Potential Titles: Seasons of the Year [Category]

Autumn.

Fall (all versions).

Midsummer.

Months, days of the week, and holidays by name.

Solstice.

Spring.

Springtime.

Summer.

Vernal.

Winter.


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Potential Titles: Sensory Adjacent [category]

Acrid.

Aroma.

Audible.

Blind.

Chill.

Coarse.

Cold.

Cool.

Deaf/Deafen.

Decibel.

Ear.

Eyes.

Fetid:
A city of fetid promise - Sally Wen Mao "Anna May Wong Stars as Cyborg #86"

The fetid breath of the saloon - Dennison Woodcock "The Ruined Home"

Frigid.

Hear.

Hot.

Lukewarm:
Found slaughters here ironically lukewarm - Harry Martinson "Aniara 92" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Nerve.

Nose:
Many foes, behind, before, beneath your nose - John Gay "Fable LX: The Degenerate Bees" [edited, updated, & adapted by John Benson Rose]

To leave dog's noses no evidence - KaNikki Jakarta "A Wading"

Powder their noses with pollen - Maurya Simon "Angels"

Numb.

Odor.

Olfactory:
Green vapors trigger an olfactory déjà vu - Tory Dent "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Pain.

Pleasure.

Pressure.

Pungent:
Pungent in the still images sacrificed to history - Kimberly Blaeser "Unlawful Assembly"

The onion's pungent terror - Ashley M. Jones "Harriette Winslow and Aunt Rachel Clean Collard Greens on Prime Time Television"

Pungent with the breath of pines - Archibald Lampman "At the Ferry"

With the pungence of sealed spice-jars - Amy Lowell "A Lady"

Reek,

Scent.

Sensation.

Sight.

Skin.

Smell.

Sonar:
With readings and sonar echoes of our own - Henry Farnan "How to Make Contact with a Lost Star System"

Where the old songs still echo like sonar - Catherynne M. Valente "Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985"

Stench.

Stink:
Grow from cinder and stinking ash - Margo Berdeshevsky "Somewhere Everywhere"

Stinking of axel grease and gasoline - Daniel Johnson "In the Absence of Sparrows"

Tactile:
Tactile memory real as salt, as soap, as ashes - Joanne Merriam "Mirror Points"

Tactile hallucinations brought on by oxygen deficiency - Samantha Pious "Redbud"

Taste.

Temperature.

Tepid:
having flung d'artagnan clear to luna's tepid stone - Andy Miller "All Those Bleached Bones"

Texture.

Tingle.

Titillate:
Stopped our titillating trophy hunts - Nancy Mercado "2020 A Year to Forget"

Tongue

Touch.

Vision.

Warm.


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Potential Titles: Shapes [category]

Box.

Circle.

Circular.

Cone.

Crescent.

Cross.

Cube:
Each cubed hollow the math of absence and distance - Kimberly Blaeser "Cadastre, Apostle Islands"

how parts of our small universe dissolve like sugar cubes in water - Karla Cordero "Everything Needs Fixing"

Ice cubes projecting memory - Christopher Kondrich "Division of Labor"

Harshly set in hollow blocks and cubes - D.H. Lawrence "Suburbs on a Hazy Day"

Curl.

Cylinder:
Fix the thing upon a spinning cylinder - Sandy Florian "Phonograph"

Vortex streets of cylindrical sound - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Hokkolen i"

Inscribed on the infinite wax cylinder of the world - Hal Y. Zhang "Majorana, Back Again"

Diamond.

Disc/Disk.

Dodecahedron:
Against the sky behind the dodecahedron - Daisy Aldan "The Sky Is Moving Farther Back, Opaque"

Ellipse.

Funnel.

Globe.

Helix:
The helix of departure unfurling - Julia Bouwsma "Interview with the Dead"

Make a helix of my hands - Kristina Martino "All I Can Have are Field Recordings of the Field"

Motion in a Helix's curve - Jesús Papoleto Meléndez "In a Grain of Sand"

The backroad switchbacks of his double helix - Shelley Puhak "Portrait of the Artist with Three Moons"

Hemisphere.

Hexagon:
Hexagons find their way toward curved forms - Daisy Aldan "The Sky Is Moving Farther Back, Opaque"

How he hides in the hexagons of bees - Susan Stewart "Let me tell you about my marvelous god"

Hoop.

