Five Poems by Cleo Griffith

 

Each Person

 

Each person I know,

have known, will know

is part of me, I take in weight

from each experience,

this is why I bend so low,

a scoliosis of the spirit,

the weight has compressed me,

curved me,

I am a curlicue of happenings,

good and bad, a stone soup,

potpourri in a spiral vase,

would that I could straighten,

a tall brass candlestick for a bright light

to signal others to follow

yet I cannot ask them to step along

this crooked path--

my steps have faltered often

pushed into anxiety,

pulled against propriety,

all the while absorbing.

I resemble one of those bulgy gourds

in the grocery store, curved and hard-shelled.

I have become myself by loving,

and not loving all of you. 

 

 

Root Cause

The root continues

and the new shoots show green

above gray earth,

runners expand their territory,

buds form, expand, blossom,

go to seed without conscious decision,

no calendar or list to check off,

no boss to whom to report “all done”,

just normal response

to regular stimuli.

No displays of independence/argument/dissention

 

What is thought then,

that twists us,

makes of us squabbling siblings,

uncooperative children,

scientists and mystics? 

 

 

Sun-Love

 

You are the one, the solid that keeps me,

the mass that puts my pieces back together each day,

it is you and the knowledge of you that developed

my understanding of everything, and my adoration.

Yes, it’s true, I have a crush on Rain each time he comes,

but he is erratic in his attention, blows hot and cold,

I’d like to be able to count on him, but,

he can be overwhelming at times, while you are always you.

Wind hangs around a lot, spouting this and that,

throws a temper tantrum sometimes,

quite childish in his moods,

with dirty language when he’s riled,

I ignore him when he’s like that,

his shrieks and poundings. You are so quiet.

I’ve flirted with Fog as she ballerinas

across the front lawn in her diaphanous gown,

her twirls and lifts are quite romantic

and I’ve joined her for a step or two

among the rugged almond orchards,

along the gray cement canals.

But you know how shy she is with you,

she’ll never spend much time once you appear.

And you always do.

I’ve given Clouds directions to other landing sites

so they won’t occupy space

so close to me that you and I can’t be together.

Sometimes their mischief is rather mean,

and they lie flat right above, such tiresome attitudes.

There’s not a tree around that doesn’t understand

I don’t need their shelter.

I am yours, all yours, all day,

and while I know at times your travels must

cut my time short, I mourn those shorter days,

but revel that always you are there

my own true, everlasting love.

Accept these wild meanderings

that travel up to you on heartbeats,

send me back a warm kiss. 

 

 

The Cookie-Baker’s Family

 

The cookie-baker’s family came today

with their $5 and $10 boxes,

and I traded my last cash

for a lovely box of fancy.

 

I bought not only pleasures

but their time in conversation,

father and son, wife/mother’s work

presented with pride at

a stranger’s door. Good people.

And I crave more good people

like a drug, can’t get too many,

can’t get enough although my life

is filled with goodness.

 

And I am not alone, all around they are,

up and down my street, in the stores,

on the streets and rivers and skies!

I inhale them, hug them, taste and devour.

I become them.

My last cash

bought me

goodness. a little more. 

 

 

To Begin

(an acrostic)

 

Before you step into the day,

remember what the wise ones say,

each movement needs a place to start,

and every muscle plays its part:

tense, relax, and tense again,

how your body should begin,

each breath a miracle on its way.

Cleo Griffith has been widely published in journals such as Main Street Rag, Straylight, and Westward Quarterly. She has been on the editorial board of Song of the San Joaquin since it began in 2003. She lives with her cats, Amber and Mister, and an assortment of barn swallows, lizards, scrub jays and other creatures in Salida, California among the artist-of-all-kinds-rich environment of the California Central Valley. Her first book The Yellow Dress was published in September, 2025.

 

Four Poems by John Doyle

 

Joe Morton Was a Pain in the Ass, So Was His Wife Annie

Okay. A story sails from here. Headline - we've nailed-up ambition,

taking witness statements contrary to events silence witnesses. 

Silence stands in the tongues of a grasshopper,

in the gardens of Eden (plural) being a wish so thin water washed it clean of its hope 

then drank our money from our banks,

pissed honey-gold piss. Grasshoppers spoke a longest parable, 

fields like arms attached for the first time to the serpent

who now directs the movie made from water, honey, filed-down credit cards, 

and a burning ambition.

