Body

Crone by Clare L. Martin

/ Clare L. Martin
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Available on Amazon and through Nixes Mate Books.
“Clare Martin’s Crone is a feast for eyes and ears, seductive in its use of both imagery and sound. Celebrating the sometimes terrifying, sometimes life-giving teachings of the wise woman,  Crone evokes a woman’s coming-to-power, an epic “cronesong” of spells and potions in the form of poetry.”
–Sheryl St.Germain, author of The Small Door of Your Death.
 
Clare Martin’s Crone glows equal parts magic, music, and muscle. Her lines are laced with ambergris and jasmine, ghosts and wolfbreath. I would call Martin’s art a gorgeous dream, but that would ignore the blood, bone, and heart that drive this book at its core. Crone is the creation of a poet at the height of her powers, in full voice, and mesmerizing. Immerse yourselves in these lines, friends. You’ll rise from their waters cleansed and awed.  —Jack B. Bedell, author of No Brother, This Storm, Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2017-2019
 
“Clare L. Martin is a mysterious spellcaster. CRONE is a lush and dizzying monster of a poem. Coming through it made me see the world anew.”
Luis Alberto Urrea, author of House of Broken Angels

Enchantment of the Crone

/ Clare L. Martin / 1 Comment
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In December of 2017, I went on a women’s retreat organized by The Penchant Group, a creative collective founded by Bessie Senette. On the retreat, each woman was free to choose their focus, whether on writing or another art form. In a lovely cabin in the woods of Chicot State Park, we spent time alone with our work. We communed when we ate meals or after meals as we sat by a roaring fire. I had been experiencing a nearly four-year-long depression, triggered by my mother’s death, with some high points that worked to pull me through. This nutritive gathering was a balm to my heart and soul.
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It actually had snowed in Louisiana that weekend. On one of the full days there, a poem burst through me as I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the snowy scene outdoors. I read the poem to the group. They appreciated it and said it was strong. Later, when I returned home, I revised it several times. I absolutely hated the revisions and went back to the first draft. That poem became the first poem written for Crone.
`
When I was hospitalized in March 2018 for suicidal depression, someone in the hospital, when they learned that I was a writer with two published books, asked me if I was going to keep writing. I was on the mend as a new dosage of antidepressant took root. I answered, “Yes, of course.” I had started a creative project. It was a nebulous vision but something was ahead of me.
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Shortly after I got out of the hospital, I received an email from Annie Pluto, asking if I had a manuscript of 40 to 50 pages. I was wowed to be asked but I did not have a manuscript of that length or one that was ready. I had a loose group of sketched-out poems that I was working and reworking without a clear vision of what it would be. The working title was Crone. I might have had 15 to 20 poems that needed a lot of attention. I asked Annie if I could be given some time to work. She said to take four months.
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I was driven. I was mad with poetry. I finished the manuscript in two weeks!
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I have to give credit to my therapist, J.S., who I started seeing after my release from the hospital. Weekly sessions and full disclosure to her pulled me together. Also, my nurse practitioner, who I’ve seen for a decade, worked fiercely to see me well. The intense talk therapy helped. I really scored with J.S. She’s professional, compassionate, intuitive, and agrees with me politically if that matters. (I think it does!) I’ve spent 30 years trying and failing at talk therapy with less than competent therapists and my hopes had dwindled that anyone could help me in that way, but I was wrong. I still see J.S. biweekly and I don’t foresee stopping. She’s really proud of me and owns my first two books. She has an affinity for poetry, as well. That helps. She understands creatives like me.
`
Nixes Mate Books only solicits manuscripts. They are not open to unsolicited manuscripts. I finalized Crone, burnishing it to wholeness. When I sent it to Annie, she read it carefully, spent time with it, and let it resonate. She said yes to it. This achievement was a victory of life over death for me. The same year I was hospitalized for what I believed and wanted to be the end of my life, I was able to pull out a book from my psyche that I am so proud of and in love with.
`
From the first poem written in December to the last edits prior to going into book design, it might have been four months. Then a few weeks after the acceptance, the contract was signed and the work shifted to book design by Michael McInnis. Michael has been wonderful to work with and his design work is impeccable. I haven’t spent time working with Philip Borenstein, but I’m indebted to him as well as a publisher of Nixes Mate Books.
`
Crone is like no other work I have created. It came out in a fury. It came out after a suicidal depression. It was my hands, neck, shoulders, back, butt and thighs putting in the work at a desk. Hours and days and weeks of intuiting the narrative, intuiting the magic and myth, intuiting voices of the Crone and the Maiden.
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We have something very special in store for you. The work isn’t confessional. It’s myth and magic. It’s a poet seeing outward and into the ether. It’s a long poem, meant to be read as narrative but experimental in form and subject. It’s an exploration of mystical womanhood, and the natural and supernatural worlds.
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I hope you will read Crone. It’s available now via Amazon and soon directly through Nixes Mate Books and me. It’s not a book for the faint of heart. It saved my life. I pray it will keep in you for the ages.
`Clare L. Martin

Embryonic Self

/ Clare L. Martin / 2 Comments

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“Embryonic Self*,” mixed media, by Clare L. Martin

 

 

A tree held in its branches
a womb that carried me.
My strong heart
beat brilliant red
through fluid translucence.
A thick cord
connected me to roots
of the tree
into the blood
of the earth.

Who knew I would experience
such sorrow, such joy
once born into the world?

 

 

 

*Dedicated to Bessie Senette.

Clare L. Martin ©2016

 

 

Poem after Angel Bath series by Dennis Paul Williams

/ Clare L. Martin / 2 Comments

Angel Bath

after a mixed media art piece in the Angel Bath series by Dennis Paul Williams

 

The fetal heart stops
in a globe of light
bones work
their way through flesh
flesh-in-water
her cheek depressed
a doctor’s thumbprint
bruises aorta
gray washes into amber
soft, blooded veins—
her mother bears
the crown of thorns.

