Clay Franklin Johnson is a writer, amateur pianist, devoted animal lover, and incorrigible reader of Gothic literature and Romantic poetry. Clay is the author of A Ride Through Faerie & Other Poems (2021), an illustrated collection of poetry published by Gothic Keats Press. His collection’s eponymous poem, “A Ride Through Faerie”, was presented at “Ill met by moonlight”: Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realms in literature and culture, a conference organized by the Open Graves, Open Minds Project (OGOM) with the University of Hertfordshire. Find out more on his website at www.clayfjohnson.com or follow him on Twitter @ClayFJohnson.
Requiem
And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
—Rimbaud
Moon-eyed I sight read the sky
Divining the stars like bones,
Tracing patterns of star-clouds
I prophesize tree-spirits rise,
Slow-burning, curling wisps of smoke
That float like faceless ghosts
Ascending into darkness
Toward undiscovered universes
Breathing death into Earth’s
Planetary lungs, the fire-clouds
Consume the owl-light and witch-stones,
Untuning the music of the stars
In fluctuating starlight,
Undoing nightingale night-craft
Whose melodies of silver lucidity
Occults the moonlight
Waking from a winter’s torpor
And dreams of magic-root raskovnik—
Called furzepig-grass, or moon-clover,
Unlocking buried secrets divine—
My garden hedgehog would rise
To hear her nightingale sight read the sky,
Listening enraptured to the night-bird
Singing to the stars of another world
With blueberries and raspberry jam
I fattened my famished hedgie,
And her sleepy, gnomic life
No longer seemed a mystery,
Yet each night she awoke,
Crept out from the shadow
And with upward-gazing eyes
Counted stars and absorbed the night
Until, like a rare night-flower
Picked beneath singing starlight,
I plucked my fattened hedgie
From a golem grass-cutter’s blades—
Night’s birdsong became requiems,
My hedgehog garden a grave
When I held her mangled death
I lost touch with reality,
For the moon and stars were captured
In the black of her cold, dead eyes,
And when I placed her into the earth
I buried the starry night sky.
The Queen of the Night
Is not this the witching time of night? The waters murmur, and fall with more than mortal music, and spirits of peace walk abroad to calm the agitated breast. Eternity is in these moments. Worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made of.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
How enrapturing is the night
Whose darkness breeds eternity,
Whose voice of immortality
Speaks to me within dreams divine,
Othering me with ecstasies
Of incorporeal light
A noctilucent glamoury
Lures me to its vespertine life:
Flickering ghost-lights of fireflies,
Bioluminescent blue ghosts
Alive and luciferous;
The green-eyed cicadae, rising
From a grave-like sleep to sing
In swarms of unburied crypsis;
And the cooing aziola,
The watcher owl, watching
For what waits in the fading light
Seduced by night-music, nocturnes
Of unseen bewitchments, hypnotized
By wandering will-o’-wisp light
And its illusions of movement,
I trace its aerial secrets
Into the thickening darkness,
And as I creep deeper, deeper
Into the sylvan night, I find
A lifeless flower withered white
But as I watch the moon goddess
Rise sublime, I gaze with wondrous
Melting eyes as the lifeless flower
Stirs with life, night-sick and alive
It blooms beneath the moon’s
Luminous gaze of lustral light
Yet, under the spell of lunacy’s madness,
Not even the moon can appease
Such leafy malevolence—
A lunar-synthesis of Orphic
Metamorphosis She exists
In other light liminality
Diaphanously She dances
With Nature’s witchery, scenting
The haunted air as Her petals bloom
With moon-cancer, a fragrance like
Vanilla orchid touched by
Phantasmal light, an aphrodisiac
For nocturnal pollinators
That sleep by day and wake all night:
The long-nosed bat flittering
In fits of nectar ecstasies,
Skeletal-fingered wings glistening
In echoes of light, unfurling
Its demon-like tongue, numb, dripping
With opium on the moon-vine,
A Dionysian smile thick with pollen
Catching the moonlight like fairy dust
And the worm-tongued sphinx moth,
White-lined, untouched by the death-mark,
Unclothed by the white-witch ghost
Whose sole frailty is deathlessness,
Yet possessed by fay-wingèd night magic
Of the owlet enchantress black witch,
Swing-hovering the opening petals
In fear of what waits with death’s kiss:
In illuminated darkness She blooms,
Unveiling a pale, tendrilled creature—
On a single night Her white spider renewed,
Lustrous and twisted in delicious solitude
How enrapturing is the night
Whose darkness breeds eternity,
Whose voice of immortality
Speaks to me in dreams divine,
Othering me with ecstasies
Of incorporeal light,
And as I gaze deeper, deeper,
Ascending into visions sublime,
I melt away into the darkness
And become one with the night.
