Burning
Posted: 31 October 2015
Word Count: 176
Summary: Originally for the Halloween Flash Challenge! Messed about with it a bit so again, all comments and suggestions gratefully received!
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Version 3
They come to me.
I am lover
healer
midwife
doctor
friend.
I know them all.
I taste their treachery.
Honeyed deceit
coats my tongue,
clogs my throat,
flavours my panic.
WITCH! They shout.
The branches spark
as they jostle to get near.
Flushed faces ugly
in their frenzy.
I know them all.
Smokey tendrils
of hate
stroke my tears.
Fear catches;
ignites.
Fire seeks me out!
Version 2
They come to me.
I am lover
healer
midwife
doctor
friend.
I know them all.
I taste their secrets;
honied betrayal
coats my tongue,
clogs my throat,
flavours my panic.
WITCH! They shout.
The branches spark.
Content with their sacrifice.
Smokey tendrils
of hate
crawl through cracks,
stroke my tears.
Fear catches;
ignites.
Fire seeks me out!
Version 1
Fire seeks me out!
Smokey tendrils
of hate
crawl through cracks,
stroke my tears.
Fear catches;
ignites.
I know them all.
I am lover
healer
midwife
doctor
friend
And still they come.
Betrayal.
The branches spark.
Content with their sacrifice.
“Whore”, they shout.
WITCH! I breathe.
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Comments by other Members
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 crowspark at 09:54 on 01 November 2015
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Hi Jo-Ann
A strong entry for the challenge. Love:
Smokey tendrils
of hate
crawl through cracks,
stroke my tears.
Fear catches;
ignites.
and
The branches spark.
Content with their sacrifice.
It is the community that is haunted, by fear and mistrust.
Loved it.
Bill
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 V`yonne at 10:34 on 01 November 2015
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I like this. Couple fo suggestions? The first line would make a better title or a better last line, I think.
I would rearrange:
They come to me.
I am lover
healer
midwife
doctor
friend.
I know them all.
WITCH! they shout.
The branches spark.
Content with their sacrifice.
How about
triumphant in their betrayal.
Fell free to ignore but I really do think this is a good'un. It'll fit a Hallowe'en one year :)
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 Bazz at 12:22 on 01 November 2015
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Hi Jo, an intense, emotional response to the prompt, which really adds to the poem (were any witches ever really burnt though, is that an urban myth or something that actually happened (horrible if true)?).
Like Bill, I really loved
Smokey tendrils
of hate
crawl through cracks,
stroke my tears.
Fear catches;
ignites.
Fear "igniting," smoke "stroking" the tears, intense, poetic, but personal imagery, really makes this all the more affecting. As Oonah says, starting with lover/healer/midwife, and then revealing what's happening, might make it even more affective. Great piece. Thanks for the last minute entry :)
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 Jojovits1 at 21:29 on 02 November 2015
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Thanks everyone! As always, your suggestions are gratefully received.
I quite like this, so will probably work on it and wheel it out again next year
Barry, yes I'm afraid the burning did happen. Not that often but enough. We were more fond of it in Scotland ("the Scottish Way"), whereas England went in for hanging and drowning. 
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V`yonne at 09:39 on 03 November 2015
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Jo, put it into Poetry Forum and work it there and it might find its way...somewhere... when it's developed?
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 James Graham at 19:39 on 04 November 2015
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Thanks for putting this into the Poetry Group. At a glance your second version is much better, but we'll see if any more 'polishing' is needed.
James.
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V`yonne at 13:46 on 05 November 2015
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Much stronger. Now I am thinking that 400 yrs ago witch trials were very prevalent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_boy
and so maybe this could find a place in a 2016 Issue.
Of course there is also Gyroscope Review, Bewildering Stories, Postcard Poems and Prose who are also friendly to submissions from WW  because they know the poems have gone through a peer review process.
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James Graham at 20:38 on 05 November 2015
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Hi Jo – I hope you haven't submitted yet! I think I see ways of making a very good poem even better. We only need to discuss Version 2, which is much better than Version 1.
First of all, I want to give you my version of the background story that’s just under the surface of the poem. In the era when witches were persecuted, a woman who practised herbal medicine, or midwifery, or what we would call ‘counselling’, and other services of benefit to the community, was often called not a witch but a ‘wise woman’. But, influenced by church teachings and government policy, people often suspected that a local wise woman was secretly practising black magic – or had the power to use it if she chose to do so. So villagers and country people were easily turned against a local wise woman. If she was accused by the authorities of devil-worship or casting harmful spells, people’s suspicions came to the surface and they joined in the persecution – even if they had known the woman for many years.
