poem – Clan Witch & Word Refinery

Clan Witch: Found Shadows

I’m sweeping the circle. The bones and remnants of word fusions are being expelled to make way for new spells. This collection is set for release in Hogmanay 2022. The preorder is live now.

Digital ARCs will be available well in advance of release, if you are a reviewer who’d love a first look at Clan Witch: Found Shadows, my mailbox is open for enquiries to be added to my priority early reader list.

Clan Witch: Found Shadows, releasing December 31st 2022

Synopsis (subject to tweaking)

Do readers buy poetry from undead poets?

There’s nothing quite like picking the prose and verses of the dead like vultures. There’s freedom in that unpicking, with no one alive to contest, at least not the mind which birthed them.

Sinclair consumes written and spoken as she does in its lyrical form, dressed in music and paint. Dancing to the beat or screaming into the voids of despair. Here, Sinclair presents Clan Witch: Found Shadows, no music, no paint, just words. A mix-tape of drabbles and anarchic free verse poetry..

The writer still lives. Perhaps you’ll read her unruly verse before the witch is dead.

Cover image from Christy Aldridge of Grim Poppy Designs

One for Sorrow

I’ve been seeing them for months in fours

Fanned feathers

Celestial blues, flanked with obsidian rainbows—

Four for a boy.

Three days ago,

Three didn’t show.

One flew solo—

One for sorrow.

Yesterday and today, the same—

One for sorrow.

Another silent death inside the chalice of life.

Mother of death—another passes beatless.

At least he will, soon.

It could be hours, days, weeks away.

One for sorrow.

He has no clock,

Only mine ticks on.

Until then, I wait.

Holding the silence within—

The growing void

Of his deathbed.

His roof collapsing from

The haematoma down.

I select a tree, a burial site,

A square I knitted nine years ago,

His teddy.

I consider the name that will be whispered when he slips from my body into my palms,

And my eyes drink his flesh in for the first and final time.

One for Sorrow.

I’m birthing death—

Not for the first time.

The Crash of Verses

Rafik Romdhani

This week welcomes the release of Rafik Romdhani’s second poetry collection, The Crash of Verses. A hearty congratulations to this exemplary wordsmith on his newest release! Working with the author in developing his manuscript to present digital and print editions to the public was a pleasure.

The book is available to purchase via this universal link.
Early reviews have been shared on Goodreads, which have been excellent so far (and well deserved). If you pick up the book, please consider leaving an honest review on your prefered platform. These are incredibly valuable to other readers and independent creators alike.

About Rafik Romdhani

Rafik Romdhani was born to Salah Romdhani and Mbarka Romdhani in Rakada Kairouan, Tunisia in 1981. He grew up on a large farm, where like many Tunisian children, he undertook years of heavy, back-breaking work. He is a poet by nature and an English teacher by profession. He studied English Language and Literature in the Faculty of Arts, University of Kairouan and started teaching in 2006 in Tunisia. From 2012 he taught English in the Sultanate of Oman before returning to work again in Tunisian schools in 2016.

Romdhani began writing poetry in 2000. His influences include Charles Baudelaire, Herbert Zbiginiew, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, and Sghaier Aouled Ahmed. His debut collection, Dance of the Metaphors, released in 2021, represents an authentic outpouring of his long-suppressed desire to share his poetry with a wider audience. His second collection, The Crash of Verses, hits global audiences in 2022.

Romdhani’s work tackles themes from his observations of nature, politics, culture, society and humanity. His prose is exquisitely conceived and presented in a form as elegantly classical as it is strikingly modern. In his prose, readers are guaranteed a journey never to be forgotten.

Woodworm

I visualise the tiny holes
Secretly infesting,
Weakening bones
Like woodworm.
I’m on one of their backs;
A voyeur
In inner space.
Woodworm cancer
Speckling the
Skeleton,
Spreading spots
Eroding this life’s vessel.
He says he’s fine
When he late
Returns,
Reluctant—
Like a child
Pushed towards
Their failure,
Their mistake, 
Disgrace.
He says he’s fine
When he lies to me—
Face blue,
Faceless
Digital alphabets
Thrown together,
A string
For a stranger—
Loveless.
I keep making
Peace with the
Distance;
Goldfish swimming 
In circles.
The no return
Excuses,
The rot in 
My soul,
The hole
He created
With another falsity!
It’s ok.
I’ve made peace—
I lie to myself too.
The damnation
Of Genetics.

Dead Waltz

A ghost waltzed through me
When I slept deathly deep
Slumber disrupted
Taking advantage
As he did with my
Friendship, my loyalty
My trust, my body

A ghost waltzed through me
Like I was his to enter
No choice but surrender
And I welcomed his touch
Through disgust
Distaste, mistrust
Did I lay down the mat?

A ghost waltzed through me
Did I invite him inside?
An open window, door ajar
In a tongue unknown
A serenade degrade
Billows clouding smoke
Butt of some joke

A ghost waltzed through me
I played dead

Don’t move
Don’t whimper
Quiet heart
Don’t breathe
Don’t stir

A ghost waltzed through me
I lay still.

