The few days after October are never easy. It seems that every year I sit and fret for hours about all the things I wish I’d done…all the leaves I should have collected and made into garlands, all the pies I should have baked with pumpkin flesh, all the conkers I should have brought in from the cold and dropped into a jar of vinegar, all the horror movies I should have indulged in and the fires I should have built in the forest. And I know I’m not alone with this, and in wishing we could have not one but two Octobers a year.
To try and help ease your withdrawal, I’m going to present to you some dark art and creative writing which celebrates October. I hope that in reading and viewing what’s below, not only will you discover some new creatives who light a flame in your soul, but you will feel as though you’ve given one of our most special months a worthy enough send off.
Art By Adam Martin
About The Artist
I am an artist specialising in figurative narrative and design with a keen open eye to the influences of fine art, mythology, mysticism, history and nature. During the autumn months, I find the most ethereal and genuine inspiration.
1-‘The Maiden, the mother, and the crone’, a piece intended to capture the Celtic triple goddess in relation to three phases of the moon during October.
2-‘She’s gone away’- A depiction of the Banshee, young, dressed in red, about to erupt into a shrill wail. I believe that the fall of autumn helped to feed such legends of ghosts and spirits.
5 Poems By Mallory Rowe
The dark dominates
Across the land–and within–
As Autumn arrives
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Decay with me, love;
We will be the blood flowing
Within the Earth’s veins
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Every shiver comes,
Not with the October nights,
But your haunting soul
————————————-
Decay begins now–
Sped up by creepy crawlies
Hungry for grey skin
————————————-
Wind-whipped and rain-beaten
She ran to meet him and sign
That infamous book
About The Author
Mallory Rowe has been writing poetry for over ten years, but she is currently passionate about haiku and senryu specifically. After graduating from the University of Alabama at Huntsville with a degree in Art History and English, she continued to write poetry in her spare time.
Mallory enjoys being outdoors, and she often uses her observations of nature in her work. She is also an avid reader of philosophy and science, from which she draws much inspiration.
Her dream has always been to write full-time, and she feels blessed to be able to live that dream. She self-published her first book, Looking Inward: 50 Haiku for Reflection and Introspection, on Amazon as a Kindle edition in January 2015 and has been published in several issues of her universities’ literary magazines.
She is currently working on her next book of haiku and senryu and raising her daughter with her partner in Tallahassee, Florida.
A Poem By Célica Landolt
The Harvest
From the shrub seeps an orange eye,
Whistling as it looks at the oak
Dry slowly and taint black,
Black as the slumber
Of the autumn soil.
From the trees whisper red voices,
Words of new earthly times
That rumble in the grey sky,
That bring a sweet sopor
Unto green fields.
The harvest cries heavy
In mysterious spells
And sets forests in a damp fire
Of colours yellow bright
And odours musky strong.
The stares and whispers that vibrate
Through fields, vast and brown,
Seep from the forest yearly
To giggle in the mud
And swing around the season’s branches.
About The Author
My name is Célica Landolt and I’m nineteen years old. I currently live in Argentina, where I was born, but I was raised in cold England where I began to write.
Since I remember, my parents gifted me books and journals to read and write, so I have many of my memories written down.
I adore writing poetry and I think that my usual gloomy and Gothic theme was inspired by the frosty weather and the ruins of Great Britain. Also, this year I am publishing my first poetry book “And the Willows Wept.”
Art By Syls Marilys
About The Artist
My name is Syls Marilys, I live in France and I would like to be a grave digger, This is not a joke. I play in a band which is call Opprobre, we just finished our first demo tape.
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 
Opprobre (2) – At The Stake/Silent Hell