Leila Allison

VCQ! (The Spirit Guide of Saragun Springs) Saragun Gazette Column Number Two by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender

(Ed. Note–Yes, the Judge keeps coming back–LA)

Versatur Circa Quid blinkers!

This week I examine the dipsomaniacal phantom known as the Tippleganger (aka, “Tips” for stumbling tongues). Until a dubious Feline named Rebecca Nurse “accidentally” toppled my gold gilt gavel on my pate from a luggage compartment in a train, which resulted in my infinite transformation, I’d never experienced ill health in my ninety-two years. I attribute that to my round the clock consumption of applejack (for medicinal purposes, mind you), two quarts a day from infancy on. I was born in 1810 (the last of twenty seven–the only to make adulthood), and the water in my home village of Hanged Crone contained so many amoebas that they were visible. My mother understood that applejack neither “moved” nor immediately killed you upon consumption. Therefore the Miracle of Me occurred, perhaps twenty-six instances later than it could have. (We did not know about microbiology, so, the elders–also jack imbibers–figured, naturally, that the moving slime was due to witchery and hanged the unpopular segment of the population.)

Versatur Circa Quid!

Tipplegangers specialize in entering the alcohol weakened minds of the flagrantly fatuous for the purpose of the creation of Big Ideas that lead to “interesting” actions, acts whose attractions vanish upon completion. Tipplegangers prize what they call a heeding. The more heedings a Tip can accumulate the higher in esteem he is amongst his own kind. And yes Virginia, that is sexist language!

Versatur Circa Quid!

Tipplegangers are usually pleased by their results, but really, where is the art equal to that of a phantom such as, say, a Quillemender? What degree of difficulty is accomplished when you convince a backwoods oaf, three days into “corn squeezins,” to strip naked and run inside a church on Sunday morn’ and shout “I’m here for the gang bang, Mister Jesus”? Nae, my underlings, that is poorman’s haunting and not up to the Quillish standard.

Versatur Circa Quid!

“The mayor has announced that Saturday will be the first annual peasant shoot!”

There, my subordinates is subtle Quillemending; only the deletion of an H was needed to cause all kinds of turmoil. In my learned opinion (aka, factual) there is little subtlety in convincing a beer soaked dolt that singing “Endless Love” at three A.M. in the yard of the girl who placed a restraining order* on him earlier in the day is an excellent idea. He actually believed that life was an 80’s movie. And although I keep up on modern times, I plainly understand that people are just as idiotic now as they were then. Regardless, thanks to the dullard’s low tolerance for fermentation, that grave was already dug, the Tip simply rolled the corpse into it and claimed a heeding.

(*Whilst I sat on the bench, the only “restraining orders” involved stocks, rope and chains.)

Versatur Circa Quid!

In summary, the next time you wake and immediately regret posting items such as wondering how Siamese Twins choose which one cleans their shared anus after defecation on your company’s workboard overnight, or similar gems likely to end your employment, rest assured you have heeded a Tippleganger. If a perfectly clean, soberly written, but poorly proofed missive is emended to read equally offensive, you have been blessed by the touch of the Quillemender. Perhaps the difference will not impress the HR department, but you will know.

Versatur Circa Quid!

The Judge

The Deer Watch

(All images taken by Leila)

The Deer are watching me

Marking my ways and taking notes

I have no idea what the game is (up to)

Am I good or bad by rote?

The Does and Fawns graze in silence

But I am up on their tricks

I am the subject of their science

Chloroform and needle sticks

The Elk are few in comparison

But they have a stake

Has the world had its fill of venison?

Are they done with being steak?

Yes, the Deer are watching me

From the woods they have come

The Deer have won the majority

Tis my turn to sniff, twitch and run

Happy September From Saragun Springs

(Image is of PDQ Peety, preparing for the fall the same way he meets every season–blasted)

Happy Labor Day to the USA (my first since retirement)

As always we in the Springs aim to fill every day of the month with poetry, stories, art and the weekly Sunday column by our beloved co-Editor The Drifter (and the odd imitations of such contributed by The Saragun Gazette). This week is full, but we have plenty of room to share things written by others who have contributed previously or who are new.