Your Heaven is a Lie

A Poem

The poignant print
Has pressed itself
Upon my cerebrum
Sepia ink bleeding
The cells we share
Scream in anguish
Silenced, winded
Controlled by them
Another whisper
Her Faint voice 
Only heads his own.
Him
There’s always
A him
First under
Their skins
Like they belonged
To him
And each after
Many faces
The same demon
Chancers
Gypsies
Faux gentlemen
Had his way
Abusing bodies
Manipulating minds
Like no crime
Captive strangled
His God-given right
Blind eyes
Sightless
Mindless
The perverse
Protected
It’s the mad
Talking
No one hears
Gibberish
Gobbledygook
Drivel
Swept under
Bulging rug
Give it a wide-berth
The unstable
Weave weathers
Fraying weakening 
The boards
Beneath creak
Like her voice
Cognitive dissonance
Ignorant until
It’s too late…
Another coffin
How many now?
Hold hands
Ersatz repentance
Hypocrisy reigning
Sins of the
Self-righteous
Self-proclaimed 
Unchallenged patriarch
The worst of them
Self-made god(s)
Bitten tongues
My open eyes
See through
The shoddy charade
That he parades
With every dial
Every smile 
Clink of glass
The heart haemorrhages
In silent solitude
There’s no truce
With these
Truths
Your Heaven is
A lie and your
Hell awaits
When you
Fucking die.

Just Words

Their love
Demanded a price
Obedience
Blood
Sanity
Unspoken (at times)
Until she spoke up
Raising from a whisper
Unnoticed
Unheard
Unwelcome
Pitchforks 
Faux assurances
Platitudes
Lies
All of which she despised
A continuous cycle
Only she could break
The black sheep
The unwanted 
The failure
Witch bitch
Her death worth more than her life
The life begrudged
Cell division
Damning their youth
Sealing fates
She to blame
Because someone had to be
She tried
Talked
Filtered
Diluted herself
Until there was barely anything left
Shut up
Medicate
Put between some miles
Time
Distance not enough
Their disdain plain
As long as she exists
It’s all Futile 
The failed investment
It’s all too late
Consummation sealed fate
Abortion option too late
You are your faults
Your decisions
She is not your scapegoat
Anymore.

People Pleasing Massacre

A poem

From this tomb
I look at the massacre
I’ve made of myself
Taking in every ripple of depression
The marches of its succession
Binging and fasting like waves sloshing
Overwhelming loose skin
Drinking in the scars
Grooves deeper than can be seen
Slashes from the blade
Tracks worn into this sick façade
Embedded in the tomb
For me, there’s no room
Depression’s refusal to be released
Sagging waves of torment
Dropping into the scalding water
Reddening surface and silver deep
Lie back
Just lie back let it sink in
Conquer the concave slave
Drench black-eyed face under
Revell in the nearing thunder
I can see through my corpse to the decomposition
My life’s mission
Taking in their rot
I’m rotting alive
No need to be a giver
They keep taking
Clawing at the veins
Sucking my blood with straws
Lie back further
Steer across the landscape
It ain’t too horrifying from this angle
The sags tighten
Silver streaks lighten
Red fades to blush
Embrace the incoming hush
I’ll lie here
Lie to myself for a while
Let the silver lining twinkle
A perspective shift
A momentary lift.

One Last Time

Biding time until reaper's weepers dispersed
The mourning departed to spread grief song

I linger until silence befell cemetery gates
Beyond the ceremonial bound

In observance
Solitary silence
Spiritual widow
I’ve waited…

Making way across the damp green
Souls stick in the mud sinking
Making my way to you
One last time

Love out of sight
Residing now on opposing dimensions
Held in the brevity of penumbra
Lovestruck in shadow
Your dark spell, loves curse

By the mound afore you
I stare into your pit
Imagining the pits of your eyes behind the box
Pondering the transparency of your boxes of fabrication
Heart-shaped carpentry, weak to these sorrowful eyes

My love on a fine line
Kneeling with my hands in your mud bed
I climb into your grave
Lay atop of your box poured with flowers you hate

Deep in the hole upon my love’s burial bed
Breathing in the fumes of your death
Feeling deaths whispers swarm my head

Love eternally buried in me
Beyond the finite blood and bone
Can you feel the heat penetrate your cold corpse?
I lie in your pit
Widow death shroud 
On top of my love…

One last time


© Natasha Sinclair

Quick 2020 Wrap Up

Just dropping by with a quick 2020 writing (or more subbing) wrap up since it seems to be the thing to do!

On my first year actively subbing and writing for specific calls, this has resulted in 58 pieces accepted for publication. 42 of these have been published this year – 8 Short Stories, 13 Flash Fiction, 20 Drabbles and 1 Poem. The remaining 16 accepts will be out in 2021.

I have been lucky to have my work appear alongside some cool folk from around this wee planet. Thankful and grateful for the opportunities and encouragement from my friends, family and writing community. Writing wise it’s been a pretty fun year — I’ve learned so much and developed some new skills along the way.

As for the rest of 2020, it will not be missed!

2020 – that’s plenty, be on your way!