Sabbat

    Picturesque Tituba, steeped in Obeah,
    in a hairball swoon
    leads a harangue about witches with
    some of Salem's more delicate
    women, obedient children.

    In verdant outcrops of the imagination
    fuelled by a beldame's winter fire
    amid sparks that prance with devils
    thru tempest gloom
    covens are conjured
    so they implicate other pretties
    with raven hair,
    arm curled, in desperation,
    about the moon.

    With supernatural hands extended
    the sea is a wretch's bitter vinegar
    pounding the little, eggshell homes
    where, at twilight, a dozen village Elders
    with bell and taper,
    candlelight and prayer
    bind parchment oaths
    to envisage clandestine pacts, sabbats,
    obscene sojourns.

    Peculiar cat -
    straw hat,
    thatch and loft
    a drop of blood sputtering
    then drawn over piddling flame,
    the well-intentioned righteous
    demask the pain-fed frightened.

    Gibbet, arm's length of braided rope -
    gang-plank, gallow stairs that smirk
    off into Eternity
    - a lucky few strangled,
    the adamant burned,
    fickle apostates swum
    on a ducking stool.

    Ice-fire hearths -
    bonfire sheaths ravishing the strong
    carnival veil
    along pebble-strewn trail.