At first it was a week offered, but we can also do single days as well. And as autumn draws nearer with its omnipresent scent of pumpkin spice, as Christmas creeps into retail establishments the same way gold is edging maple leaves (but greeted by different degrees of patience and pleasure), the Springs is planning to become just as inescapable as death. So with that cheery thought in mind, welcome to September, one and all.

Leila

Saragun Verse: Saving the Ghost of 1983

i

I was walking home and met the Ghost of 1983

Clove cigarettes, Orange Julius and Plug-in potpourri

It seemed a pity that it had to wander without a mall to roam

I wanted to do something nice so I brought it home

ii

The Samaritan has hit the skids in millenia number three

No good deed goes unpunished is the modern screed

But I rather like my dayglo phantasm born in cheerier climes

Before everyone got a branch from which to bleat full time

iii

So now I share my roost with the Ghost of 1983

Clove cigarettes, Orange Julius, Plug-in potpourri

If I can be good enough to open up and make a little room

Then maybe I shan’t be so alone when sealed in the tomb

The Saragun Springs Gazette Presents Booze Reevooze by Renfield

(My Imaginary Friend and second in command of the realm, Renfield, has the unique ability to wake after a bout of binge drinking without the slightest trace of a hangover. There are only two ways to avoid the hangover, stay loaded around the clock or be lucky enough to have the constitution of an Imaginary Friend. Now, alcohol still affects her in the usual short term way, which makes her as good a candidate to provide a review every Friday–Leila)

Booze Reevooze by Renfield

Hullo parched readers! Today I examine a classic no longer available on Earth but is (thank Zod) plentiful in Saragun Springs, by name, the legendary Bacardi 151.

Sadly the modern “grown-ups” cannot handle 75.5 proof inflammable rum. The modern day wussieness confounds and embarrasses awesome persons such as myself. Then again anyone who rides a child’s scooter to work while huffing on something that produces an odor similar to blackberry jam probably shouldn’t be messing with the hard stuff.

I like my 151 with Coke. As always I will voice dictate my experience as I work my way down the bottle. Now, as I pour my first drink, I can just smell flames of inebriation wanting to burst.

Mmmmmmm…talk about smooth–hoo wee. Oh yes, there’s nothing like beginning a day with a bottle on an empty stomach. Allow me to refill my glass and catch a toasty mental wave.

Sorry gang but I snuckered one without recording it. Such awesomenicity.

Three in row brings the visions! Ho Zod! You know, I was at the bar the other day, right? Just sittin there and this Horse comes up and sez “Hey baby.” I told him fuck off, but all lady like. But no, turns out he had a lisp and said “hay bale, pleeze” to the beerkeep. I went with the sorries and sprung for an alfalfalafa shooter.

Five alive, not even half an hour! New record…What was I sying–um, saying? Oh yeah on a scale of one-ten I give Ronnie B. here a, what else, 151! Zoddamnit!!!

I tell ya bout the Horse? I think I did. Big ol sum bitch. Anyway, I don’t feel like talking right now….got sum serious drink on…

Come back nest wick and learn about Missississississippi corn squeezins….

Renfield

(Second Ed. Note–This is the longest Booze Reevooze to date. The writer usually cracks the seal of the bottle, says hello and forgets about the column in about a hundred words. So she goes-LA)

Saragun Verse: Ode to Foul Waters

i

The Spring is the thing in Saragun

It creeps up from the nether-nether land

Located below the meanest sin

Where you can fry Peter without a pan

ii

It smells of charnel houses and sulfurized souls

Mouldy shoes, dollar store cologne

Lovers lies and quitters’ scorn

And the still rooms of the should ne’er been born

iii

And yet it is the best of devices

A sucking abyss for idiot crisis

And it leaves our air cleanly grown

Fresh to the lung not previously blown

iv

Yes the Spring is the thing in Saragun

It takes out the trash and dung

It’s a happy exit for the aggressively putrid

We wave bye bye to anti-Cupid

Saragun Verse: Moonfog Returns

i

Moonfog Madrone nods in the lush field

In vegetable dreams seldom revealed

Little goes against Moonfog’s serenity

Save humankind the greedy enemy

ii

Little colored flags and a for sale sign

Once entered the doze of Moonfog’s calm mind

He cast an enchantment into below

Where the little fey gods flicker and glow

iii

“Bring forth a shake to unkind human steps

Those that never feel the earth is kept

By Forces more elemental than gold

Little gods I say do as you are told!”