Walter was a poet I'd hoped would make it back home after the war. 

I saw Walter round town, stopping to collect his paper,

clips around his ankles are a smart choice. 

Walter may not be the one we'd suspected, all along I'd seen him from my window

and the street buckled beneath the lyrics heavy from his tongue. 

Walter was an angel really, he kept perfect time in a jazz band.

Walking back from the fifth dimension, litter's strewn everywhere. 

The fourth dimension is a bad bad town. No room for growth. 

People walk out from their party, champagne glasses shaking their discretions across a velvet lawn. 

The grass was so blue, I’d wondered if we should go to Kentucky and start taking statements. 

That’s where we’ll find the killer.

I pause. It was here, Joe Morton fell clutching his chest, asking his wife Annie to call his accountant first,

then an ambulance, the priest was Annie’s quirk. Christ almighty, I whisper, 

Joe Morton was a pain in the ass.

I gave his daughter a fifty, then another, told her to drive Joe to Córdoba, 

I’d watched him live so much when I wasn’t around, I figured the air in Córdoba would finish him for good.

It's Early

After Forrest Gander

The squeak of his shoe sings loudest

when he stops it from walking,

music is burning in the trees -

sunrise is catching fire earlier now, when the sun has something to live for -

prayer, a good diet, more rock n'roll than I could swallow.

Television was beautiful enough to kill itself last night, 

allow my wife and me time to make it to the border, 

we didn't say a word to the faces clasping to their lives,

these people would start a forest fire with a glass of water, she said

Thunder and Lightning

LIghtning says so long suckers to its heaviest trouble,

to throw away women who lie and men 

who kill and tiny shards of children

who know they walk through a life of danger, 

having the loudest procession follow them to their death;

only a mind as drunk as thunder 

could stand there and face these squalid things,

first thing in the morning, fat with time, and ugly as an empty bottle

lightning jumps though, 

ready for the autopsies to bend 

like anklebones in potholes; lightning sang me the song of the wickedest blues man

who hid his boots beneath my feet to let the devil come take me,

in that year of our lord nineteen hundred and thirty-six, 

it was the thunder that came to save me, 

blowing down the backbone of my door,

and I ran so fast, the light became a confessor of dark,

thunder growling its prayer 

through my smoke-drizzled footsteps

If I Was the D.A. I’d Have Called it Manslaughter

Isn't it wild how this calm milk sky 

says no to planes who made their marble halls so immune,

then this calm milk sky bites in teeth of lightning at rain that brews up our penance?

The day is a symbol of darkness within, the cold television's war with lives

that escape to snitching gardens, where, the lunatics of the pissing moon

smoke their dope and their weed and worry about rats of many kinds -

day is a piece of broken web spiders seal our sonnets with, 

the rats are grasping at the apples from the forbidden trees

years above her cracked garden. Airplanes are as oblivious as sorrow will let them,

no-one should throw televisions through hotel windows - because death - that green-nosed rat -

refuses to replace our shot-down cowboys.

When she rides home to Arkansas, she'll make that saloon her first port of call,

music is drunker than darkness, and preachers fall down staircases into wicked Tuesday

on the sidewalk of a swelling solar system. I rub my finger through the dusk,

pulling the moon across my thumb I spy her lighting up something an officer

of the peace was kind enough to ignore at customs. Her customs are that of an odd tribe

not far from the murmurs of airplane scratching cloud,

television's day drowning in a new sermon. I see she wore those peach sunsets today, 

sadder than 

a photo of a broken city they were, and twice as likely to turn feral

John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of nearly 7 years. Since then he's had 7 poetry collections published. His 7th collection, "Isolated Incidents" was published by Pski's Porch in Summer 2021.

The Mermaid Cave - Uaimh Na Maighdine Farraige - Long Prose Poem By Greg Patrick

 

The Mermaid Cave

 

 

Uaimh Na Maighdine Farraige

 

By Greg Patrick

 

 

 

“Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true,

and the earth is only a little dust under our feet."- (A Teller of Tales)”
― W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

 

 

North of Ireland 1316 a.d. 

With the sigh of the ever-restless sea in the background Sir Cormac of Dunluce 

composed songs for his muse far below the bannered ramparts paced by archers The Mermaid 

Cave the dark heart of the Castle of Dunluce.  Cormac's red albino eyes blinked open his hands 

ceasing at the strings at his harp before sighing deeply and beginning anew. 