The Emerald Witch Stone
I found the stone in her hedgehog garden
Where she once grew storms, where she buried stars
In shards of black opal, stones of captured starlight,
A lucent glow of cold influence
That she placed in the earth and sang to life
Her song was a half-chant, pure poetic,
Like whispering both truth and shadow,
And the stones breathed secrets into the earth,
And from them grew atmospheres of twilight—
She called it her owl-light of amethyst
Her hedgehogs are gnomic creatures of night,
Her crepusculars, lovers of Autumn
Leafiness they made her storm gardens
Of purpled owl-light their dreamy dwelling,
Safe from bonfires and golem grass-cutters
Her hedgies would bring her freckled clovers
Pale with moon-cancer, born from the night-growth,
And the magic root of raskovnik unlocking
Fragrant air rich with silver smoke, curling
Serpentine its orphic words dissolve unseen
But the smell of vanilla borne on the winds
From its magic herbage unlocked memories,
Mistaking its dissolving secrets
For those of atmospheric spirits,
The ghost lights, capturing what was once lost
When I first unearthed the stone it felt cold,
Like death, like an ice-charm of emerald,
I could still breathe in a strange vanilla
As if hedgehog-breath polished its facets,
Gnawing at it like the time they learned to eat stones
I remember this dark stone, I whispered—
The hedgehog gem, her witch stone she called it
When I looked deep, deep into the cold stone,
Polished to reflect realms of other-light
That exist within magic-mists and twilight,
I beheld a vision like a cold dream
And deep within her eyes appeared to me
But her eyes did not see me, they were closed,
Reminding me how they dressed her body,
Painting her skin with plastics, filling her
With chemicals and turning her to poison,
Betraying her last wish to be food for flowers
Burn me, I thought, like my heathen forebears—
Send my energy forever to the stars
I remembered her sad eyes when she forgot
How to play her piano, when she stared
At the dusty keys like black and white strangers,
And she stared, and stared, and her neck
Became fixed and my eyes filled with tears
But then I looked into the stone once more,
Deep, deeper into its emerald secrets,
Tilting each facet to reflect a vision—
Then I remembered her forgotten words:
The stones are buried dreams, she once told me
A new sparkle of emerald-fire shone
Deep within the stone and I saw her again:
Her skin was no more poison tainted
By painted plastics, for she was alive,
Dreaming, and I heard her living voice within me
Find the faceted stone of emerald green,
Whisper to it your memories, your poetry,
Your remembrances of love and beauty,
For what we bury are not of this earth,
They are our captured hopes and buried dreams
Her words seemed to come from the stone itself,
Whispering to me words from years long past
As if each facet held a memory,
A long-lost echo suspended within
Poetry and song and truth and mystery
I remember when I found the witch stone
In her hedgehog garden where she grew storms,
Where she buried stars in shards of black opal
And they breathed secrets into the earth.
I remember. I remember.
Lines Written by Moonlight at Whitby Abbey
Full of the dark resolve he took his sullen way.
