Unseelie Specimens

by Nick Gisburne

---

The sick, Unseelie specimens, in jars,
Convulse as they are haunted by the heat.
Beyond the glass, behind corroded bars,
The wizard moans, his misery complete.
The spells he cast, the sorcery he shaped,
To rescue Fey infantas from their fate,
Begat these worthless, rancid peasants, scraped
From streets and sewers; none are good or great.
The king will not reward his deeds today.
No banners, pennants, kites or flags will fly.
His daughters, who the warlock stole to slay,
Were gone before a sunrise broke the sky.
    He taps the jars, tormenting those he took,
    And seasons them for flavour as they cook.

Father of the Fey

by Nick Gisburne

---

I know that I was Fey. I’m nothing now.
They stole the magic, took away the wings.
I wish I could remember why, or how,
But these are misty, misremembered things.
No matter what I was, I never had
A moment when I knew I could belong.
An unrepenting outcast, I am glad
I’ll never see the Fey, or hear their song.
But here, perhaps, is something I should keep.
A truth, however twisted, cannot lie.
The Fey, if any hear of it, should weep.
A fairy, wretched, ragged, left to die.
    She knew me, knows the Father of the Fey.
    She begs me to return, to make them pay.

Saoirse

    (ser-sha)

by Nick Gisburne

---

The Fey are certain. Saoirse will be queen,
Though not by any privilege of birth.
The jewels of her finery, the green,
Reflect a recognition of her worth.
What stray but she would dare to claim the throne,
The undeserving offspring of a faun?
And yet, this strange enigma, she alone,
Condemns the king’s admirers, as they mourn.
The truth of what their twisted ruler was
Will not be told by any book or bard.
When Saoirse leads them, it will be because
Her voice can heal what years of sorrow scarred.
    The crimes against his kin and kingdom die.
    With Saoirse, queen, the Fey again will fly.

The Púca

by Nick Gisburne

---

Are you the spirit, good or bad, or both,
The Púca, the enigma, that we seek?
We took a vow, a pain-protected oath,
A bond of blood and sweat, to see you. Speak.
You’re nothing like the legend, not at all.
The stories, strange, sensational, all true,
Are certain no absurdity so small
Could ever be the Púca. Is it you?
A dismal, disappointing little man.
How tragic that we came so far to find
A creature clearly bigger, better than
This pitiful example of your kind.
    “You ridicule the Púca? I am he.
    I wonder, could I kill you? Shall we see?”

A Tiny Flower

by Nick Gisburne

---

I found a tiny flower in the wood.
She told me she was just a little lost.
I promised I would help her if I could,
But never thought of any kind of cost.
With sinuous, extraordinary roots,
Her slender stem was anchored in the soil.
I slaved and sweated, strained from cap to boots,
Determined to release her with my toil.
A promise to a flower Fey, she said,
Can never be returned, rewound, released.
I pleaded for my freedom. She, instead,
Grew stronger as my suffering increased.
    Her petals fold like fingers on my face.
    She whispers, “You will never leave this place.”

A Piece of Her

by Nick Gisburne

---

The kingdom of the Fey, in twilight, grieves.
The last and greatest eldritch elder dies.
Her coffin, dressed with bark and autumn leaves,
Will shimmer while the stars embrace the skies.
Her name will be forgotten. This is right;
No life is more deserving than the last.
But, as we sit and weep, we ask the night
To honour what was precious, what has passed.
She gave us life. She made us what we are.
Of all the Fey, perhaps we saw the best.
Another spark will shine tonight, a star,
A glimmer, to remind us she can rest.
    The dawn will come, to wipe the night away,
    But something, just a piece of her, will stay.

Lavida’s Venom

by Nick Gisburne

---

Lavida, with her venom, with her sting,
Can cripple any enemy with ease.
Unique among the Fey, her gift could bring
The greatest, grimmest giant to its knees.
But, given other choices, she would pass,
Considering her ‘gift’ a twisted curse.
A scary spike, projecting from your ass,
Is awkward, ugly. Nothing could be worse.
She tried to break it off. No way, no go,
The magic not so easily expelled.
The fairy kingdom’s hoodoo hotline? No,
No matter how she threatened them, or yelled.
    Defection to the darker side comes quick.
    Her poison sells for seven spells per lick.