In that sequestered haven he played with a conjuring hand, his words incantation 

peopling the cave’s dark chamber with visions of a regal court 

crowded with jesters, mummers, bannermen, courtiers, knights, damsels, 

and troubadours. And at the centre of his conjured world was the very 

essence of a Celtic bard’s inspiration Lady Aoife daughter of the Lord of Dunluce. 

He envisioned her then a vision of beauty behind impossibly green eyes 

and impossibly beyond his station. And every serenade he uttered for his muse in that dark sanctuary was 

a rebel song and heresy so that he seemed a rebel angel at the harp. 

He wrote and sang in solitude with distant eyes immersed in a world of chivalry and courtly 

love. Yet that was not his world. Cormac was gifted or cursed with the bard's way with 

Words and that cursed blessing betrayed him.  Cormac found himself bullied by an 

ambitious young chieftain Niall of Tyrone into writing song to woo Lady Aoife. 

Lady Aoife beamed as she approached the chieftain on a night when rumours 

of battle were on every man and woman’s lips in the lordly castle from scullery 

maid to knight. 

“I have another song for you “Niall smiled. 

Cormac could bear it no longer and paid a scribe to write a confession to the lady 

including details of the songs only the author would know and a lady in waiting to deliver 

it to her on the morrow. 

She spoke to Niall, yet she met Cormac’s eyes as he stood aloof 

torches between them and their gaze lingered. Flames dancing with the wind 

blocked him from her sight and when they shifted again, he vanished. 

His breath steamed as he mouthed the words of the poem in the air. 

Cormac was observed by two green eyes pacing the flagstones of the battlements as 

sentries received urgent tidings. 

His breath steamed in the chill air as he sighed deeply. 

That night the lord of the keep hosted a feast for his fighting men. Cormac remained 

brooding, silent, and aloof as the men at arms and knights boasted of the feat 

of arms and the vanquishing defeat they would inflict on the enemy. 

The old bard sang a tribute to Lady Aoife then bowed graciously to the drumming of 

flagons on the oaken table. Cormac looked into the red depths of the hearth flames 

his lips moving. His words were like incantation as flames swayed like charmed 

serpents morphing into visions of battle and hunt before dissolving amorphously 

into the smoldering embers. Cormac suddenly blinked and realised that the hall was 

Silent. The assembly was listening spellbound to his song. He met Aoife’s eyes 

before turning red and bowing out, stammering apologies. The court bar 

cast him a scathing look. 

Later the monks heard confessions one eve of battle blessed their weapons absolving 

of the blood they would spill. Aoife suddenly appeared before him. 

Cormac stood transfixed and painfully awkward before she spoke. 

He doffed his helm. 

"My Lady..." 

His eyes betrayed his passion. 

“Your songs...” Aoife began. 

“Alas did not begin to do you justice...” Cormac replied. 

He met her eyes without shame captivated by the way they cast their spell 

intoxicatingly. 

“I know he did not write the songs himself, but the words were so fair I imagined them 

to have been composed by a bard of many summers of a lordly court” 

“You flatter me your grace,” the Cormac replied. 

“And you flatter yourself churl! “Niall snarled as he stood between them. 

Cormac's hand began to hover at his sword hilt when both froze jarred by a shrill horn 

sounding in alarm from the battlements. 

“Men of Dunluce to arms!” a herald proclaimed. 

“You flatter yourself if you would ever begin to think...” Niall began. 

“Our lord has called us to arms! Squires attend to your knights we march with the last 

light! “the herald declared. 

The chieftain spat before stalking away while Cormac offered her a courtly bow in 

parting before donning his helm as his squire girded on his honed and 

varnished sword. Monks heard confessions one eve of battle blessed their weapons 

absolving them for the blood they would shed with the swords and axes brought from 

the castle arsenal. The horns of war sounded rallying the garrison. Cormac bowed low 

to Lady Aoife as his squire hastened to him. 

"My Lady,” Cormac whispered. 

His eyes betrayed his passion as Aoife offered her sash as a lady's favour. 

He lifted the perfumed fabric to his lips, inhaling its fragrance. He mounted his horse 

and took up shield and pennoned lance. Children cast flower petals in their wake and 

from the battlements as women keened and sang a lament. 

Knights and men at arms reinforced by a company of kerns and gallowglass massed by

the gate. Horns sounded shrilly and the portcullis groaned open before them into 

the blood red twilight. The force marched from the castle gates blinking into the crimson 

twilight. 