—Thomas Warton
Within the shadows and madness of Night,
Where each whisper floats upon moon-silver
And soft voices breathe upon me like ice,
I wait impatient for Her haunted eyes,
For Her look of poetry without words
That speaks to me Keatsian without verse,
Without living warmth, touched by the cold hand
Of Death, sick with suicide-whisperings
Lingering on each disembodied breath,
Listening deeply I hear no sweeter mystery
I thus breathe in each poisonous thought,
Each sugary strand of silent silver,
Ice-mists of cold enchantment, frosted moon-glow,
Wreathed upon my throat like an amulet
Of whispering witch-crystal, awakening
My eyes to the night-creatures of moonlight:
The skeletal-fingered bat, slithering
Things of opal serpent-scale, eyes of white,
And the silent shadows of the night-wolf,
Dripping living rubies for the blood is the life
And yet, as I trace each silent shadow,
Each deathless whisper of cold persuasion,
Floating on each silver-slithering beam
Shimmering with dreams of waking illusion,
I am consumed by Her frozen witch-flames,
Consumed by moonlight, each creature of Night,
And as I absorb Her deathly light, I too
Feel myself absorbed,—changed—metamorphosed
By Her all-intoxicating madness,
Beloved to all that is shadowful and strange
My eyes at once embrace this change, alive
Yet unalive, living yet death-dreaming,
Moon-changed until ice-stones become my eyes,
Yorkshire-frosted like ghost quartz, crystalized,
Capturing the death-sparkle of black moonstone—
Raven feather black, corpse-black, a black ice
Consuming my flesh like witches’ frostbite:
The creeping Night inspiring death to all life,
Until only a beam of cold moonlight
Tracing the traceries of Gothic stone remains alive
And yet it does not live, it does not breathe,
It has no eyes and thus it does not see—
But something exists, something watches me,
A pale ghost-light, a shadow lingering,
Capturing the cold night-glow of moonlight,
The frosts of midnight, dark ephemeral
Fleeting as Night’s transience immortal:
Yes, It is the night eternal, the darkness,
It is the spirit of night-existence
Watching without eyes Its children of the night
As It watches, I feel Its cold gaze,
I feel Its seduction and I again change:
My eyes, still silvered, materialize,
Appear before me like eyes of corpse-light,
A self-reflection of the demon-self,
The face behind the glass, pale and grave-cold,
Captured as magic-lantern necromancy,
Sapphire-flames of the plague-dead, the death-fires,
Dancing as phantasmagoria ghost scenes
Blending two phantasies of one reality
These ghastly eyes, moon-spun with gossamer
Thread of glowing decay, are my very own,
And yet, not my own, too pale, much too cold
As if plucked by the skeletal fingers
Of Death, ripped and torn out like vile jellies
Of living sapphire, living emerald,
Taken from the light and given to Night—
She, Her, It, the Darkness, the true Night Spirit,
Possessing my once warm and living eyes
Within a single beam of haunted moonlight
Then, from a passing shadow of night-mist,
Glistening wet like vitreous black opal,
Fleeting by upon a floating ghost-cloud
Carrying each color of pestilence,
There came a change: within the imprisoned
Beam of moonlight, and around those ghastly,
Still-watching eyes, there appeared a strange face,
Yet familiar as it took shape in the mists,
As if gazing into polished moon-glass
And finding the gaze of my own self-eclipse
The incessant, never-ending windchill
Of the North Sea’s ever-deepening cold,
Gathering its breath for eternities,
Where even Death exists with frost in its bones,
Was nothing to the ice I felt when that face
Materialized, for I knew it was mine,
Like those ghastly eyes, ever watching me—
And yet, still anguishing with self-regret,
I felt a cold peace pierce my still-living heart
And I closed my eyes to this beautiful night-world
I open my eyes and find the night changed:
No longer do I see those ghastly eyes
Watching me in that haunted beam of moonlight,
Nor that face,—that face—a self-reflection
Of all the calms and comforts of the grave—
No, I see myself now captured within
A moon-shadow, colder than its beams of light,
Between two Gothic arches of intricate
Stone-craft, and beneath the many-petalled rose,
Lying still in the silent darkness, my eyes closed
I have now self-possessed that hideous thing
Imprisoned in that most singular beam,
But, as I examine each familiar
Feature, I realize a beautiful truth:
My flesh is not grave-cold, nor touched by decay,
But instead glows otherworldly glacé,
Ethereal silver, a cold eternity
Touched by Night’s incurable moon-cancer,
Eating away each living impurity
Until Death has left its pale immortality
As I look with new eyes, in macabre
Curiosity, I realize a new change:
The night-creatures exist in a new light,
Living in harmony as any life—
The bat, no longer skeletal-fingered,
Caresses the midnight-air with leathered
Softness, and the opal-scale slithering
Of the serpent now glistens amethystine,
Crescents noctilucent, emerald-rich,
And vivid eyes of azurean argent
The night-wolf, most beloved of all, dissolves
Into ghosts of my beloved dogs lost:
I see my chocolate Blue watching me
With his sublime eyes of otherworldly fire,
Joyous, amber-like, wild as volcanian light—
I remember these eyes, always and ever,
For once they closed, and closed forever,
Holding him in my arms as he died,
They would come to haunt my each and every night,
But now they live again, with all joy of living light
And my droopy-eared hound, Anna, freckled
With patches of cream and soft brown, cow-like,
Whom I lost while I wandered heart-broken
At Boatswain’s tomb in honor of my Blue,
Missing my last chance at one last good-bye,
Now greets me again with her same languid
Yet ever-loveable curiosity—
And thus Night reveals another secret:
The silent shadows, ever watching me,
Have been my faithful friends, ever waiting for me
Within the shadows of Night, I exist
Only as a haunted beam of moonlight,
For the shadows are no longer silent,
And each whisper sings within me a sleep-
Persuading melody—but I cannot sleep,
I cannot die, nevermore to close my eyes
Upon all that is shadowful and strange,
For to Her there is no death, there is no change,
And no more each night do I listen deeply,
For I now hear Her, and I hear no sweeter mystery.
