nb: typed in a bit of a frenzy, between trains, so i’m editing this in: piseog, often anglicised (especially in america) as the pejorative “pish-rogue” is an old irish word that does a lot of work, in that it can be used to designate something as superstitious, but can also refer to the ritual instruments by/ through which superstitions were enacted. most commonly used to refer to varieties of curse, as separate and distinct from ortha, which is prayer, liturgy, or charm. the poem makes use of a number of these beliefs and rituals, current especially during the 1800s, throughout the famine and the land wars. “emergency men” and landlords were particular targets. i’ve said it once, i’ll say it until your ears fall off from boredom: magic is not part of this drippy, marketised wellness cult: it a guerrilla recourse for those without power in moments of extremis. and even a “curse” in this context, can be - is - a militant expression of community care. because our lovely neighbour is being evicted, i wanted a ritual that returned the poisonous power through which her landlords perpetuate and parade their “rights” to be returned to them three-fold. to create the ritual, i drew on known examples of “pish-roguery” practiced against landlords in ireland during the 1800s. i didn’t have a real, full-size anvil, but i do have the paperweight one i found at a car-boot sale years ago, and i had hen feathers (let me tell you more about the sassy character of the henwife, next time), and part of my house used to be an old forge. ordinarily, i don’t like to go in there (it’s intensely creepy, with a very specific male energy), but for the purposes of this ritual (turning the anvil, casting feathers in the flame until they burn blue) i made an exception.
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turn the anvil, all black, horns toward the door. the anvil, satire on a bull's back. turn millstones. at midnight. clockwise on the landlord. with the fervour of the people. with the valour of the tribe. all the hot translucent losses we can't mourn. free me, from the narrowness of names. was coming home, under the misremembered moon, to eat the sparrow-sundered morning up. to block the hearth with stones. to spite a machine idea of the world. biddy is ecstatic black, a tiresome daisy, many amulets from one eye. henwife. biddy is an effigy of hens. a method of hens. to tear their claggy thatch to straw. an elegy of hens, and turn the anvil. eclipse my stock of woe. burn them down, in the theatre of their feelings, in a field of new wheat. i have buried eggs and meat. have wiped the shine from the silver – outrageous variations – on my – or scratch their name in earth. the unconditional twig. snap! where a name is a neck, upside of air. smoke to twist. across some negligent heavenly. under the moon, revising their entitlements. the miseries they wish on you: a soulmate in a headlock, the boozy runt and his fist walking you into cupboard doors. this, their world. turn the anvil, spread the anvil like an altar – citadel of stables. go hen-feathered through communion, the new day coming up thoroughly rainbowed. by find. by dubh. by brecc – ortha, strike the anvil. blacksmiths, millers & women. a trinity of biddies. iron, bread, and blood. from this the world is made, by this their curse returns.