McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

Before I begin I have to give something of a warning - this poem and my review of it deal with child bereavement, the poem - vividly and eloquently. If this is a subject that you find to be overly difficult or upsetting I will understand (as I’m sure Kay Castenda will too) if you pass this one over.

This is a poem about a terribly tragic event in Texas, a flash flood in Texas that killed two hundred people. It hit a girl’s summer camp with twenty seven victims under ten. A truly awful event.

The poem has a double structure with literal (yet still poetic) paragraphs intersected with fantastical, spiritual tercets. This is a powerful technique that has not been done for effect - it truly gives the feeling of being on the border of two worlds, and the paper thin line that separates them. This brings a balance to the poem that saves it from both mawkishness and empty despair. The main paragraphs are filled with intimate, sorrowful details yet expressed tenderly and with loving care. The tercets are more ethereal, and take on the voices of the children, innocent and perhaps transcendent, they are touching and perhaps as near to hopeful as one can be under the circumstances.

Art, and spirituality are perhaps at their most truly useful when they lend a voice to the most traumatic periods of our lives. Sometimes they help us to make sense of those harrowing times, often there is no sense to be made and all they can offer us is an outlet for tremendous grief. This is where this poem succeeds, the child-like nature of the opening lyrics which move through to the stony realism at the end gently guide the reader through a similar thought process to the nature of grief. An almost fantastical rendering of what happened gradually becomes grounded in the terrible reality. Yet the religious and spiritual framing of the events is still respected, treated as a dual reality that is not dismissed by confronting the physical. This is a wise, respectful and tender piece of writing, one that I believe could offer some comfort to anyone who is grieving.

The Writer Warrior

Short Sweet Life: The Little Girls Are Angels Now

Short Sweet Life…

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10 months ago · 1 like · Kay Castaneda

This story opens with a moody noir monologue as our hero meditates on his drabby, rundown surroundings. Now while this may sound like a Sam Spade homage (or even imitation) it’s actually a piece of delicious irony and immediately sets the scene for a wickedly clever story. You see, our hero is not Sam Spade, Rick Deckard, or even Hercules Poirot. He’s an out of work actor and the noir monologue serves as a perfect illustration of his delusions of grandeur and desperate need to dramatise every detail of his existence.

Conversely though, Tim Cape (the story’s hero) has a tragedy and vulnerability behind his equally funny and ghastly arrogance. As we follow him through the events, his character fills out and deepens, becoming layered and sympathetic. The people around him treat him either with disdain or celebrity worshipping fawning - none interested in treating him as a real person. You can almost viscerally sense his hunger to be loved, maybe even hated for his soul, not his circumstances. We also see his arrogance for what it is, a desperate attempt to cling to the success that has faded. He has fallen on very hard times indeed, tangled in the memories of his past success like the proverbial choking feathers of the albatross. The story raises the pertinent question of whether it’s more painful to achieve our wildest dreams and lose them, or never realise them at all.

While the tale never loses sight of its quirky humour, genuinely dark and sinister movements steadily overtake Tim’s imagined drama. It’s a tension that slips in behind the celebrity satire that was making you smile, and it hits all the harder when it finally overtakes you. It’s a masterful touch from an author who realises that danger is felt much more deeply when it slowly, imperceptibly wraps itself around you than when it openly hits at the beginning. The world of the story is just as dark, surreal, and layered with fascinating contradictions as Tim’s twisting thoughts.

And there I think I shall leave you to explore Tim’s world of garish neon and dark crumbling alleys for yourself. This is just the start of an ongoing comic, thrilling, neo-noir saga and I’m very much looking forward to exploring this world. Tim himself is perhaps my favourite part of this mystery and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about him, but he fascinates me. I find him amusing, awful, and sympathetic by turns. I will definitely be keeping tabs on this one.

Gas Station Carnivals

An Actors Illness

Act I…

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2 months ago · 18 likes · 9 comments · Oliver Losinski

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about them.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!
You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

The First piece from my in-progress Book "Cerebral Citadel". I suppose it’s something of a next chapter in my ongoing obsession with the imagination as an independent from of experience with its own very real treasures and dangers.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Slitting Seams 1
Sun's thousand shapes. 
Moon's hundred mansions.
Prickle at my nape,
A press of false liaisons.

Dull, drowsy waking,
Twitching, standing sleep.
Borders slack and shaking
A seam I cannot keep.

Temples and Tendons
Overlap and disconnect.
My internal mediations
Stiffen from neglect.

The dawn is darkened,
Ghosts cling to the corners.
Rising red is patterned
With evening's interlopers.

Happy Tomes Tuesday (a new and exciting project is waiting in the wings for next Tuesday - watch this space).

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Splitting-Seams-Part-1-by-Graeme-McA/180704654/flk2

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

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(Click to see full size with greater detail)

A belated May Day Poem  - Sinister callings of the sun..

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Summer Strings
Colours curl and ribbons writhe
Their spirals close then open.
Maypole strings bend and breathe
Tendons tense and stiffen.

Ribbons reach guiding fingers,
Shaping sky, blood, and apples.
Heaven's hand strokes and steers
Prosecuting primal rules.

Servants dance, directed joy,
Eyes bright and voices shrill.
Abandon social plans and ploys
But remaining servants still.

Dancers twist off their tracks,
Engaging and enraging heat.
Between claps, around the clicks,
A greater heart begins to beat.

Heat needles swollen buds,
Conquering itch, flowers open.
Disturbing cycles of our blood,
Lighting an internal rising sun.

Leading dancers from behind,
Eyes blacken, opening holes.
Blood runs wild, red ropes tied,
Frenzied orbit round the Maypole.

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Summer-Strings-by-Graeme-McA/180491108/flk2

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

I did promise to start serialising my new book - but a bit delayed, here is a piece from a previous work - Filigree and Fire.
The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Saturn Cycles
Saturn’s cycle reaches its peak
Stirs complacency, shakes inertia
Machines throw thoughts across the sea
Cortisol codes ride binary blinks.

Saturn’s cycle reaches its start,
A quiet voice echo’s its question,
To split reality from suggestion.
Is absolution found in art?

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Saturn-Cycles-by-Graeme-McA/180372243/flk2

Happy Tomes Tuesday (a new and exciting project is waiting in the wings for next Tuesday I promise!- watch this space).