The Crinn

by Nick Gisburne

---

The Crinn will slither, closer than you think,
To tempt you with the smoky scent of sin.
They long to lure you, bleary, blurred, to drink
The stolen starlight shining on their skin.
Mosquito mead, with mushrooms in the brew.
A pinch of pansy, petals pulled and crushed.
September berries, shimmering with dew.
And time, because no cunning can be rushed.
For those who brave the shadows of the wood,
Beyond the dark, the dusk, when witches rise,
No good will come. No kindness ever could,
For these are folk the Fey themselves despise.
    They slip inside the corners of your mind.
    Beware the sweet seductions of their kind.

Watch It Burn

by Nick Gisburne

---

You think you need to take another turn,
That mine is not the door you hoped to find,
But let me light a candle. Watch it burn.
Our destinies are tightly intertwined.
The soul you see, your sister’s, in the smoke,
Is destined for the darkest hole of Hell,
But sacrifice would save her with a stroke.
I brought you here to bargain. Listen well.
If you will take her place, for just a day,
Descending into suffering and pain,
My sons will send her spirit to the Fey,
A deal I made with those I should have slain.
    Perhaps you fear deceit inside my plan?
    The Fey, not I, will trick you, mortal man.

A Magical Machine

by Nick Gisburne

---

I saw when I was seven they were real.
They came with sly, excited smiles, at night,
Explaining that they needed to conceal
A secret they had stolen, in a fight.
They whispered they were Little Ones, the Fey,
And with them came a magical machine.
If I would store it safely, for a day,
They’d show me spells no childish eyes had seen.
They clambered, careful, quick to follow me,
To camouflage their box beneath the stairs,
But, long before my fiendish friends could flee,
I sprang the trap, to catch them unawares.
    The Elf Inspectors told me they would come.
    A hero, I’m a sneak, a snitch, to some.

Too Cold

by Nick Gisburne

---

A fallen fairy shivers in the stream,
Her wings no longer glittering with gold.
No nightmare, no intolerable dream,
Predicted such a feeling could unfold.
While humans hunt with slow and simple wits,
The Fey are quick, impossible to catch,
But this one, faint, in freezing water sits,
Lamenting, on the day she met her match.
On high she spied the struggles of a fish,
Exhausted, somehow stranded on the bank.
Too wild to waste her magic with a wish,
She pushed it, paused, and, from the shallows, drank.
    Inside a simple snare, the fish its bait,
    She cries, too cold, a lesson learned, too late.

The Fey, Betrayed

by Nick Gisburne

---

The devious collector feeds the Fey,
A favour they delightedly return,
With fragments, secrets, stories to convey
A cryptic clue, or two, from which to learn.
The promise of unfathomable wealth,
Beyond the reach of any human hand,
Is bartered with extraordinary stealth,
The feckless Fey too slow to understand.
At last the seeker seems to see enough.
The pieces, pulled together, twist and fit.
The Fey, betrayed, are still content to stuff
Their cheeky little faces as they sit.
    But none would mark their magic on a map.
    Tomorrow it will take him to a trap.

More Than Myth or Madness

by Nick Gisburne

---

I strive, I stretch, to feel, to find a way
To understand the subtlety I see.
The spirits who surround my soul, the Fey,
Are more than myth or madness, more, to me.
Their mystery is music, magic, mine,
A gift for one unworthy of its gold.
Rejected, never devils, not divine,
They play with powers infinitely old.
I reach, and in the laughter of their light
They dance, delighted, distant as a dream.
Beyond the dark, destructive touch of night,
Through silver stardust, snow and smoke, they stream.
    They smile to see the wonder in my face,
    And vanish, to a brighter, better place.