Oblate:
Of oblate blooms & blessed liquids - Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez "Perfumes"

Oblong:
the square virtues and the oblong sins - E. E. Cummings "Amores (XI)"

Octagon:
The glassy, concrete octagon suspended from the cliffs - Adrienne Rich "Yom Kippur 1984"

Orb.

Oval/Ovate.

Parabola:
Parabola and experience - CM Burroughs "Body as a Juncture of Almost"

Back on a strange parabola - D.H. Lawrence "Man and Bat"

The moon a parabola to our party - Janice Lobo Sapigao "Silhouette"

Between planets and parabolas - Sonya Taaffe "The Gambler"

Parallelogram:
Measure by parallelogram construction - "Song of the Screw"

Pentacle:
Pentacles to guard the ground - E.H.W. Meyerstein "The Incantation"

Dragging pentacles in the dust - Wendy Rathbone "Grief"

Pentagon:
Herein lies the hard pentagonal truth - Bruce Boston "The Canticles of Rage"

Your star bulging into a pentagon - Denise Duhamel "Delta Flight 656"

Pyramid.

Rectangle.

Scallop [shape]:
Rides updrafts with scalloped hands, interrogating air - Lance Larsen "For I Will Consider the Lone Crow at Angels Landing"

Semicircle:
A rhythmically surging semicircle - Michael Leong "from Transmitting the Vertical Immensity of Coniferous Light"

Shape.

Sphere.

Spiral.

Square.

Tetrahedron:
Each strong molecule expands, a lattice of tetrahedrons - Brian Teare "Sitting River Meditation"

Torus:
A torus-image whose empty center we sought - Harry Martinson "Aniara 3" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Triangle.

Tube:
twists and rises into the tube of light - Charles Coleman Finlay "Accidental Series"

His tubes of soft quicksilver - Alfred Noyes "Jean Guettard III: The Shadow of Pascal"

Prayers in tissue radiant tubes - Naomi Shihab Nye "The Turtle Shrine near Chittagong"

Scuttle into sand-tubes and hide amongst the spinifex - Hester J. Rook "The Sparrows in Her Hair"

Our dusty vacuum tubes still warm to the pinch of electricity - M. Bartley Seigel "The Mosquito Inn"


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Potential Titles: Sports & Athletics [category]

Acrobatic:
The acrobat's taffy of satin - David Tomas Martinez "Calaveras Section 2"

The acrobat I dreamt of becoming - Emma E. Murray "Drowning Machine"

Strange acrobats to catch them - Iris Tree "Nerves"

Angler/Angling:
Angling with a baited hook - Nicholas Breton "The Happy Countryman"

Followed the angler's winding path - Henry van Dyke "The Red Flower"

Athlete:
Life's fragile athlete - Charles Baudelaire "The Soul of Wine" transl. not credited

With the happy grace of athletes - Michael Lauchlan "Trumbull Ave., 1981"

Among those athletes fronting storms - George Meredith "To Colonel Charles (Dying General C.B.B.)"

Balance Beam:
The balance-beam of Fate was bent - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Uriel"

Baseball:
Playing baseball with the dead - Chris Dombrowski "A History of Barbed Wire"

Flaws stacked like baseball cards - Andrea Gibson "Boomerang Valentine"

Bicycle/Bike.

Bleachers:
Brachiosauruses by the bleachers - Haley Bossé "When the Time Comes to Split the Gym"

Bowling:
Bowling by chance in adjacent lanes - Idra Novey "Value City"

The dune bowling down meteors - Cynthia Zarin "Orbit"

Bridle.

Cartwheel:
And teaches the urchins to cartwheel - Edryd Bowmer "Skink Song" [Strange Horizons 14 April 2025]

Champion.

Climb.

Compete.

Contest.

Dance.

Dive/Dove.

Exercise.

Exert/Exertion:
Exert their skill most faithfully - Eliza "The Broken Heart" [Southern Literary Messenger v.II no.1 Dec. 1835-6]

Suffer this city to exert its courage - Euripedes "The Children of Hercules" transl. by Michael Wodhull

'Tis time each sage precaution to exert - Euripedes "The Children of Hercules" transl. by Michael Wodhull

In your cause exert my utmost vigour - Euripedes "Hecuba" transl. by Michael Wodhull

To taste the salt of exertion - Kathryn Petruccelli "Instinct"

Exertion draws the mind from hope - A.E. Stallings "Sisyphus"

Exerting Beauty's easy privilege - Arthur Waugh "The Beautiful Swan"

Figure-Skating See: Skate.