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! Next round of open submissions starts Monday 27th April.

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

This is a fascinating exercise in combining ethereal, delirious surrealism with rich, sensuous physicality. The Poem’s structure heightens this duality and tension by using a double form. Luxurious meandering tercets are intersected by punchy singular statements. This approach highlights the strengths of poetry as a medium where writers are freed from the restraints of conventional sentence structure and paragraphing. Luciana capitalises on this opportunity with gusto, the single statements and the tercets wrestle and dance, perhaps in struggle for dominance, perhaps reaching to embrace each other. The formatting, much like the imagery of the lyrics explores and challenges our psychological split of emotions from intellect, and imagination from momentary experience.

The imagery is thoughtful, layered, and highly ambitious. A vast library of punchy, visceral physical metaphors shares the stage with dreamy ethereal whisperings. Both of which are inventive using traditional symbols in inventive ways while also creating a new library of idioms with subjective meanings for the reader to unlock. I think what impresses me most about the piece is how all these complexities of form and symbol are guided into a flowing whole. The tangents of thought reach like branches from a tree, sharp and diverse but natural outgrowths of a living movement. As I mentioned earlier, the effect is very much like a dance where limbs might strike out or flash in rapid movement, but always in adherence to the song’s guiding melody.

While I firmly believe there are many and layered interpretations of a piece like this - my personal takeaway is that we must navigate our relationship to self with all the nuance, tools, and curiosity that we bring to our dealings with others. Perhaps our internal relationships are even more labyrinthine, maybe we love, fear, and rage against ourselves more than anyone else in the world. Some might say most of our dealings with the world are theatrical projections of our inner wrestles with the simians and seraphims that guide and grapple our minds. I take Luciana’s beautiful poetry to be gentle yet cunning with our contrary natures, to accept no lies from within yet understand why we weave false narratives and find the truth within them. Pray tell what colours are our thoughts? All of them.

Language of Limbo

The Ray

Pyramidal soul with ghostly tenderized hands Songs of past lives through hair strands Pray tell, what color is my thought? Count the longing in the eyes 1,2,3... The fixing sky puppeteer Broken sparks as tools Redraw the cartoonish contours better…

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4 months ago · 16 likes · 6 comments · Luciana Moroianu

There are many poems channelling various cultural mythologies and symbols to varying degrees of success and originality. This one does something different. Misty Violet seeks to get behind that process, not sure much a discussion on how specific historical events gave rise to legends, but a movement into the liminal space between the landscape and our imaginations.

There are so many dry and reductionist texts about myths and legends, where these ancient stories are dismissed as political narratives of a conquering army, or an externalisation of their author’s neurosis. This poem achieves a more sensitive, human, and holistic meditation on the process of myth making in a much smaller space.

The opening speaks of a guiding hand through a wintry landscape of harsh stones and glittering snow. I’m not entirely sure that we’re seeing a conversation between two people, at least not in the usual literal sense. What is clear, however, is the recurring theme of attention as an act of creation.

The verses speak of a strength (maybe even a consciousness?) shared by the sky, the stones, and the snow “Should you stop yourself there at the mercy of air”. So these deities seem to lie within the natural world, waiting on the spark of human imagination. But we must be fully present: body, mind, and soul at the wilder places of both the physical and metaphysical worlds. Then the giants become known to us, created or unveiled by an act of creative attention.

As to these giants, do they command, grant wishes, or tell secrets? No. They have their own task sculpting those physical and metaphysical worlds. Even if these beings are birthed from our imaginations, are we so arrogant as to think this talking self pushes and pulls the wells of deep memory, emotions and unspoken desires where the imagination lives? We see the giants and they see us, a gaze meeting gaze. Eternity staring into boundlessness. The giants see who we are, past what the world wishes us to be, past what conditioning tells us to be, past even what we imagine ourselves to be. They see the self that surprises even you on those days when you shake yourself from the daydream - awed or shaken by what you saw in your deepest recesses. Follow Misty Violet’s giants - unfix your gaze from “the whistling grave”.

The Violet Grove

On The Trail of Giants

I could give you my hand and you could come with me — all the way up if we’re lucky but the strength in the stones and in glittering snow is the same that you see in clouds drifting. Should you stop yourself there at the mercy of air, (at the touch of the wind — how they soften…

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a year ago · 54 likes · 14 comments · Misty Violet

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! Next round of open submissions starts Monday 27th April.
You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

The Final piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To The Path

I call to you, O Winding Path,
Past the slow horizon.
Feet floating south then north
Wrapped within your ribbon.

One has lost their bearings,
Another rolls along the line.
I watch them disappearing,
I'll be them again in time.

I call your many faces,
In silence, sigh, and beat.
Valkyries and graces
Guide my slipping feet

Path wrap around the all
Blood within, soaking rain
I name you in every call,
Itinerant bard again.

Happy Tomes Tuesday (a new and exciting project is waiting in the wings for next Tuesday - watch this space).

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Call-To-The-Path-by-Graeme-McA/180209051/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

A few weeks ago I posted an article ridiculing the Substack gurus and algorithm whispers and their restlessly shameless grift of original (digital) “sin” and “redemption”. ‘Your writing's dead bro, only I can save you for $599….’.

Thankfully I have come across the opposite - a Yoda to Emperor Palpatine. Where other writers “rage against the machine” and offer a villain who rigged the system against you, Phillipp simply reveals the machine to be a myth. The writing takes a somewhat Zen approach by methodically, yet gently dismantling our most beloved and hated visions (both toxic to our writing by the way) of the cold-hearted publishing industry and maybe, just maybe we will be the next Substack Millionaire.

So once Phillipp has helped us push aside all that drama - what remains? Well, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche: beyond “good” and “evil”, there is love. Now we're getting somewhere - we step away from the video game and take up the true adventure, to find or perhaps return to our true voices.