Desiccation we know
is truth
because the artist
layers each dream
upon the other
the artist dreams
these dreams for us
to show us
what happens
when waters rise
when rains fall.

When mothers suffer
up to their necks
reach for the ceiling
pray for lightning bolt holes
through the roof: a delivery
of a different kind
the ever-ghost children
quickly go to ground—

Beloved, loved,
still-hearted and all.

 

©2016 Clare L. Martin

Divination Writings

/ Clare L. Martin

DIVINATIONS*

 

1temperance 

Temperance

The angel with two chalices draws water to water. Its wings seem bloodied. Its feet are bare, placed in water and on land. A brilliant light shines between two peaks far behind the angel. Irises bloom near the cool, clear pool. The angel has a radiance in the position of the third eye. How this card speaks to me! Temperance: I have yet to find it in my circumstances now, perhaps ever. I am always flowing up a swollen river, or down in fast currents, gasping for breath. I want to be of the nature of water. I want to flow between two chalices in an angel’s hands. I want to give refreshment and seep through mountains. I want to flow from and to a greater Source. Temperance for a sick mind means the realization of humanness, the discarding of perilous fantasies. I am not a winged being of God’s favor. But holy, all the same.

 

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Ten of Swords (Love)

My heart is big. It pumps hard. Sometimes it drains and there is no blood left. It beats like a fish-out-of-water. I get mixed up. I put trust in the man with ten swords in his back, silver coins dropping from his tongue. But I know Truth, and with It I cut through the thickest night. How does a person not be themselves? I was born this way. I was born to put everything on the table with only a pair of deuces in my hand.

       

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The Star

The Star holds two vessels.

Her companion crow, teacher, stills the picture with its black eye. The Star pours liquid essence. (I am pouring essence). The lights of heavens surround us. She returns water-to-water. She is in her purest form. An Eve, woman essential, near a body of water.

We will replenish
and be replenished.

 

 

 

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Queen of Wands

She bears a flame crown upon her head and her scepter is a bough blooming with fire flowers. A cat curls in her lap. Her feet are bare. Her feet rest upon the head of a lion. It’s hide, a carpet. It’s teeth and claws preserved and prominent. Her armies are like the lion she rules. Defenders and fierce attackers. She is at the helm. I am a helmswoman. I carry a sword. I sit on a gilded throne. You would not recognize these trappings as such but I dare you to look into my eyes and doubt my authority.

 

 

 

 

69

Eight of Coins, Knight of Coins, Six of Coins, all drawn. Coins in our soup enrich nothing. Coins in our pockets carry us only as far as imagination does. We are gathering our coins, pulling them from all corners. We empty out pockets. Dig the mason jars from the garden buried beneath the sweet olive. All the coins pocketed after buying laundry detergent, cat food, toilet paper. Holy coins; tangible as bread. We hold these coins in fists to be their worth. Will they last? What do they impart to us? What transformative magic? If we had rooms full of coins, gold, silver, would we be holy? Would we ascend to Heaven? Would we walk the earth desolate and tormented too fat to fit through the eye of the needle?

 

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Two of Wands
I assess the room; eliminate three perceived threats before you enter. I know your fatal weakness before you speak. It is in your gait and your shoulders. I know this because I see the burden you carry. My exit’s plotted. Everything’s set, Two of Wands. Two times you have entered my life at critical junctures. This is the last. You tell me you have fifty thousand dollars to your name and that you are going to spend it on a sailboat. Goodbye is why we are meeting tonight. I know better than to try to change your mind.  You are going to that metaphor we will name “the Atlantic.”

 

 

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The Pope
They carry her to the inner chamber and place her high upon the bed. They tie her hair to the frame, braid by braid. Through the window, she sees the fires of the city, a full moon. She sees the stars constellate. The room is dark and scented with Frankincense. The man enters wearing a silk dressing-gown. He breathes with difficulty as he approaches her. He carries a platter of sweetmeats and a chalice of fresh wine. She begins to cry out. The man places a soft cloth in her mouth. Her eyes skitter like spiders held to a burning match.

 

 

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Four of Swords
I’d like to think your seclusion is temporary. Our time here is temporary. You told me you are going to sail to Istanbul.  I will never know if you made it to Turkey. There is dire political unrest there now. I don’t know if you were aware. Too much grief in your heart to read the news? It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together: You probably would leave your ID behind. No way to track your purchases before you leave to indicate what you are planning to do. You said you only told me. Why did you burden me? Of all people. Maybe this was a blessing? I’m trying to figure it out.

I pulled the Four of Swords.
Respite. Rest. Repose. Replenishment. Solitude. Exile. Retreat. Abandonment.
These divinations are mine this time.

 

©2016 Clare L. Martin

 

*These writings originated from J.K. McDowell’s WRITING PROMPT: Texas Hold’em Tarot Divination Writing Prompt using The Medieval Scapini Tarot by Luigi Scapini dealt to group in a Texas Hold’em pattern and “played” as a writing game. As I am devling further I am adding pieces to the series.

Swimming as Prayer

/ Clare L. Martin

water

Sometimes when I enter the pool, even when I am swimming, I think “this doesn’t seem real.” I don’t sense that I am present in my body at that moment. But then, body memory takes over and my mind follows. These are the best times, when my mind senses and recognizes that I am in the moment, in the pool, synced with my body so that all of me is coalesced in the present. Then, each breath, each moment is aligned with thought, and form becomes essential. My thought turns to prayer, or a mantra, and my body’s movement is prayer as well. I am a ‘living prayer,’ and not unlike a dance, my focused attention is on form, flow, freedom.