Finish Line:
Arguing about the finish line of the space race - Libby Graham "Space Worm Poem" [Strange Horizons Fund Drive 2025]

Fishing.

Football:
And pile them high like football fiends - Jennie Earngey Hill "Nature's Game"

Football players firing glory-cannons downfield - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Gallop.

Gridiron:
Achilles of the moleskins and the gridiron - Frank Horne "Letters Found Near a Suicide" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Gymnastics:
a gymnast on a thin thread of the horizon - Valzhyna Mort "Belarusian I"

the gymnast of our future was leaping - Valzhyna Mort "Belarusian I"

Halfcourt:
A heave from the halfcourt moving like a meteor - Tomás Q. Morín "Bird"

Halter:
I am Destiny's halter! Unloose me not! - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Vision of Helen"

Handspring:
And some one flipped a handspring in my heart - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"

Harness.

Hike:
To hike on the narrow paths - J.M. Allen "The Narrow Paths"

Left him hiking along the barren shores of physics - Robert Frazier "A Feel for the Heavens"

Hike and hustle and invent curse words - Vincent Toro "¿Que Que La Femme?"

Hitch-hike on the tailpipe of a car - Duane Ackerson "Little Ghosts"

Hop:
Oriole hopping from branch to branch - Terry Blackhawk "Maumee, Maumee"

Imps keeping time with skip and hop - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Invited into our hopping choir - John Yau "Charles Baudelaire and I Meet in the Oval Garden"

Hunt.

Joust:
The jousting favor of one who is in thrall to no one - Sharon Olds "Boxer Aria"

Juggle.

Jump.

Marathon.

Piton:
Pitons on my gloves and my boots - Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. "Ice Magic"

Race.

Reins.

Relay Race:
Useless for gift wrapping and relay races - Dean Young "I Said Yes but I Meant No" [Poetry Oct. 2003]

Ride/Rode.

Riding-Crop:
Raised his riding-crop in golden greeting - Li Po "The Encounter" transl. not credited [The Jade Flute, c.1960, Project Gutenberg]

Roller Derby:
What's next in the social roller derby? - Paul Cameron Brown "Dash Into Realism: Escape Pad from the Sixties"

Run/Ran.

Saddle.

Score.

Skate.

Skip.

Snorkel:
A snorkel breathing another dimension - C. A. Conrad "Frank"

Soccer:
Surrounds the soccer field of what if - Dean Young "I Am But a Traveller in this Land & Know Little of Its Ways"

Somersault.

Sport.

Sprint:
Sprints into his shadow - Cameron Awkward-Rich "The Little Girl Dreams of Dying"

In a frozen sprint of light - Andres Cerpa "Parkinson's Disease: Autumn"

One of time's swiftest sprinters - Lutpulla Mutellip "Answer to the Years" transl. by Aziz Isa Elkun

Steeple Chase:
A steeple chase marked by clocks - Dom "Seaside Sunrise: Happiness when it Comes"

Stirrup:
To press the stirrup in fearlessness and glee - William Cory "Amaturus"

Till the Princes of Earth bow low to kiss his stirrup - "The Gold-Finder" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCCXXXIX, v.LXXI, May 1852]

This stirrup-cup of stars - Louis Untermeyer "The Wine of Night"

Strike Zone:
Watching the strike zone get smaller and smaller - Oliver de la Paz "When Benny Agbayani Became a Met"

Swim/Swam/Swum.

Swing.

Tap-Dance:
Tap-dancing up a crystal stair - Hailey Leithauser "The Old Woman Gets Drunk with the Moon"

Tennis:
The pocked metronome of tennis balls - Debra Allbery "Sidereal"

Tetherball:
Playing tetherball alone - Chris Dombrowski "May"

Throw.

Trapeze:
Trapeze wires below the cloud cover - Caitriona O'Reilly "The Airship Era"

Rocked like a trapeze of fire - Lola Ridge "Firehead part I: He 1: Midafternoon"

Trapezes that our passion frenzies - Iris Tree "Nerves"

Trek:
In the trek of the blind snow - Lola Ridge "Back Yards"

Trophy

Trot:
Black wind runs trotting to the dark - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Song of Cold and Pain"

A war trots out of your chiaroscuro head - Carolina Ebeid "Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera"

Trotted at the tail of the sun - D.H. Lawrence "The Red Wolf"

Tumble.