While I strongly dislike gurus and their pushing of “the proper way”, I do believe we all need guidance. After all, the world has certainly worked hard to pull us from our individual paths, so it stands to reason that we may need some help to get back there. There is a calming joy, and a comforting determination in Phillipp's writing - this is the voice of a writer following their path, a path that involves guiding us to ours. In a brilliant turn of phrase, he calls on us to become “Sovereign Writers”, not bestsellers not award winners (but these possibilities are by no means rejected). This is a state of mind (or being) where we answer to no-one but ourselves, or aspects of self if you prefer. Conversely it is when we align with ourselves that we become most useful to the world. That is when our readers receive the infectious joy of seeing another soul being true to their own vision. I also believe this is when we uncover secrets that no-one else can, and those secrets can clear the weeds on others’ neglected roads - not to map their way for them, but to help them unveil it for themselves.

This summary of mine carries very little of the depth of the original article, I very much encourage you to read the original. The map is not the territory and this post is not the process. Phillipp is one of those leading lights of what Substack, perhaps the literary world can be, if only the founders of this site realised what they've built! “Why you secretly want to delete your Substack” may just help you fall back in love with it.

SERAPEX

Why You Secretly Want to Delete Your Substack

There is this guy. His name is Todd, and he is a millionaire…

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a month ago · 188 likes · 41 comments · Philipp

This is a beautiful piece celebrating those quiet moments where we actually hear the world, not the noise. Ironically it's those quiet moments of meditation that ask us to take real, committed action in the world rather than wading through the waters of our era's collective trance.

As Shakespeare once said - all the world's a stage, Ricardo however, vividly paints that idea in a beautiful scene of a mundane street becoming an ethereal theatre. A forceful act of imaginative will or an unveiling of an underlying astral reality? Perhaps a little of both.

“I stand in darkness that dresses me like a stagehand while my toes flirt with the faint gleam on the floor toward eminence.”

The prose is vivid and alive, weaving together the everyday physicality of the physical street, the imagined (or perhaps unveiled) theatre, and the alluded to mystical audience in a scene of joyful transcendence.

The seemingly simple choice of the theatre as a metaphor for this “mystical experience” (that's the term that I might use) is for me a masterstroke. The theatre combines both the carefree joy of childlike imagination with the solemn contemplation of the temple - it is both of these experiences, and something more. Ricardo invokes the words and spirits of great writers (no spoilers - read the words for yourself) as both angelic spirits and playmates. To approach our heroes with fun and a light heart does not diminish our respect for those powerful, life changing words. I believe it brings us a greater understanding of, and a more powerful connection with those great works. Reciting poems to an imaginary (or otherwise) audience of spirits connects our minds to those works in a way that “intellectual appreciation” cannot, there are numerous psychological studies that prove this to be true.

We live in the imagination, indeed we see the negatives of this on a daily basis as we allow worries and anxieties to create hours of awful experiences in a moment’s thought. Media pressures can create powerful spectres with malevolent agendas. Perhaps our greatest defence against such entities (or psychological disturbances if you prefer) is to allow Ricardo's astral audience in. The sun has set, the house lights - lowered, an audience of a thousand stars waits with baited breath, and our gracious host Ricardo has called you to the stage. Perform!

Ricardo Guzman Jr

Showtime

Streetlamp…

Read more

a month ago · 37 likes · 18 comments · Ricardo Guzman Jr

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

Another piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To Gnosis

I call to you, O Gnosis
Understanding all I’ve seen.
Frustrated throws forever miss
Wholeness we’ve always been.

Outer reaching, inner searching,
Up and down the spiral run.
All my effort and beseeching,
Breath’s twin movements, one.

The mandala is the pieces
The mandala is the whole.
Perspective is the dance
Across the map of soul.

Gnosis counts the details.
Gnosis sees the sky.
Gnosis wove the veil.
Gnosis is the eye.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Call-To-Gnosis-by-Graeme-McA/180082399/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

Substack can make us lose touch with our work as a holistic, evolving pathway as opposed to a collection of ranked things. This is a series of observations on friends’ journeys and my own, as opposed to objective advice.

(Artwork entitled Vision Tunnel)

Algorithm or Ego-Rhythm?

There are many articles on the correct publishing schedule to maximise your exposure and ‘engage your audience’ on Substack. I lack the expertise to either confirm or refute the first part of the claim. The second I have some issue with, I don’t claim to know every reader or have statistical insight, but I am one myself and I choose between my favourite authors depending on my needs at the moment - my mood, an idea I recently had, or something I read that reminded me of them. The human soul does have rhythms, but they are more musical and complex than a system data feed. I firmly believe that successful posting schedules are firmly based on the first criteria.

Still, if the publication process must work to its schedule, our minds have no such obligations. This is where I come to my keystone idea in this discussion - we must take OUR time. We may move either faster or slower than the “two large pieces per week” Substack guideline or (as I do) vary between the two at different periods, but what is important is that we honour the pace that truly drives us. Now, even in this care is required for the mind is often a contradictory creature, and we may be writing from a point of comparison to peers or because it feels too lazy not to be writing, conversely, we may be holding back as we feel our writing to be unworthy. What we must listen for, obey, or wait upon is that deep need to express an idea, an emotion or a fully fledged story - that unmistakable call of something that feels as true, irresistible, and omnipresent as wind upon our skin. Incidentally your natural rhythm may be perfectly in sync with the Substack algorithm, what is important is that you find and follow that rhythm, and do not let anyone else (least of all me) tell you what that rhythm is.

Writer’s Block or Clarke’s Monolith?

When speaking about rhythms and publishing frequency, the subject of writer’s block inevitably raises its head. A quick explanation of the subtitle - In Arthur C Clarke’s novel 2001 A Space Odyssey an alien race has distributed evolution enhancement devices shaped like black monoliths. They tower above you and make a hideous shrieking noise but if they find you worthy - they accelerate your development.

Like the monolith, these periods of writer’s block certainly feel dark, intimidating, and seem to scream words like “failure” and “fraud” very loudly, but those moments may also contain that all important next step. However, I believe our first step in working within this stillness is an act of reframing. I immensely dislike the phrase “writer’s block” - implying an unmalleable, lifeless stone to be destroyed, climbed over or discarded to continue on our way, just as before. The problems with this approach are numerous - should we treat our creative facilities as a vending machine to be used as convenient? Is the writer’s block an externally sourced obstacle or a mental defect of some kind? At the risk of irritating you with rhetorical questions, I’m trying to point out the common traps we all fall into when dealing with ourselves and our art.

