The Wild Hunt by Jennie Ziegler

BY JENNIE ZIEGLER

Voices call to my blood. It hums when I sleep, electric skin, bones cracking from wood smoke. Marked throat, painted nails. Remember, there, with the woods behind us and the city before. Liminal spaces, creatures, voices. We’re kept in glass, in tombs, in waiting rooms. They press clocks into our wombs, fold over skin and conversation. Make us chase rabbits that turn into FunDip dreams. But here we go, we’re sipping that potion, shrinking ourselves down to fit between rooms and breath, somewhere between floor and ceiling. Scrape our skin raw and clean and smooth, no longer scaled, part our legs away from each other, so we can stand, you say. Laughter like orange blossom honey, smooth and fragrant, stuck to our throats. Clock us in by moon cycle, seek our hearts to place into tinderboxes, gift us keys but deny us doors. Oh, darling, bloodstains do tell, after all. Saints save us, let us wander, barefoot, into forest so we can unbecome, the chilled earth sinking like fog into our bones. Ravens whip from our throats, offer stories to midwinter gods. Remember your feet, remember your teeth. You are untethered, boundless, endless. Hair spread like flame. Moonless or moonlit, our hands shine in the dark.

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Jennie Ziegler completed her M.F.A. in Nonfiction Writing at the University of Arizona. She is currently an Instructor and Outreach Consultant at the University of North Florida where she teaches fairy tales, food writing, and adolescent literature. 

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

This Is What Our Readers Loved in 2017

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

We really didn't want to do a "best of" list because it can feel reductive (and we love all of our content and all of our writers)—but we did want to do a roundup of some of the reads favorited and widely-read by our readers, along with those pieces that deeply resonated with our team of editors. There is no way that this list is comprehensive or representative of the many incredible pieces we've published over the past year, though! 

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Interview with Author, Mortician and Death Positive Activist Caitlin Doughty by Trista Edwards

On My Unapologetic Mother by Vanessa Wang

What Being a Caulbearer Means to Me by Kailey Tedesco

Poetry by Leslie Contreras Schwartz

Mexican White Magic by Lucina Stone

Read Tarot With a Simple Deck of Playing Cards by Tiffany Chaney

10 Movies About Witches That Will Terrify and Enchant You by Leza Cantoral

Intersectional Feminism: 5 Things White Women Need to Remember by Kyli Rodriguez-Cayro

Book of Shadows by Tina V. Cabrera

The Only Living Girl in a Rock Opera by Hannah Cohen

Poetry by Dominique Christina
"The blood of black women is unremarkable.
Window dressing, you might call it
For the horror show of lugging around
A body built for a funeral."

A Song for My Voice: A Non-binary Survivor Speaks Up by Chloé Rossetti

A Collaborative Poem by Alexis Bates & Logan February

A Water Ritual For Grief & Trauma by Lisa Marie Basile

How to be A Duplicitous Woman by Lydia A. Cyrus

Three Small Occult Presses You Should Check Out This Month by Trista Edwards

A Spell for Body Love & Appreciation by Laura Delarato
"It’s 2017 and 91% of women in the US are unhappy with their bodies. There is something wrong with this number. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like; we all walk around with an invisible cloud of insecurities based on our distorted view of how we are suppose to look — measured by impossible beauty standards. Advertisements, film and tv representations of women, media criticisms of bodies: they don’t care if you can wake up every morning as a person who love themselves. They want you to buy their product."

Poetry by Stephanie Valente

9 Reasons Why the Canadian Horror Film "Curtains" Deserves a Remake by Tiffany Sciacca

7 Doable, Inexpensive & Meaningful Ways to Practice Witchcraft by Archita Mittra

Riccardo Melosu

Where My Latina Protags At? by Amanda Toledo

Fibromyalgia: Three Instances of by Jay Vera Summer

Darrryl by Justin Allard

Valerie Hsiung In Conversation With Vi Khi Nao by Vi Khi Nao
"I am also drawn to the idea of poetry as thrown dice, poetry as a ritual effort (ie: climbing up a mile-long set of <stone> stairs only to encounter the Oracle--you know what I’m talking about, disembodied as It may be, who then takes over your body and voice and dictates to you yet ever so tenderly what to do. In this case, what poem to write)."

Every Single Reason You Should Brag Your Pushcart Nominations by Lisa Marie Basile

Theresa Duncan, My East Village Ghost by Patricia Grisafi

How to Create an Altar for Self-Care & Intention Setting by Lisa Marie Basile

What Self-Care & Beauty Rituals Mean for Trans & Non-Binary People by Joanna Valente
"I've really struggled with beauty stuff being genderqueer/transmasculine, but lately I got my eyebrows done and started wearing bright red lipstick as a way of claiming beauty rituals for myself."

Poetry by Diannely Antigua

Is It OK To Make Fun Of Instagram Poets? by Lisa Marie Basile

Whisper, with Blonde Hair: Mi Vida Loca's New Gangster Queen by Monique Quintana

Poetry by Kristin Chang

The Car Goes On: On My Father's Death by Fraylie Nord

Poetry by Tim Lynch

The Labyrinth of Anti-Aging and Shame by Claire Rudy Foster

The Sensuous, Feminine Power of Drinking Beer by Trista Edwards

The Barbaric Silencing of Transgender & Non-Binary People by Joanna Valente

When Someone Dies By Suicide, Headlines Sensationalize Their Death by Lior Zaltzman

How to Sew A Poppet by Mary Lanham

Poetry by Cooper Wilhelm
"I’d like to ask her if it’s narcissistic to fall
in love with the taste of your own blood,
needing the damage enough to craft a window into yourself
from a cut on the roof of your mouth."

On the Ritual of Downtime and the Oppressive Trappings of Writer's Block Literary Citizenship by Lisa Marie Basile

An Open Letter to My Nipples by Chloé Rossetti

How to Avoid a bad Tarot Reading by Asa West
 

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Lisa Marie Basile is the founding editor-in-chief and creative director of Luna Luna Magazine and community. She is the author of a few books of poetry, including a full-length collection, Apocryphal. Her book Nympholepsy (co-authored with Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), will be published by Inside the Castle in November 2018 and was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. She is also working on her first novella, to be released by Clash Books in 2019. Her first nonfiction book, Light Magic for Dark Times, will be published by Quarto Books in 2018. Lisa Marie's work has appeared in the New York Times, Narratively, Refinery 29, Greatist, Bust, Bustle, Marie Claire, The Establishment, Hello Giggles, Ravishly, Marie Claire, and more. You can catch her on the podcasts Into the Dark, Essie's Hour of Love, and Get Lit With Leza. She recently received two Pushcart nominations—for her work in Narratively and The Account. She received an MFA from The New School in NYC.