The procession to war was outlined as they marched across the rope bridge spanning 

 the chasm from the cliffs to the castle overlooking the Celtic Sea against the vermillion 

dusk like an inferno against the darkening sky. 

As the company marched under the banner of the lord of Dunluce into the 

night the men at arms sang bawdy tavern songs to bolster their spirits as they 

advanced under glowering skies threatening rain. Then his rival sang crude verses 

about Lady Aoife. 

“Hold! Halt!” Cormac cried. 

There was an expectant hush at the clang of a thrown gauntlet. Cormac and Niall 

dismounted and began to draw swords. Suddenly a scout galloped into their midst. 

“The enemy is nigh upon us! To arms!” 

Rain fell then but first spears and arrows. 

“Shields! Hold formation!” Cormac cried. 

Yet their ranks were thrown into wild disarray as the enemy charged their flanks. 

Redshank mercenaries erupted from the thick of trees with wild battle cries 

slashing down men blinded by torrential rain with swords and daggers. 

The men of Dunluce were hopelessly outnumbered by the enemy. 

Niall’s horse snorted blood and reared and fell speared down by an onslaught 

of attackers. 

“I yield!” Niall pleaded desperately offering a ransom and to turn traitor to help then take 

the castle. His blubbering ceased when a sword thrust into his face. The mercenary 

raised Niall’s severed head as a grisly trophy. 

“Fall back! Retreat!” a man at arms cried. 

A herald sounded the retreat. The throaty bray of the horn echoed amid the trees 

as the enemy cheered, raising their red swords triumphantly. 

The enemy pursued relentlessly cutting stragglers down and spearing 

the wounded, their battle cries mingling with the thunder. 

Cormac’s story almost ended there slain and left to the wolves and ravens 

with corpse stripped of armour yet he was quietly a master of swordplay 

“Hold the retreat!” a herald begged. 

Cormac answered the call and stepped forward to defy them till he was red to the 

shoulder in blood if not for the rain till he too reeled back and fled from the onslaught. 

The castle was beautiful and tragic to behold as the broken army fled in 

anticipation of the inevitable siege. Meanwhile a black gyr falcon 

glided unseen over the helms of the besiegers bearing urgent tidings. 

Torches of the massing horde coloured the mist crimson in a hellscape. 

The bridge shuddered as shook as the defenders retreated to the castle under 

cover of a flight of arrows from the ramparts and crossbow bolts from murder 

Holes. The enemy raised a crimson banner of no quarter.

“Havok! Havok!” the besiegers chanted brandishing their swords and axes 

and pumping pikes mounted with the heads of their enemies in time 

with the chant. Soon trebuchets would be drawn into range to obliterate 

the castle walls. Doom seemed inevitable. 

One of the broken army halted and pivoted drawing his sword ignoring urgent cries 

before the drawbridge and portcullis groaned shut with grim finality. Cormac seemed 

to glide rather than stride through the mist rising from the chasm before halting in the 

centre of the bridge, drawing his sword in grim lone defiance. Below the tide rose, the 

cold sea roared cauldrenously, waves smiting the jagged stone formations far below. The tides 

receded rumbling across the dark fathoms of Celtic Sea unseen for the hovering shroud of 

mist. The great lordly castle loomed brooding in the background. 

The massed array of enemy warriors suddenly made way as a towering ogre of a man lumbered 

through their ranks gripping a massive meat cleaver of a sword. Chainmail 

jangled with each stride as the infamous “Butcher of Armagh” Sir 

Fergus made his entrance. His tabard was red like a butcher's apron with the blood of 

slaughtered men. 

Fergus raised a flagon in a mocking toast to Sir Cormac before belching. 

“Is this some insolent jest? This lackey is not fit to die by my sword. 

Does this lowly hedge knight truly believe himself worthy to die by my sword? 

The blade that laid great kings and their champions low. Yield and stand down,” 

he bellowed brandishing a great executioner axe. The rusted notched blade was 

discoloured from the blood of his past victims. Flies buzzed around it. Fergus flushed with mead 

and arrogance closed on Sir Cormac. 

“Hold! Stand down lads. Sieges are dull. I need a bit of fun. Watch me swat this puny fly 

and on to sack the castle lads!” Fergus grinned. 