Speaking for myself I sometimes find that I view my own mind as both too unified and too divided - and definitely over simplified. Sitting down to write poetry, essays, or even (the dreaded) Substack notes and marketing material, I fall into the trap of thinking of my conscious mind as the thing in charge commanding the “word generating appendage” to perform - “Right hand lift cup” - “Right brain make words”. (NB I’m using the “right brain” trope for convenience, the truth is much more interesting and complex - I highly recommend Iain Mcgilchrist’s work for more on the subject.) My point being that the fatal flaw lies in assuming our conscious/logical minds have the authority and that the “word generating appendage” doesn’t have its own, perhaps superior agenda. Also, why assume the conscious/logical mind is the one framing the question at all? Perhaps it is merely responding to the directions our artistic mind posed previously.

So where could this sort of framing lead our old friend the “writer’s block” to? A few interesting places, if considered as a message from the self to the self:

1. A warning against disobeying your natural rhythms as discussed earlier, not so much a “no” as a “not yet”.

2. An evaluation or maybe a rejection of your current piece. Is this going over old ground? Reaction to a trend? Or perhaps taking the wrong perspective?

3. (An extension of 2) - maybe this isn’t the right time for new work - maybe now is the moment to review and reread your portfolio.

It is option 3 that intrigues and excites me the most, such reviews can review useful, even expansive questions: What are the connective threads? Is there a consistent path - maybe even a mission you’ve been following? Sometimes we can only see these things clearly in hindsight, once you see the patterns in your previous work, it can reveal hidden motivations, then things get very exciting.

Counting Points vs The Point

Perhaps the most pernicious trap of the internet era is the diamond post/dud post rationale. The post that garnered the most views/likes/comments becomes the “winning formula” and “the template”, and the least viewed becomes the “failed experiment”. While, I do think there is some element of truth in this and likely good reasons as to why you may be getting different results- it can quickly lead to seeing your work as a series of arrows. Each piece becomes graded on its success or failure of hitting a perceived target, rather than its success as a step in an unfolding journey. This may seem very obvious to fiction authors, especially those serialising novels and novellas on Substack (a vibrant group ill-served by the platform’s structure and rather tone deaf development plans), but it also applies to poets, musicians, and visual artists too. Such long-running creator journeys go beyond an aesthetic style or subject matter (or at least their surface level understanding). They can be delicate and complex themes, philosophical questions, or even a deep investigation into a particular aspect of the medium. Van Gogh’s obsessive colour experiments are one example. I’ve often imagined that he was trying to develop or perhaps uncover a symbolic language of colour itself.

Whatever your individual mission is, and I do believe you have one if you’re pursuing art and writing on any serious regular basis, you must not lose sight of it in the drama of transitory events. By all means review your past performance, but take time to see your past. Look for the themes, figures, and concepts you return to again or how one piece connects to another. It can take some time to reveal your personal mission, so let things unfold at their own pace. Don’t force obvious coherence or consistency, if your work is naturally diverse, let it be so - that variety is part of your natural and unique thread. Sometimes the thread of our private truths runs straight and steady, sometimes it zig zags, or even performs quantum leaps. I believe that trusting your intuition and committing to the development of your voice to your standard is key. This can be the work of months, perhaps years, you may even find that you are pursuing several personal missions at once. Trust in yourself, and trust in others who recognise key patterns and themes in your work (and they may see them before you do) are key.

What About You?

Before I finish, I’d like to turn maybe the most important part of the creator’s toolkit in the process of self-discovery, but perhaps the most reviled, the “About” page. Conventional wisdom tells us to use this as an opportunity to sell ourselves, make a unique value proposal and so on. I think the real opportunity is to explore our work and be honest with ourselves and our audience about what art and literature means to us, and what drives us to create. I carried out this exercise on my own About page, moving from an explanation of how I work and promises on how I would make the reader feel to an exploration of why I’m driven and what I’m seeking, hopefully with greater sincerity and clarity. I have outlined the before and after pages below.

About Page Old

“Growing up in Northern Ireland, I was fascinated by ancient myths, folk tales, and fantastical poetry. From the Children of Lir to the poetry of William Butler Yeats, my earliest memories are of becoming lost in wondrous worlds bursting to escape their parental pages.

I soon discovered the transcendent works of William Blake and the Book of Kells, where letters and words gained even more power, becoming vibrant, living art pieces as blazing, jewel-like letters moving almost supernaturally around the page. Their musical poetry, dramatic stories, and visual beauty create another world. I fell in love with both poetry and graphic design, seeking to create modern, contemporary works that continue the magic of the illuminated poetry of old.

My books aim to combine bright, electrifying visuals with rhythmic, mystical poetry. Poetry and art that I hope will plant seeds in the limitless gardens of your imagination. What strange and beautiful flowers shall you grow?”

About Page Revised

“While growing up I was fascinated by ancient myths and fantastical poetry, especially Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespeare and William Blake. I was drawn to the illuminated works of Blake and the Book of Kells, where letters and words gleam like jewels. Poems and stories become living art, their blazing letters bursting from the page.

I went on to study software engineering and graphic design, but my love of poetry and myth stayed with me. I spent my spare time researching the legends of my Irish heritage and ancient stories from around the world, and of course developing my own poems.

As my poetry and artwork has matured, the work has moved from expressing my imagination to a deeper mapping of its potentials and its pitfalls. Where once I imagined adventures with elemental spirits, now I recognise their roles as gatekeepers to deeper, more complex levels of the self. Where images were once illustrative, they are now visual paths and symbolic diagrams offering complementary messages and alternative understandings of the lyrics.

My work has grown into an investigation of how and where the imagination and experience can meet. Not in rivalry, not as subject and subjugator, but as partners in a dance. I am exploring how poetry and art can feed experience with wonder, and how the world can temper and sharpen imagination. The works of the writers and artists I love first opened that path for me. Perhaps these works may offer a stepping stone, or a subtle path on your journey through your own rich and hidden depths.”