Primrose Punks

by Nick Gisburne

---

The Punks prepare an ambush for the snatch,
Psychotic Fey, no kinsmen of the Queen.
Before her precious eggs, her dragons, hatch,
They steal them, in a storm of gold and green.
Two legions of the fearsome Flower Guard
Are slaughtered in the Elemental Wood.
The Queen, her wings in tatters, twisted, charred,
Retreats, the threat of murder understood.
Unruffled, knowing something they do not,
Returning to the wilderness, she waits.
The eggs, beyond her care, begin to rot,
And those who took them curse their twisted fates.
    As dragon maggots strip their silver skins,
    The Primrose Punks are punished for their sins.

The Knocking Box

by Nick Gisburne

---

Her eyes are only inches from the box.
She scans the circles, dusky, deeply etched,
Bewildered by the rapid, rhythmic knocks,
Which quicken as her fingers shake, outstretched.
Relentless repetitions, waves of sound,
Reverberating echoes round the room,
Provoke emotions fearful and profound,
A spiral of delight, despair, and doom.
A simple touch evaporates the lock;
The cypher of the circles disappears.
Recoiling at the sight inside, the shock,
She flinches as a sound assaults her ears.
    Two screams of joy, enough to wake the dead.
    Two sweaty fairies, banging on a bed.

Elizabeth

by Nick Gisburne

---

Elizabeth is volatile today,
Her broken playthings littering the floor.
The rage she struggles hard to keep at bay
Has taken her so many times before.
She tells a thousand stories with her toys,
A cast of tiny characters, her friends,
And most of all Elizabeth enjoys
A tale tied up with tension, as it ends.
She gathers up her ragged little clan,
The wreckage from a plot too bleak to bear.
Elizabeth will fix them if she can,
But some are shattered, far beyond repair.
    She prods a weeping fairy till it sings,
    Still bleeding where she twisted off its wings.

The Demon in the Trees

by Nick Gisburne

---

I follow her, the demon in the trees.
An ancient wood, but here her name is new.
The stench of sickness, poisoning the breeze,
Is all I need to know the creature. You.
They feared you, but they fought you, to the last,
Resisting death on this, their final day.
A clearing, and the crater of a blast,
A long-forbidden weapon of the Fey.
But even this could barely touch your tail.
Perhaps, for some, it bought a breath of time.
The terror of defiance, doomed to fail,
No match for you, a vixen in her prime.
    Of all the dark disguises from your box,
    What made you kill these fairies as a fox?

The Fallen Fey

by Nick Gisburne

---

They call us mongrels, garbage, worthless, scum,
The Fallen Fey, the mud of Mother Earth.
They fear the clever creatures we become,
Unshackled from the burdens of our birth.
But we, who live with humans, side by side,
Are wiser, not the weaker, not the worst.
We put no faith in purity or pride,
Abandoning the notion we are cursed.
Retreating to an ever-smaller space,
Extinction is the future of the Fey,
But we, among the mortals, find our place.
To save ourselves we see no other way.
    We hail our hallowed kin, despite their scorn,
    And only when they vanish will we mourn.

Twists of Tangled Hair

by Nick Gisburne

---

They know, the Fey, exactly what to do
To spawn the crude creations of their kind.
The flaw they found was ever, only, you.
They twist their tiny fingers in your mind.
The visions, nightmares, these were always there,
Forever out of focus, indistinct.
They pick and pull them, twists of tangled hair,
Unravelled, brushed and braided, looped and linked.
A silver ghost, a summoning of smoke,
A crooked incarnation of your fears,
Disturbing dreams you stirred but never woke,
Approaches, as your courage disappears.
    The Fey can find the shade in any soul,
    And yours is now a creature they control.

The Scintillating Heart

by Nick Gisburne

---

She gathers roots and flowers, sticks and stones,
The scattered, ruined remnants of a war.
A twisted mass of splintered spider bones
No longer hides the Heart it held before.
The Fey believed its light belonged to them.
Constructing seven circles, seven walls,
Between each twisted, intertangled stem,
They stretched their spells, a web of secret scrawls.
Protection for the Scintillating Heart,
The flame of every Fey who ever flew,
Was crushed in moments, trampled, torn apart,
When something found the fortress, something new.
    The child forsakes the clearing, bored, annoyed,
    But never sees the Heart her steps destroyed.