Well


I know this path by magic not by sight.

Behind me on the hillside the cottage light

is like a star that’s gone astray. The moon


is waning fast, each blade of grass a rune


inscribed by hoarfrost. This path’s well worn.


I lug a bucket by bramble and blossoming blackthorn.

I know this path by magic not by sight.


Next morning when I come home quite unkempt


I cannot tell what happened at the well.


You spurn my explanation of a sex spell


cast by the spirit who guards the source


that boils deep in the belly of the earth,


even when I show you what lies strewn


in my bucket — a golden waning moon,


seven silver stars, our own porch light,


your face at the window staring into the dark.

Paula Meehan (1996)

Paula Meehan explains and reads "Well" here.

Calvary

The Thrill Of It All

Pious readers will know of the Stations of the Cross, a series of representations, sculptural or pictorial, depicting fourteen important moments during the last earthly hours of Our Saviour. I'm sorry to say that the student body had sacrilegiously appropriated the terminology of the Stations into the euphemisms of its erotic slang. 'The First Station' meant holding hands while French-kissing. Arrival at the Fifth involved manual stimulation through underwear (preferably someone else's). Six was unzipping or de-knickering. Seven I don't wish to go into. Gaining the Eighth meant you'd persuaded your co-conspirator of the time-honored biblical injunction that it was better to give than to receive. Fortunate to progress beyond Nine, your gratitude to the heavens was deep. Not that I myself had ever forged so far along the road. On this pilgrimage, I was a Four, if that. The only person I'd ever gone to bed with was myself. I suspected that myself and I would be better just as friends. But we were finding it hard to split up.

Joseph O'Connor, The Thrill Of It All (2014)

Lera Lynn

Lera Lynn at Ashland Coffee & Tea (8/9/14)

Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt

Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt, at Ashland Coffee & Tea (8/7/14):

A Most Wanted Man