I think the difference is fairly substantial - but the shift in perspective is subtle. I implore you not to treat these thoughts as a set of rules or a rigorous piece of advice. If I have successfully touched on the universal then you my dear friend can work that nebulous clay into the specific, the sculpted. We have no shortage of data, information, or stories, but we do have a very real risk of the banal drowning the beatific. I have written at length and depth about the search for your own voice, but I do not think we can do this alone. We must see truth before we can recognise our own, and while those truths may be unique they are interlaced. So whether through the infectious energy of seeing a creator find themselves, or by revealing an inroad to another’s true path - you are wanted, you are needed.

May our paths cross again.

Graeme

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

Another piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To Desire

I call you, O Rising Desire
To shake the bolted room.
Wind and tinder awaiting fire.
The opening scarlet bloom.

Rose seduction, pointing thorn.
Heat soars towards midday.
The rainbow meets the storm.
My will aligns with the way.

Focused passion, Occam’s point.
Needle trail through glooming forest.
Tamed labyrinth, straightened joints.
Aimless adventure becomes a quest.

Directed flame, forge, Desire.
Heat shapes unyielding steel.
Bridging inch from hand to spire.
Beating wings within my heels.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Call-To-The-Sun-by-Graeme-McA/179384402/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

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A Happy Easter to you and your families - a contemplation on the story.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

East Star
Setting moon dragged to the horizon.
Time and gravity cling, rusted mildew
Dragging purest light west and down.
Oh guiding light, comfort pulled below.

The weary orb that bears the burden,
Mapping earth's hungry eating holes.
Small stars’ efforts blink and burn,
Fragments unequal to the whole.

The dread hill swallows last light,
Shapes swarm, patch black darker.
Veins crave, eyes weep, breath tight.
Night travellers feel fullest danger.

The long cold hours holding court,
A sinking world, weak and sour.
Bursting dawn, the burning point
Piercing cloud's sable armour.

Terror and triumph torch the sky.
Flaming tongues speak one word
Of  breathing,  blood  and  infinity.
Darkness destroyed on tip of sword.

Endless blue flows wide and high.
Birds sing, smiles stretch, buds open.
Peace and purity of a spring sky.
Cycled Sacrifice of moon and sun.

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/photographic-print/East-Star-by-Graeme-McA/170094201/zltf

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

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McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

I’ve noticed a few odd coincidences (Jung might call them synchronicities) in the academic/scientific literature that’s crossed my path recently. Scientists and serious academics are grappling with questions about the interplay between imagination and lived experience that I’ve stumbled upon through poetic contemplation.

This brings me to the exciting work of Jaime Horrocks, PhD. The opening lines sparkle, expressing disdain for the linear metaphors of ladders as applied to psychological development. A wonderful rejection of Newtonian physics (which actually falls far short of how the physical world really operates) as applied to self. In a world where we learn facts to achieve test scores to obtain the “good job” to achieve status to earn better distractions to drown out the voice inside us crying out for more - this is a call to pursue genuine understanding.

Indeed a rejection of these traditional hierarchies and leaderboards seems to be a very necessary step towards something like self-actualisation. However, I’m aware of how dangerous gamified terms like enlightenment and self-actualisation are in the investigation of self - ladders masquerading as bridges.

This article not only points out the mistakes of our current paradigm, which is causing vast harm both to our internal and external worlds, it also offers an alternative, and perhaps more importantly a practice. A psychic (of the mind, not supernatural) method of investigation, recording, and understanding much like the scientific method (when applied without the pressures of politics and private funding - a rant for another day). There are rich contemplations and questions here that cause the reader to doubt their current standing but not themselves, and to embrace confidence in their entire being but not external achievements. I will not quote these questions here as I feel that you must come to them in the manner and order of Jaime’s writing so that your mind is primed and fully receptive to the wisdom they contain.

The article is bridged by a wonderful poem that weaves together all the ideas and concepts already discussed. While certainly enjoyable, memorable, and underpinning the emotions of these philosophical ideas, the poem actually works as a vital part of the process and cognitive journey the article takes us on. In a work devoted to using language to understand ourselves across all dimensions - this is an intelligent move. Academic writing, personal journaling, and poetic thought meet to create a space where we encounter our whole being.

To bring things full circle- this work found me at the perfect time. I’ve become convinced of the existence of a psychological space where art, linguistics, science, and even spirituality meet as equal partners. It is a place we can find not only within ourselves but also at a societal level - we can and we must come together there. Jaime’s work is an excellent road map to that greater state of being, I look forward to meeting you there.

The AutSide

Reading Between Worlds: The Meaning Map

What if growth were not a ladder, a rubric, or a neat arc of improvement? For many gestalt adults, meaning emerges spatially, relationally, and recursively. The real map is not progress—it is the changing shape of what now makes sense…

Read more

2 months ago · 13 likes · Jaime Hoerricks, PhD

and
This is a beautifully crafted lyrical ballad in the vein of Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamelin and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott. This sort of epic poem that emphasises fantastical imagery and musicality is a sadly rare item in modern times. It is strange for a media landscape where fantasy stories are delivered thick and fast (to varying degrees of quality), that one of the richest and perhaps most appropriate forms of storytelling in fantasy literature is so neglected.

The imagery is timeless, weaving a creation myth of elven beings brought forth as an expression of a Goddess’ love and grace. Great battles, tragedy, daring, and hope follow. However, the lyrics also interweave very intriguing references to Daemons and night terrors. The overall dreamlike mood of the piece coupled with the references to Daemons (intermediary spirits between the mortal and spirit worlds - not to be confused with “demons”), bring the piece into the world of the metamyth. My personal feeling is that we’re not just walking through the telling of a magical story, we are also walking through the shared dream. The elves, I think, are the embodiment of our private fantasies - not flat, representational symbols but living entities building and growing together in a shared space. In that context perhaps the goblins and giants become the mundane pressures that would steal our dreams or twist them into stunted fantasies of worldly desire. We can only hope that our courage and spirit can raise its “silvery blade” in defence of our imaginations and perhaps even our minds.

Lyrical poetry at its best unites and deepens the layers of story, imagery, and contemplations through its cadences, melodies, and rhyming movements. The poem excels in this area: the scenes of mystery, tragedy, and rising hope gain weight and vitality through the musicality of the language. The metre and rhyming schemes create a song in the mind that reveals the words behind the words. Hard syllables bring to life clashing blades, the crunching march of armoured warriors and grinding teeth of monstrous goblins. Softer flowing movements and feminine rhymes catalyse the passage on the elves’ wisdom, the mystery of the Goddess, and the spirit of hopefulness that encircles the poem like gentle wings. This is a wonderful collaboration between a storyteller’s deep lore and fully formed characters, and a lyricist’s flowing language, and evocative imagery - I am looking forward to reading more from this wonderful partnership.