iv

The flags and for sale sign went away

For when humans touched the field it swayed

Some said nature, others, the will of God

Moonfog cared not, for he was on the nod

The Wiccan Way by the Great and Powerful HeXopatha

(Ed. note: Don’t let the byline fool you. HeXy would no more write a column than the Donald writes his own speeches. But until her apprentice Eira-Lysbyrd earns her broomstick Eira will write the column for her exalted Master and like it. Yet, if you are like me, you may notice that a touch of Eira’s attitude gets through because she knows that her Master never reads the paper–L.A.)

The Wiccan Way by The Great and Powerful HeXopatha

Peasants (aka “people”) have forever been under the impression that Magick is the old fashioned spelling for magic. That is not so.

Magic is the trickery of charlatans; it involves false-bottom boxes, partially clad female assistants, veils, misdirection and a great deal of smoke. Magick is the highest degree of art. Magic is also said to be a component of true love; Magick is what you need when you realize, a bit late, that “true love” and “still desired” do not remain on the same page happily ever after.

I admit that elderly, perhaps dotty Witches often tire easily and need the assistance of fresh blood to convey Magick properly. That is why I have my wonderful, dynamic, irresistible and in all ways brilliant Apprentice Eira-Lysbyrd spread Magick throughout the realm of Saragun Springs. I predict you will be hearing a big noise from Eira, and I suspect soon. Yes, I’m willing to bet my wand on it.

Sometimes, I admit, Magick needs to be carefully watched. Especially in the act of enchanting trees. For centuries, Wiccans have known the perils of enchanting certain trees. For instance, HeX–I mean I, foolishly enchanted an Elm. Elms are the Cats of flora. They can be majestic servants or they can turn on you and be royal pains in the cauldron. Anyway, our Elm, by name Ernie, is often a reliable servant, yet every now and then Ernie will launch spells of his own, such as the recent turning of every other person in the Springs into a Toad. Such events contribute to the gnawing suspicion that I am slipping. Thank the dark forces that Eira-Lysbyrd is here to keep the realm in order.

That’s it for another week, peasants, it’s been an hour since my last nap. Oh, if you happen to come across a three headed Viper, please return her/her/him to the Castle. It is highly recommended that you do so quickly because only Eira has the triple Snake bite venom.

The Great and Powerful HeXopatha

The Saragun Gazette Presents Versatur Circa Quid by Judge Jaspar Montague, Quillemender

(Ed. note– Today and tomorrow we will share columns written by two members of the Springs for our daily paper The Saragun Gazette. These little columns are obviously inpsired by the Drifter who appears on this site every Sunday.

Today we present the first Gazette column written by the late Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender. The Judge is my Great Great Great Great Grandfather (1810-1902). Since 1902 he has been a Spirit who never lets anyone forget it. The Judge “resides” in a gold gilt presentation gavel, which was given to him after nearly seventy years on the bench in Wiccanfire County, Massachusetts. Versatur Circa Quid was inscribed on it by his peers. Allegedly it is Latin for “what comes round goes round” and is the name of the Judge’s literary contribution to journalism. You will notice he uses the phrase aplenty and then some. Although some might not be pleased to be summed up by such a vague sentiment, it appeals to the Judge. –Leila)

Versatur Circa Quid! (A Staggeringly Brilliant Guide to the Spirit Community of Saragun Springs)

By Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender

Versatur Circa Quid! breathers!

This week I shall opine and inform my readership on the subject of the humble Footfallfollower–commonly known as the 3F. He is a maligned Spirit accused of having a surfeit of laziness and a stunning shortage of gumption, style, wit and imagination.

The biggest problem facing the 3F is the accusations are true. Sadly, everything that lives becomes a ghost equal to the task of death as they were of use in life. Therefore it should not shock anyone to learn that the only thing the 3F’s have going for them is the largest Spirit population. Naturally this is because most people are painfully stupid.