If this is more or less the background you were thinking of, I think it affects two or three lines of the poem. First:
I taste their secrets
This could be taken to mean that she knows some of their personal or family secrets. Coming just after the previous line, it seems to say she knows them all and knows personal things about them. The lines after this, though, suggest that the ‘secrets’ she knows are the secret suspicions that made them turn against her. I think the latter is what you mean, so it could be made clearer by changing the word:
I taste their treachery
Treachery is a secretive thing. Some of them, while seeming friendly towards her, might have been hiding their plans to inform on her, or at least their general misgivings about her.
As often happens, when you make a small change in a poem you find you have to change something else. ‘Betrayal’ in the next line means much the same as treachery, so that could change to ‘honied malignity/ malevolence’, or ‘hypocrisy’ might be apt too.
Next, a line that Oonah thought should be changed:
Content with their sacrifice
I agree. I tend to go for the idea of making this more concrete, more visual – replace this with two or even three lines which give us glimpses of the people gathered round the fire. Their faces are flushed with excitement.They keep their distance but jostle to get as near as they can. Perhaps someone laughs.
Then repeat the line ‘I know them all’. I emphasise this because I think it would be very powerful. Where it first appears, it’s associated with being their ‘friend’, treating them for illness, delivering their babies. Now there’s a bitter irony: these are the same people, she still knows them, but now they joyfully watch her burn. An alternative would be ‘I knew them all’ meaning the people she used to know are so changed she still knows their faces but doesn’t know them in any other sense. I prefer ‘I know them all’.
Lastly, ‘crawl through cracks’ isn’t a great line. You mean smoke rises through the spaces between the heaped-up branches. I’ve no particular reason for saying you should just drop this line, except that this seems to focus more on the victim:
Smokey tendrils
of hate
stroke my tears.
I hope this will be helpful. As I say, it’s a case of making a good poem better still.
James.
P.S. It’s all part of the long history of the subordination, marginalisation and persecution of women. Of course it still goes on, but I hope it’s true to say that most men in our time, especially in secular societies, would have nothing to do with it. Something in the male psyche is originally to blame: the need to dominate. Maybe we can grow out of it.
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Jojovits1 at 22:46 on 05 November 2015
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Hi James!
Thank you for your input - both you and Oonah, as always, have been so helpful.
James, you are a walking fountain of knowledge! Yes, many simple herbalists, recluses, disabled women (and men), disfigured...were all persecuted. What you say about subordination and marginalisation is also very true and it has been shown that quite a few women were basically harassed and murdered for wealth and land.
I taste their secrets;
was, for me, in the first context you mention. She has been a confidant, which makes the betrayal all the more hurtful.
Content with their sacrifice.
I can certainly lose it. Looking at it again, it doesn't really add anything but I can replace.
I will work on it tomorrow and show you how it goes.
There is a little part of me though, that although aghast at what they did to anyone they feared was different, hopes some of them WERE witches. I'd like it if the sisterhood got some sort of revenge ;-)
Jo
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V`yonne at 10:37 on 06 November 2015
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And if you're interested in reading about it, this book Women's Madness, is an eye-opener
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Womens-Madness-Misogyny-Mental-Illness/dp/087023787X
Great read too!
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James Graham at 14:09 on 06 November 2015
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If you want to keep 'I taste their secrets' just space it between the two stanzas?
I know them all.
I taste their secrets.
Honied betrayal
coats my tongue
James.
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Jojovits1 at 16:38 on 06 November 2015
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Version 3 up. James, I went with your first suggestion and got rid of secrets.
Jo
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V`yonne at 18:11 on 06 November 2015
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It's getting better and better this one but I am now wondering about that last line and thinking that perhaps it should go back to being the first line as it seems a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut at the end. Also maybe leave the exclamation mark off.
See what James thinks of this suggestion. James is always right
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 Merlynhawk at 18:14 on 06 November 2015
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Version 3 - Oh, I quite like this. It's a little bit stilted, but in this I think it adds to the uncertainty of being called a Witch. I've seen that look in people's eyes many times.
Version 2 - It's ok, but I like 3 better.
Version 1 - This one is back to front of version 3, but I'm not sure if I don't like this one better than 3. It's a toss, really.
<Added>
Version 3 - Oh, I quite like this. It's a little bit stilted, but in this I think it adds to the uncertainty of being called a Witch. I've seen that look in people's eyes many times.
Version 2 - It's ok, but I like 3 better.
Version 1 - This one is back to front of version 3, but I'm not sure if I don't like this one better than 3. It's a toss up, really.
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Jojovits1 at 18:14 on 06 November 2015
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I actually thought about dropping it altogether. You're right, it just doesn't seem to fit at the end now. Maybe you were right with your very first suggestion and having it as the title?
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Jojovits1 at 18:17 on 06 November 2015
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Oops...that overlapped with Chrys's comment :-)
thanks for commenting! Adding and taking away can be a back and forward process :-)
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Go for it!