The enemy horde answered with gusto a chorus of huzzahs and jeers at Cormac as he 

drew into fighting stance that was jolted as the giant lumbered across the 

planks. Cormac strode to meet him. Fergus flexed his muscular chain-mail-clad arms in 

anticipation of casually hacking Cormac down before the eyes of the aghast  

defenders. 

Cormac stood impassive with arms akimbo before he drew the sword with a flourish 

kissing the hilt. The bridge swayed in a blast of window like a disembodied kiss by 

the shriveled lips of death himself. Cormac saw himself mirrored in his assailant's helm as 

dark as an executioner's mask. Fergus boasted that he would ravish Aoife here before 

allowing others to have their way with her. Cormac gripped his sword so tightly blood 

may have oozed between his gauntleted fingers. 

Sir Cormac looked on with distant haunted eyes tormented by a vision of the castle aflame. 

The sea reflecting the inferno like a volcanic eruption. He heard cries of abused women 

and anguished cries of slaughtered men as the castle walls were breached and overrun with fire 

and sword. In that fiery abattoir Aoife lay with torn gown as Fergus stood over her. 

Cormac remembered when his father gifted him the sword on his deathbed. 

“This is a knight's sword it will take a knight to wield it “his father rasped. 

Cormac saw himself mirrored in the varnished blade. His eyes flared with a sudden 

intensity. 

"I will make short work of him," Fergus crowed. 

The giant expected to casually swat Cormac aside dismissively, yet his adversary 

defied expectations parrying the axe strokes deftly and inflicting a slash 

across his enemy’s torso like a mocking smile. 

“Small as a midge and you sting like one. No matter. This ends now, “Fergus sneered. 

Fergus raised the axe in two hands and brought it down obliterating his shield 

emblazoned with the sigil of a red wolf rampant. Cormac shrugged off the supportive 

hands of his anxious squire as he staggered back staunching bleeding with his fist 

yet he felt Lady Aoife’s eyes on him and rallied. 

Cormac put all his dormant rage at God and man jibes and jeers at his lowly birth. 

Blades crossed sparkingly as the two opponents were silhouetted against the 

splendour of the aurora borealis illuminating the sky in lavish flourishes of pastel 

colour. 

Fergus’ eyes betrayed a flicker of uncertainty as they met Cormac’s over cross 

blades. What he anticipated to be a simple execution became a duel. He expected 

to have dispatched Cormac with one blow sending him down with cleft skull 

over the bridge before leading a charge on the walls. 

Fergus did not heed any swordplay but as a brawler in a tavern. The cheers and jeers of 

the besiegers ceased followed by an expectant hush as the crossing of blades resounded. 

Then Fergus raised his brawny arms too high exposing a fatal gap in his armour to Cormac's 

blade. Cormac promptly thrust a dagger between the grooves of the armour. 

A collective gasp rose from the enemy horde as Fergus staggered back. 

In the lull Cormac gave final orders to his squire. The boy gave him a terrified look. 

“A squire obeys his knight,” Cormac urged. 

Cormac insulted Fergus to keep the eyes of his opponent locked on him. Fergus was 

so intent on his enemy to notice the squire frantically cutting the ropes suspending the 

bridge. The bridge shuddered at the like a beheaded serpent’s coils. He could see Lady 

Aoife on the battlements she blew a kiss to him that steamed in the chill air as he 

turned he could feel her eyes on him. Fergus finally had the presence of mind to look up. 

"Archers! Bring him down!" Fergus bellowed. 

Before they could Cormac gripped his sword and slashed through the final ropes 

in succession.  Cormac caught the last strand of rope entwining it in his hand.

“I cannot bear thee,” the squire cried as he grasped Sir Cormac’s hand. 

Cormac felt the hand of his adversary groping trying to dislodge or tear him loose. 

The boy began to slide down with him. 

“Let me go. You have to let me go boy... “ 

Cormac winked at his squire and pulled his hand free. 

He met Aoife's eyes a final time. As he slid off the cliff, he stabbed Fergus 

with his dirk and they fell together. Fergus shrieked in anticipation as they hurtled down 

to the jagged rocks like the bared fangs of a sea monster. Below them the jagged 

stones were exposed then submerged by intervals of the waves rushing in. 