Versatur Circa Quid!

Regardless, the first and last that 3F’s do is create an extra footfall inside cemeteries. You walk along, stop and you hear one extra step. Nothing else happens. Moreover such is seldom noticed. It would be base canard to describe another Spirit as having such shabby craft. Yet the 3F’s do not care. Leila calls them “the juggalo ghosts.” Upon studying the subject I must agree.

Still, being Spirits I feel obligated to give my priceless charity to the willingly unwashed from time to time. But really, I feel that comparing someone who produces a single extra foot step inside a cemetery to the wonders of, say, a Quillemender, requires more attention be paid to the Quill than the 3F.

Versatur Circa Quid!

Even a Footfollower knows that we Quillemenders reorganize extant written passages, without the original author’s knowledge. We greatly improve letters; via our alchemy pedestrian gibberish is transformed into sterling prose. Thermal dynamics, not insipid incantations, allow us to accomplish our art. But since most of you are obviously 3F timber, I will attempt to impress no further science on you.

You are welcome.

Versatur Circa Quid!

As a Quill, I must constantly evolve with technology. When I started after my decease in 1902, missives were written by hand or with crude typing machines that few dolts could afford let alone master. Books and newspapers, of course, were done by the printing press. Today there is room for legions of Quills to reside in various electronic devices; virtual lettering is ridiculously simple to emend, and proofing (and spelling) seems to be a thing of the past. Unfortunately there’s a shortage of intellects among the living suitable to be a Quillemender, but we the grand few persevere with tarty elan.

Behold! “The secretary told the assembly he was inclined to do a bit of fucking.” An Irish Quill got that jewel into the London Times in the 19th century. It remains a hall of fame bit of Quillemending. And it is the standard we strive to meet today.

Versatur Circa Quid!

Alas and alack, how does adding an extra “clonk” that rarely matches the tone of a footfall compare?

But if you need to meet a common Footfallfollower (perhaps seeking a glimpse of your future), go to any cemetery, walk the stone path, stop and listen. On any given day you will hear single thuds emanating from many graves. But when you wish to seek the inspiring awe and majesty of a Quillemender, revisit certain emails you sent your boss last week prior to your unexpected “downsizing.”

Versatur Circa Quid!

Your Master,

Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender

Goat v. Lamb Civil Poetry War the Conclusion

Another Introduction

As hoped for, my brilliant post yesterday brought an end to the Goat v. Lamb War. But, not wholly unforeseen, both sides have aimed their antipathy at me.

But being the leader of the realm, I have the personal fortitude and liquor cabinet to withstand obloquy.

So, in the name of see-through-it-ness (I hate the corporate term for that), I stiff upper-lipply present the last two poems on this subject by the formerly warring sides. No one has said so, but I think the kids have gotten a bit bored and are ready to move on toward further vexations. So, I’m going to consider these poems by both sides a peace settlement and move the liquor cabinet closer to my desk.

Leila

“A Hoggishly Hog Pen for the Penname!” by Dame Daisy

i

The barnyard is calm tonight

But the Pen is full of smite!

She insults the Ruminant creed

With a fable of dubiously dubious breed

ii

I say Lambs we should end our fight

And take up against the Pennish fright

She who disparages the Daisy and Sheep

Is the ultimate creeply creep!

“Us Too” by the Lambs

i

Lambs do not caper in the sod

Nor frolick with their bods

The Pen who wrote that trash

Is as guilty as razor rash!

ii

Let the hooves unite

We now know a new fight!

The Pen is our enemy

Unite herbivores in enmity!

Afterword

Well, that’s how things are going in the Springs. I guess the hoofed (or is that hooved?) ones were insulted by their portrayals in yesterday’s fable. Actually, that was the intent. Fortunately the inhabitants of Saragun Springs are all talk and zero action. But, just in case, I’ve hired three Rat bodyguards, John, Wilkes and Booth, triplets born on the Ides of March. And although that joke is a bit American, and dated, like all useless ideas, it can be googled.

LA