Shadows and Space

Aelendal's tears

This poem is the result of a collaborative effort between ArcadianWeald and myself. If you wish to learn more about the fantastical realm of God Aelendal, read the free novella Call Of The Winding Road here…

Read more

5 months ago · 38 likes · 102 comments · The Black Knight and ArcadianWeald

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

A short break from my ongoing series "Chantry Circuitry" for this Tomes Tuesday. It is April Fools Day and a chance to celebrate. Writing about daffodils brings up some uncomfortable comparisons - and yes Wordsworth did it better!

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Avril Idiots
The grey, the gold, plot, observe.
But fools come garbed in yellow,
Naïve, brave, step and swerve
Cliff edges, gaping hollows.

Bulbs burst and stems stamp,
Patrons of fools and dancers.
First to throw winter’s wraps,
Defy frost's gripping pinchers.

Daffodils roar, trumpets blown,
Face wind whips, frozen swords,
Roses wait and claim the crown,
Riding summer’s sure rewards.

Poised pens and plucked strings
Braving trends, battle tastes
Nectar sun behind the stings
Of fearful ice delaying fate.

Note ropes and letter masts
Build ships of brave invention.
Frozen fields with yellow hats
Frightening stale convention.

Soft roses suck coin, acclaim
After tests and trials of Avril.
Sham artists timid, tame
Ride victories of the daffodils.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/photographic-print/Avril-Idiots-by-Graeme-McA/169628264/zltf

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

A poem dripping with atmosphere and a slow, quiet power. The tone and even the typographic shaping of the poem call to mind the severe sharp faces of rocky outcrops and sheer cliffs looking down uncaringly at mere mortals.

However, just as the wind whistles soulfully between those foreboding rocks, this poem’s opening lines hint at wonders to come, but just like John the traveller we must first submit to the uncomfortable feelings of isolation and smallness the words bring forth. Poems are sometimes pilgrimages taking us to places our busy, frantic minds would flee in terror from. Like John you must persevere through the rich melancholy of contemplations on aging and solitude. As the words lead you to the “fuller silence”, the change comes.

The poem moves from silence to spectacle as both the narrative and the imagery explode into vibrancy after solemn contemplation. A manifestation of Jesus appears before John but the poem takes a definite left turn away from traditional religious imagery. The figure of Jesus isn’t presented as a serene reassuring presence, but as an almost terrifying psychedelic vision wrapped in flames with a “voice of many waters”. This poem shows a wise, mature, and a very human understanding of what a supernatural encounter might actually feel like. Confronting your own insignificance in a cosmos where worlds are born, die, and feed their broken mass to a new generation in unimaginable bursts of cosmic energy.

In media imagery and the vast majority of religious art, the focus is often held on Jesus’ mortal life and its heartbreaking conclusion with the resurrection treated as something of a footnote after. At most a Pentecostal scene may be included as a “see he was special” bullet point, but rarely is the strangeness of some of the elements of the New Testament celebrated as it is here.

The line “a memory of eternity.” is an elegant summation of the poem’s core - the longing for the unknowable, the ironically alien state of living in a world of predictable, reliable mechanisms with little room for the mysterious or wondrous.

This is a poem exploring the space between the known self and the invasion or revelation of shocking states of consciousness. No matter your personal spiritual traditions or opinions, there is likely something for you to ponder. This is the voice of the constant within, yet forever unknowable. As we reach into the stranger aspects of art, faith, and our own imaginations, we realise the more we know, the less we understand.

Adrião Pereira da Cunha

Chapter XII – The Apocalypse of John

John had grown old…

Read more

2 months ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Adrião Pereira da Cunha

Three clicks from this page you will find a poetic musing on the moon - I’ve had a crack at it myself on more than one occasion. This poem, however, offers a very fresh and unique perspective. The opening tone is almost scathing and aligns more closely with postmodern criticisms of spirituality than with the age of classical romanticism. The moon is dismissed as a “counterfeit sun”, its eerie mirroring of its brother sun a coincidence of geometry. However, the same withering gaze then turns on us; it accuses humanity of abandoning our instinctual (and perhaps sacred) ties to the thirteen lunar seasons. We are condemned for our cowardice in allowing our lunar year to be supplanted by a twelve-month cycle of labour. The missing month, buried like Edgar Allan Poe’s tell tale heart, is a standout metaphor that underlines a deep sense of loss touching our collective soul. The poem’s scathing wit melts into a tender scene of two lovers in a place “where guilt ended and grace began”. As the poem’s narrative comes down from its gleaming acerbic tower into the warm earth, it moves into a final journey through the melancholy landscape of the soul, where the need for mystery is embraced again.

The poem approaches a moment of conscious transcendence as its opposing philosophies and perspectives embrace. A knowing critique of scientific reductionism and anthropomorphising celestial objects, while also a celebration of the pursuit of objective knowledge and a validation of the deeper reality buried in imaginative speculation. This approach of celebration and criticism creates an artfully crafted piece where two contradictory ideas fully meet without semantic gaps or broken logic. In the movements of this poem, the moon is both the watchful Luna and an interesting physical coincidence of a mundane collision of two planets. This understanding creates not only a deeper appreciation of the moon itself, but also a heightened state of awareness of the experienced environment. Just like the poem’s tender love scene, the earthly and ethereal meet, creating a power beyond both. In our travels through this poem, both the moon and (perhaps more importantly) the reader become something else entirely - if even for a moment.

The Loom

Poe´s Heart

There is a tongue that flickers in the grid’s unseen static, a frequency not spoken by God but by that cold coin in the night— borrowed light, thin as a lie, burning like truth when you stare too long. It hangs there, shaped and placed so it can counterfeit the sun, a stone the exact size of an absence at a distance we call miracle only because we can…

Read more

3 months ago · 33 likes · 12 comments · Adrian

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me a Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

Another piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To The Sun
I call you, O Morning Sun,
Drama reprise anticipated.
Infant smiles play upon
The wary and the jaded.