 

Cormac envisioned himself falling alone rush of wind arms splayed savouring the 

sensation of falling. Moments before impact waves roared back in submerging the 

stones just before they struck the water. The giant body of Fergus shielded Cormac 

from most of the impact. Cormac knew that if he blacked out, he would die as he was 

immersed in the cold rush of sea like a cauldrenous torrent. He floated, dazed and 

stunned by the impact and swept like living debris by the tide. 

Imminent to death memories came to haunt him like dark ghosts. He remembered when 

he was bestowed with an accolade by his lord as an anointed knight of a red field of 

terrible carnage. The feathers of ravens seemed to hail him in darkness like 

tears of midnight. He remembered kissing a willing scullery maid against the wall closing his 

eyes imagining it was Aoife...Aoife...His sigh exhaled bubbles as he sank deeper. 

From submerged perspective Cormac looked up to see the undulant glow of the 

aurora borealis. Moonbeams illuminated him, suspended floating listlessly. 

He could hear an eerie song haunting the waves caressing and shuddering 

his soul. Wavering shadows morphed into graceful womanly form. Bioluminescent 

particles shimmered like constellations around him like a hoard of sunken gold. 

He pulled himself free kicked to the surface. His muse and her ladies in 

waiting singing in choir beckoning to him. 

Cormac could see dark silhouettes in seductive revel as if merwomen tempting 

him with their song and cold caresses to linger and sink deeper into the dark 

fathoms. 

Cormac looked transfixed into eye impossibly green like tidepools 

of Celtic Sea. Red hair sweeping like a fire burning under the sea. 

Suddenly saw gill slits on her pale throat betraying her true nature. 

As if unmasked her face reverted to its natural form contorted with rage a frilled 

scaled face baring serrated fangs. Clawed fingers from membraned webbed 

Hands reached for him. Then he saw the sea floor littered by the skulls of mariners that the 

syrens seduced with their eerie song. Their skeletal hands seemed to gesture to him. 

Cormac awoke to the rush of sea tossing him like a plaything of 

the gods ashore. Waves cast Cormac against the rocks gasping hoarsely and coughing 

before being drawn back again thrice, and then finally gripping the rock and pulling 

himself beyond the reach of the sea like a plaything of the gods. 

Cormac pulled himself higher painfully over the jagged stones. The water rose 

flowing over him, submerging him again. Waves slammed Cormac against 

the rocks as he clenched his teeth to endure not wasting cries to cold aloof gods. 

Then he saw it barely visible through the mist. The dark heart of Dunluce. The mermaid 

cave. Its entrance was tantalisingly within reach. It seemed a threshold to the 

Netherworld awaiting him. He grasped a familiar pillar of rock like a monolith, a 

misshapen rock formation sculpted by the hands of time and tides over eons. 

 Cormac gasped vomiting sea water and coughing before laying dazed 

bruised and panting. The waves sizzled between the rocks just behind him like the hiss 

of a cat at a mouse hole after its quarry eluded its reach and claws. Cormac lay 

listening to the sigh of the waves lapping at the rocks as the tide rose and fell. It hurt to 

utter so much as a whisper let alone compose a song. 

The gods felt distant as he was when his mother died of the plague alone. 

He was kept back from being by her side and the cottage set aflame. 

Masked men with a cart came to collect her and dump her in a mass grave 

in a remote place. 

"Why would God allow this father?" 

The haggard priest only looked at him blankly as he was paid to give her a 

blessing from afar. 

With sudden recognition Cormac saw half the face of a fellow man at arms. 

He nudged him and saw crabs scuttle away from the partly defleshed skull they 

were scavenging ravenously. Crabs plucked out his eye in his claw before scuttling 

away into the crevices. Emboldened by his vulnerability the crabs ventured closer to 

him. If they swarmed him, it would be like being butchered by hundreds of little 

daggers. 

Sensing a supernatural presence, the crabs abruptly scuttled away and shrank back into 

the crevices. Scavenging sea birds took flight as if restless shadows were granted 

form and face. A regal apparition graced the darkness. A gowned figure materilaised in 

frills and sumptuous black gossamer. The rock formation morphed into a throne and 

there reposed the Morrigan flanked by great pale wolfhounds. Albino ravens perched on 

her graceful shoulders. 

“The Morrigan,” Cormac gasped. 

“Well met Cormac son of Maeve of Antrim. It has been centuries as mortals measure 

time since one of your blood called upon me,” the dark goddess began. 

“The castle must not fall. I humbly offer myself as sacrifice,” Cormac groaned. 