Keats Stone
Violets were his favourite flowers, and he joyed to hear how they overspread the graves. He assured me that he seemed already to feel the flowers growing over him.
Buried like a burning bright star beneath
Elfin seas of deepest blue violets,
Breathing deep to drink an Orphean sleep
Of whispering enchantments nepenthean,
Sibilant and serpentine, listening
For liminality in quiet breathing,
Coiling, creeping between each and every
Melting shade of Lamian glamoury,
Pouring spell-craft into a melody
Captured deep within a white carnelian—
A love-charm from Endymion’s brilliant queen,
Love-touched with bewitcheries and love-dreams
Like love-deaths from nightingale ecstasies,
Sight-reading skies of opal and pearl
Singing to the stars of another world
Buried like a burning bright star beneath
Untamed grasses of wild white daisies,
Winding entwined through elfin seas
Of deepest blue violets, breathing deep
To drink its Lethean sleep, emerging
From the glamoury of perilous shadow
As dreamy ghost-paths glistening like snow,
Slithering lucid and luminous
Through faerie-song of silver voices,
Melodies from noctilucent clouds
As if the moon melted into the echo
Of its own interlunar music,
And the skies dripped liquid moonlight
Like tears frozen and spellbound
By astral visions of liminal shine
Buried like a burning bright star beneath
Elfin seas of deepest blue violets,
Beneath ghostly paths of wild white daisies
Glistening like a meadow of snow
Lies in the earth a pale carnelian stone,
Oval-shaped, a fragment of cloud-lightning
Cradled within a hand of bone,
Dry of blood but never once cold,
Changed by death and decay
But untouched by the quiet grave,
For deep within that living piece
Of feverish liminality streams
Red life born from death of a single star-beam:
Burning eternal as a buried love-charm
Singing one song of two broken hearts
Beneath violets and daisies
Restless atop a poet’s grave,
Rests in the earth the mortal remains
Of an immortal name, for when inwrapt
In the hour of crepuscular embrace
Fate cut his thread of liminality,
Silver-spun by incorporeal light
When the Queen-Moon wept ecstasies
Upon Endymion’s eternal sleep,
He welcomed the air of quiet death
By smiling on his own despair, grasping
In his still living hand his brightest star,
Brighter than bright, fairer than fair,
Whispering with Orphean charm
Soft words of his dying last breaths
Touch has a memory: eternity.
Shall I awake and find all this a dream?
But when he fell into a sleep
Of unapparent immortality,
Slipping beneath the elfin seas
Instead of into her arms, it was her
Sewing-stone of polished white carnelian
That captured the echoing shards
Of two self-consuming stars,
Tracing each shape of cold mortality
Between two ever-beating hearts,
Voicing their voiceless memories
Upon visions of spring that never came:
For if Life let two hearts divide
Then may Death let love reunite
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
For not even breathing deep to drink
Of his Lethean sleep could unsee
And forget what can never be unseen,
Thus, placed lastly within his winding-sheet,
Unopened and unread, were feverish
Love-letters that he could not bear to read—
Do I wake or sleep? No, there is no music,
There is no extinguished spirit beneath,
For he has journeyed far beyond the reach
Of his Orphean liminality,
Where her loving last words are too worldly
For a heart that once loved with otherworldly scars:
His whose name was writ in water
And captured by the stars.
The Galway Review 