New blossoms open faces,
Dark roots, deep and firm.
Kissing butterfly grace
Yet remembering the storm.

Long solitude, deep night.
Soul steps out of withdrawal
Bringing secrets into the light,
Morning cycle of renewal.

Sun lift your golden circle
Players stir behind the stage.
Light strikes the waiting anvil
Windows shine above the page.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Call-To-The-Sun-by-Graeme-McA/179384402/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

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St. Patrick Christianised and "civilised" the wild Celtic folk - but I wonder, was something lost in the change?

From the Sovereigns of the Seasons collection 

The Civilising Sun
Long shadows smear the lands.
Winter's fingers pinch the hours.
Dark and cold tug tools from hands.
Night bars eyes from fruit and flowers.

Bean-sídhe hide in fogged saplings.        
Winds tickling trees or ghastly wails?
Granite standing stone glimmering,
A Celtic lord in moon shine mail.

Cold sweats, hot fear, bards rave.
Sapling and stone leap then lunge,
Twig claws strike shale stone blades.
Fire spirits flee their crimson cages.

Ripped routines, broken bindings.
Night veils eyes, welcomes visions.
Ghosts, glories, seductive, scratching.
Day breaks, feeds poems to flames.

Spring's green shoots, chains, ropes
Faerie doors, hill holes closed.
Sun holds sky, a solemn stop
To hearth heroes, horror’s hoards.

Spiral serpents, ancient, wise
Flee the clock, gear, and coin.
Mystics craft, warrior’s poise
Melt under the civilising sun.

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/The-Civilising-Sun-by-Graeme-McA/169285111/flk2

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to appear in my review section McAllister’s Mates

Claim Your FREE Book NOW!

P.S. If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

Another piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To Chronos
I call to you, O Chronos,
Counting face, hands spin.
Grandeur submitting to Moss
As I battled your whims.

I begged for second sands,
I grasped for fading chances.
Now I offer open hands
I invite you friend, to dance.

Flow and lead, lead and flow,
Pleasures stretch, tasks complete.
Space above, smooth below
For our sure and subtle feet.

Papers sealed, stones laid
I blow crystal from your sands
Time, ally, teacher, aide.
Dear Chronos with open hands.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/photographic-print/Call-To-Chronos-by-Graeme-McA/179018823.6Q0TX?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee

March has arrived. The waiting flowers, and the souls of poets stretch out in new life.

(audio is spoken word NOT A.I.)

From the Filigree and Fire collection 

March Movements
Quiet blooms flex steel strands
Bending, breaking earthly bones.
Precision moves beneath the sands;
Revealing, raising painted thrones.

Daylight dancer cross the sky,
Shift your veil just to one side.
Golden skin against the grey,
Subtle glimpses tease, entice.

March Movements warm the hands,
Draw curling ciphers from the bones.
Swirling inks extend their strands,
Recalled to warm winter snows.

As featured in my book of artwork and poetry “Filigree and Fire” - A collection of bright, joyful poetry and art designed to inspire and delight you. Take a journey through worlds of rhythm, colour, and dreams.

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/March-Movements-by-Graeme-McA/168924195/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

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I’m afraid I have to start with a negative and point out some very real, very disruptive influences.

Then I will move onto why you are probably doing a lot better than you think you are.

Finally I will give some thoughts on my own way forward, which I hope you will find interesting.

Gurus Be Gone!

My notifications are currently being bombarded by ever more frequent and aggressive posts mocking the poetry and fiction community as “stupid”, “dead” or “lazy assed” (that last one is particularly charming). Now of course these are not merely complaints and slurs - they always come with a promise of “remedy” and “salvation”. I am becoming very aware of the damage this is doing both to individual authors and the spirit of this joyful community, and I have had enough!

Now pitching Internet, marketing, and editing services is nothing new and is not - I REPEAT NOT inherently bad. Not at all. There are many talented and hard working marketers, SEO experts, editors, and web designers out there who care deeply about their craft and their customers. My complaint lies with the gurus and their cult-like personas preying on and engorging authors’ vulnerabilities and ‘offering’ messianic interventions….

Genuine professionals will never insult you, the writing community at large, or pretend to have ALL the answers. They offer targeted, specific services with clearly defined outcomes. If an article or offer sounds too good to be true, or if you feel diminished or bad after reading it - RUN! (BTW none of this is a lead-in to an offer or sales pitch - I am just recording my thoughts on where we are.)

Where Does Substack Naturally Flow For Authors and Poets?

Yes - Substack runs on a subscription model -you gather followers who pay you X per month to sustain your publication. Now - achieving this monetisation is often difficult for many authors and poets. While some do indeed succeed with admirable numbers, it is my experience (one shared with many others) that it is VERY difficult to reach that point with Substack alone.

Don’t panic! Don’t despair. Don’t hit the delete account button. Substack actually gives you something else - something precious that is often achieved seemingly effortlessly (although it requires actual work). You very likely have already achieved it - you just haven’t noticed.

Substack can give you (naturally and easily) a solid foundation of respect and good standing amongst your peers. If that sounds “airy fairy” - we can say it builds a platform of social proof and amasses respect in the literary community. The key to evaluating your success in this is quality over quantity (remember quantity and fear of lacking is where the gurus will target you). On the question of quantity, there is an important metric that you may be overlooking (and with it your successes), we’ll get to that soon.

Now. For those of you who’ve been on Substack for a few months or maybe a year or so - I’d like you to take a look back over your portfolio. Re-read some of the comments you’ve received - don’t worry about the counts, this is about depth not numbers. I’ll bet there’s some really insightful and encouraging words, (engagement here tends to be much deeper than social media). Who’s made those comments? Who’s subscribed? Take a moment- visit their portfolios, read some of their pieces. Likely people you instinctively respect and admire. Those authors who’ve engaged with you, given you their time- who understand you, aren’t their thoughts more worthy than a guru or influencer throwing out insults and ridicule? The gurus haven’t read you, they haven’t walked with you into the depths of your soul. They’ve just identified some common vulnerabilities and cheap linguistic tricks to stir basic (but intense) negative emotions.