“I am no lowly scavenger a slab of carrion will not serve my divine craving 

Rise for your enemy draws nigh. I am a goddess of war. I require you to slay your 

enemy as an offering,” the dark goddess said. 

As if conjuring the dead, the Morrigan beckoned in a forbidden tongue. 

Impossibly the Fergus the giant opened his eyes as fishes began to nibble at his flesh. 

He rose explosively from the chill water, lurching for his enemy grunting with pain and 

Rage. Cormac scrambled to respond. 

The cave echoed with harsh booming laughter as Fergus retrieved his axe. 

The weapon struck sparks on the stone as Fergus struck at his elusive quarry. 

Fergus gripped Cormac by the throat and raised him to the level of his eyes 

As he looked into the soulless glare of the revenant Cormac gripped a rusted and 

barnacled fragment of spear amid the flotsam and jetsam wrenching it from the skeletal 

hand of a long-drowned mariner. He stabbed again and again. Blood slithered out 

between the dark crevices forming red tidepools. 

Like a cold-blooded thing still trying to slay its assailant in its thrashing death throes 

Fergus crawled after him only for Cormac to rally on his last reserves of 

strength to finally slay his adversary. Fergus shuddered and shrieked like a boar under 

a butcher's knife abattoir. 

Fergus tried to rise only to be completely enveloped in voracious crabs eating him alive. 

Cormac’s last sight of his nemesis was a writhing pile of crabs rose to his feet lurching a few 

steps enveloped in crabs before falling face forward at last on the stone slab like a 

sacrificial offering. The screams ended when the crabs began to crawl into his throat and 

clamping their claws on his tongue. In the silence Cormac could hear the crabs insatiably 

gorging and sea birds hovering and harrying the grisly banquet trying to win a morsel. 

The screams were replaced by the grisly sounds of the crabs voraciously gorging. 

Screeching sea birds also joined in the feast plucking out the eyes as a delicacy. 

“I accept your sacrifice...” the Morrigan smiled. 

Meanwhile huzzahs rose from the castle’s battlements as a summoned relief army 

caught the besiegers completely off-guard driving them off the cliffs at lancepoint 

by knights astride warhorses reinforced by gallowglass mercenaries wielding claymores 

and lochaber axes. Horns resounded with a throaty bray to signal victory. 

Suddenly Cormac screamed at the nightmarish sight of his enemy rising 

enveloped by crabs. Fergus grasped his nemesis again. 

A sword flashed in the firelight swung in a shimmering arc severing the giant’s head. 

The knight doffed their helm. Red hair cascaded out spilling like wine from a chalice. 

“Aoife,” Cormac sighed. 

Retainers of the Lord of Dunluce found him scowering the confines of 

the sea cave by torchlight. One man gasped and drew his sword as the 

torchlight illuminated Cormac’s pale face. 

“Hold. Revenants don't breathe fool. Take him,” a man at arms commanded. 

Men at arms draped Cormac’s arms over their shoulders and lifted him 

on their shields to carry him inside the castle. 

A Moorish doctor shipwrecked on their shores tended to his wounds. 

Cormac’s eyes opened as he heard Aoife singing next to him. He closed his eyes and 

reopened them. He was still wounded and broken on the rocks too weak to move as the 

tide rose again. He shifted between two worlds not knowing where he truly was 

a bard strummed his harp softly. She rose and kissed his forehead enfolding his cold 

hands on the sword. The water rushed in with a roar. 

 

“Your father would never approve...” Cormac groaned. 

“If you were elevated to a lord or we could elope “ 

Cormac reopened his eyes. 

“Where am I?” 

Was he still floating in the sway of the tides or writhing throes of infected feverish sleep 

Tended top by the lord's personal doctor a Moorish physician between dream and 

death frail yet clutching to life with a fierce tenacity. 

Cormac heard Aoife singing next to him. His lips moved soundlessly in duet. He closed 

his eyes and reopened them. Was he still wounded and broken on the rocks too 

weak to move as the tide rose again? He shifted between two worlds not knowing 

where he truly was a bard strummed his harp softly. Aoife rose and kissed his forehead 

enfolding his cold hands on the sword as the water rushed in with a roar. 

Cormac envisioned himself dancing across a dreamscape of stars 

With Aoife. He felt himself uplifted as he fought the fever his lips soundlessly singing a song to 

his muse.

Greg Patrick - A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man. He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.