropping

threads in liquid. Incant

now, I become an ounce.

The point—to vibrate in

unintelligible

jargon of linen. A

beverage of a voice,

the phantom in a skin.

Of the skull—what a nest—

a song or crucible

made of smooth masonry.

We think of it crafted

of ivory, dull &

polished, or an engraved

color of pearl. What if it

was empty? Gently knock

to sound its thickness. Find it

filled with stuff of yourself.

A space filled with crumpled

gray metal? An extract

that melts like camphor & in

an hour, it hardens.

---

The Magician: Sight & Sound – To Make a Prism

Open box containing

darkness. Introduce a

commonly dismal light

made completely of heat,

the degrees of which lie

in holding objects above

you. Follow the moon with

care. At the same time hold

tight to the weather. Steep

the air in your mouth. Call

a name to the glass—the shade

cast is amusing & burns

like fire. Laugh to cool

it. Iron folds out of

a paper slip, writing

the varieties of

gems & marble—one of which,

the eye occasioned by

magnesium, nitre,

some compound of beauty

& time breaking like a thumb

from hands from arms—hollow

stalks of lightning. A wan

figure. Shutter the blinds.

---

The Magician: Sight & Sound – Theory of Whispering

Literation somehow

leaves you, though all the neck’s

other parts seem to be

working fine. But the tongue,

a lunar muscle, acts

according to phases—

mostly waxing the moss

of promises, echoes

of some other name spilling

the crumbs of you that are

left about. No matter

of volume, sound travels

farther in warm places,

but is no substitute

for a body. Loudness,

as such, mistaken for

carelessness. Dismantle

the parts of his minute

& find a mouth or a proof

the surrounding space is

hollow & still.

---

Douglas Luman’s poetry has been published in magazines such as Salamander, Ocean State Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Prelude. He is Production Director of Container, Art Director at Stillhouse Press, Head Researcher at appliedpoetics.org, a book designer, and digital human. His first book, The F Text, will be released in fall 2017 on Inside the Castle.

Incantation Poetry to Conquer the Darkness — The Luminous Project

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

The below poems are samples of what's to come from our Luminous e-book, which will be available in the coming days. It will available for a $1 and 100% the proceeds will go toward Planned Parenthood. When donations are made, receipts will be available publicly on this website. 

I solicited for The Luminous project this past fall as a way to combat darkness. It, in all honesty, felt like the right thing to do — to give voice, to make a space for beauty. But I will be honest: part of it felt futile. I was in such pain (as we all were) and everything felt pointless, misdirected, weak. How could poetry enact change or fight against immorality? How could we find magic? I struggled with the idea that, in the face of such absolute disarray, the arts even had a place. But this is the United States and art, poetry, song has always had a renaissance in times of fear and oppression and hatred. It always will, and in many ways, that is what's remembered long after the battles and the wars and the infighting and the opposing sides. 

Things have always been painful. But there is so much at stake, for so many people here and around the world. Which is why power is in the small things — saying hello to a stranger, listening up when we need to, sharing a poem, doing a kindness. And in the more specific: marching, protesting, organizing, signing up to learn more about conflict resolution. Nothing is too big or too small, I realized, especially when reading these poems. That we were flooded with statements — spell-poems — that called to inner power and resolution (although all different in nature) said something to me. It said that we unite when we need to. And just knowing that makes a vast difference. You're not alone. We're not alone.

---

Dianca London

Anthony Michael Morena

Emily Rose Cole

Paakhi Bhatnagar

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Yi Wu

Kailey Tedesco

---

Lisa Marie Basile is the author of APOCRYPHAL and the chapbooks Andalucia and war/lock. She is the editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine, and her work has appeared in PANK,  The Atlas Review, Tin House, Coldfront, The Rumpus Best American Poetry, PEN American Center, Dusie, The Ampersand Review, and many other publications. She’s an essayist and journalist as well. She holds an MFA from The New School.

NYU's Spellbinding Language of The Birds Exhibit Showcases Occult Art

BY LARISA CASILLAS

'Your head is a haunted house.'

Sometime during the Occult Humanities Conference this phrase was uttered and it stuck with me throughout.

Afterwards, during a private viewing of Language of the Birds: Occult and Art (which will show at NYU February 12-13) I was able to see what it meant. 

Spanning over a century of occult art, the exhibition has 60 works by different modern and contemporary artists who delved deep into their minds and tried to transcend rationality. The exhibition is curated by Pam Grossman, the creator of the occult blog Phantasmaphile and also the co-organizer of the Occult Humanities Conference.  

"By going within, then drawing streams of imagery forth through their creations, each of these artists seeks to render the invisible visible, to materialize the immaterial, and to tell us that we, too, can enter numinous realms," she writes.

Language of the Birds is divided into 5 sections: Cosmos, Spirits, Practitioners, Altars and Spells. The art ranges from the visually beautiful to the unnerving and intellectually engaging; from Aleister Crowley’s alter ego self-portrait, Ken Henson’s portrait of the goddess Ishtar, Robert Buratti’s dreamy Sub Rosa and Paul Laffoley’s Astrological Ouroboros, with the twelve signs of the zodiac paired with the twelve stages of changes of attitude toward life--each piece challenges you to feel rather than analyze.

Speaking to Luna Luna about the current appeal magic and the occult has on the younger generation, Grossman cited that for women it honors cycles and gives agency, "witchcraft is about embracing the body,"  she says. And as for men, it gives them the freedom to explore alternative types of spirituality--"you don’t just need one book," she concluded.

Language of the Birds: Occult and Art
January 12 – February 13, 2016
80WSE, 80 Washington Square East, NYC
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

All images via here.