If you’d like more of the same or if you still feel lacking in quality engagement - the answer is simple pay it back and pay it forward. Comment on or quote from pieces by those authors who’ve engaged with you, go forth and find writers you admire - tell them how their work touched you. It’s easy and fun! Please don’t try and “strategise” this process- just enjoy it. Engage with the work that excites you - not something that’s going to position you into a better spot. Sincerity shines, schmoozing slumps - we are NOT the gurus! The payback isn’t always immediate and it isn’t always in a one to one relationship (shout out to my fellow database developers 😉) but it comes. You will build a following and very real friendships and doors to professional collaborations will open. I started my “McAllister’s Mates” review section for fun and because I was blown away by the quality of the work I was coming across. I have since made some very dear friends here and have started laying the foundations for a collaborative project that I’m hugely excited about.

The Hidden Metric

It may seem like I’ve downplayed statistics and metrics but I fully embrace their importance and relevance. However, I do think you have to be careful not to overreact to every spike, surge, and slowdown.

Posts views will fluctuate wildly as will traffic and visits- try not to let your adrenaline follow them! If you zoom out - you may notice interesting and useful patterns in the rises and falls - time of day, title/description length, tags on your post (or lack there of). I’m not an SEO expert but I have found your titles require almost as much thought as your articles.

Tags can be incredibly useful as they naturally group your posts together and give your newsletter structure. You can also use these to create your own indexes and navigation links to make your Substack easier to navigate.

If you find your posts are getting more reads when launched earlier or later in the day - remember you can always schedule publication ahead. You can also track your audience’s geographical location. If the majority is in a different timezone than you are then it makes sense to schedule your posts so that they don’t publish at 2 am in the morning for your main audience.

Now I promised a hidden metric (although overlooked might be more accurate). If you open your Substack and go: Dashboard>>Stats>>Audience. The top section of this page shows your total followers. This is a VERY important number which includes not only your subscribers but also people who clicked follow on your publication. This number (in my experience and others I’ve talked to) is often 300% or 400% higher than your subscribers. Readers who are actively engaging with your work but haven’t (yet) hit subscribe for whatever reason. There are numerous thought pieces and resources on why this split occurs and how to convert followers, I’m not pretending to have any secret knowledge, I’m just making you aware of this number as it is an often overlooked measure of success.

Supplementing Substack

This next section is really something of an ideas dump. As I said earlier - I don’t believe that Substack alone is a direct path to critical or commercial success, but it can be a powerful foundation and cornerstone. Having worked on Substack for over a year now I feel that I have a rock solid platform to launch (and relaunch) a few endeavours from.

My personal situation is that I used to have a personal portfolio site that was frankly a bit of a deadzone. As my engagement and friendship with Substack blossomed I basically turned graememcallister.com into a direct link to my Substack - (there are instructions on how to do this for yourself here). However, I am slightly rethinking this - looking forward I plan to create a section (subdomain) of my site for Substack to live on, as I would like to move into other areas. I have no regrets about linking graememcallister.com to Substack - I fully believe a connection between my Substack and domain name empowers both. However, I also have four ebooks published on amazon, the same books in full colour hardback format on lulu and a Redbubble framed print shop. I have links to these across my articles but nothing feels cohesive or centralised. Going forward I will be working on a website overhaul to bring these activities together, I may well post updates and technical details on what I’m doing here.

I hope that last paragraph didn’t bore you. My main point is this: I believe that we (as authors and poets) need to branch out our activities across multiple channels AND THEN find ways to unify and connect those activities. If you run a facebook or twitter (I’ve found they’re not for me personally) then why not cross post your articles? You can also add Substack subscribe links on Facebook or Facebook follow links on Substack.

Are you running a Youtube channel? You can embed the videos in your Substack posts - maybe you could even approach Subscribers who’ve left really positive or insightful comments to see if they would be willing to record a reading of their feedback on audio or video.

Are you approaching traditional publishers? Why not include a link to your Substack in your covering letter? Or even some of your best feedback? (Provided the commentator is open to this of course).

My main point is that as your Substack builds into a solid writing portfolio and a storehouse of character references and endorsements, you gain energy that can be channeled into other (maybe more commercial or transitory) channels with an amplified and more mature presence.

Summing Up

I hope this acts as something of an antidote and a balm to the negativity that comes across our feeds almost constantly, and the niggling self-doubts we sometimes feel. To repeat my opening title: No! You’re not broken. Neither is Substack.

We all experience slow periods, visitor drops, or moments when the posts that we put our hearts and souls into don't catch fire when they first land, but Substack (in my experience) is a game of consistency and patience - keep the big picture in mind and try looking at your progress in terms of months NOT days. Remember also, numbers are only a small part of the story. Think about how your writing, your voice, and confidence has developed, the friendships and connections you’ve made - these are the real metrics.

Finally, don’t be afraid to share your frustrations or setbacks with the community - you may find you have more people championing you than you imagine, by the same token reach out to other writers who are having a tough time or have fallen prey to the nagging doubts both internal and external.

Enjoy the journey - and by all means let me know what you’re up to - I always need something inspiring to read!

Take Care,

Graeme

(Click to see full size with greater detail)

Another piece from my New Book "Chantry Circuitry". It is a series of poetic calls and incantations to Mystical and Archetypal figures. The Mandalas are meditation tools constructed from manipulated  images of the poetry.

The Audio features a reading by me - as opposed to an automated voiceover.

Print and Kindle Version of "Chantry Circuitry" Now Available 

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

Call To The Moon

I call to you, O Distant Moon,
Past flowing through your palette.
Moments come, gone too soon
Unbidden moonlit silhouettes

Open visage, concealing hood,
The waxing waning mirror.
My opal memories and mood
ebb, flow, shadow, glimmer.

My ancient burdened legends
Revealed in Mist and vapour.
Binding histories rearranged
Ink melts upon the paper.

Billowing, beguiling moon,
Shimmer through all I’ve seen.
As you shine, as you swoon,
I reshape all that I have been.

Happy Tomes Tuesday

Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Print and Kindle Version of “Chantry Circuitry” Now Available

Hardback Print Edition

Amazon Kindle Edition

If you enjoyed this poem and artwork - have a look at the various print options available from redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Call-To-The-Moon-by-Graeme-McA/178779672/flk2?asc=u

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Buy Me A Coffee