Twirl.

Umpire:
The umpires noting all with care to tell - Palmer Cox "The Brownies at Base-ball" [St. Nicholas v.XIII no.12, Oct. 1886]

Bedlam elected himself umpire - Sandy Florian "But This Is Ambiguous"

Walk.

Walking Stick:
A weed stalk is the devil's walking stick - Gary Copeland Lilley "Unmarked Grave"

A walking stick of silk - Maggie Nelson "For Lily on Her 25th Birthday"

Whirl.

Wrestle.


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Potential Titles: Supernatural/Religious [category]

I'm jamming these together because I have no desire to try to draw the line between real/unreal on such a fraught subject. I have my own beliefs and opinions, but I don't want to impose them on others.

Some overlap with Allusions - Places/Items [category] and Allusions - Historical/Mythological People/Beings/Groups [category] and Rank/Titles - Religious [category]. If something's not here and might fit one of the other categories, it might be there.

Afterlife.

Alchemy.

Altar.

Amen:
The amen in the prayer you never say - Jack Ridl "American Suite for a Lost Daughter"

Amulet:
Amulets of pine - Emily Dickinson "Book 1: Nature IX: The Grass"

The sun's strange amulets - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Sixteen Shadows 5"

Will prove an amulet to guard - William H.C. Hosmer "Impromptu: Written on Receiving a Rose-Bud from a Lady"

The amulets of home entombed for solace - Maureen N. McLane "Populating Heaven"

Angel.

Apocalypse.

Apotheosis:
The apotheosis of Ra's rivals - James Hannaham "Apophasis Now"

The apotheosis of wet asphalt - Mark Jarman "The Black Riviera"

In some gazette obtain alike an apotheosis and fane - T.W.P. "Letter Second: To Thomas Carlyle, Esquire, London" [The Knickerbocker v.22, no.1, July 1843]

Apparition.

Arcane/Arcana:
Infused those thousands of canvases with hidden arcana - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

Evolutions open your arcana - Natalie Clifford Barney "Life"

The arcane power of right angles - Denise Levertov "The Sculptor (Homage to Chillida)"

Archangel.

Astral.

Astrology:
The lottery, the multiverses, and tomorrow's astrology - Regie Cabico "Morning After the Election"

Astrologists and Presbyterians agree for different reasons - Dean Young "I Am But a Traveller in this Land & Know Little of Its Ways"

Atheist:
The atheist dangers of the time - W.D. Lighthall "National Hymn"

Augur/Augury.

Aura.

Avatar:
Love's radiant avatar - Edward Dowden "Poesia"

What dark god's avatar awaits - Ann K. Schwader "A Voyage(r) Too Far"

Tossed to their height by endless avatars - Helen Hay Whitney "Etoiles d'Enfer"

And my shadowy avatars renounced - Francis Brett Young "Envoi"

A timeless avatar of never-ending dooms - Francis Brett Young "Thamar (To Thamar Karsavina)"

Banshee:
Have you heard what the banshee said? - "The Geraldine's Daughter" [A Book of Irish Verse ed. by W.B. Yeats]

Carts whose banshee wheels cry havoc - Ann K. Schwader "The Laundrymen"

All night did the Banshee weep - Dora Sigerson Shorter "The Priest's Brother"

An echo and a banshee - Su Hwang "Little Matrons"

Baptism/Baptize.

Basilisk:
The basilisk of the Steadfast Chapel - Enheduana "Temple Hymns: 16. E-Ana, the Temple of Inana in Uruk" transl. by Sophus Helle

A basilisk and a great serpent intertwined - Enheduana "Temple Hymns: 33. E-Dimgalkalama, the Temple of Ishtaran in Der" transl. by Sophus Helle

Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming - "Let Never Cruelty Dishonour Beauty" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCLXIII, v.LIX, Jan. 1846]

Bible/Biblical:
reading a bible of conditional statements - Mckendy Fils-Aimé "on superstitions"

Spools of biblical jazz - Philip Schultz "Luxury: One"

The Bible never changes its mind - Peter Twal "This Sunday in Ordinary Time"

Blasphemy.

Cantrip:
With cantrip kisses seven - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Catechism:
Truant student of a catechism I loathe - Tory Dent "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Centaur.

Changeling.

Chaplet.

Charm.

Cherub/Cherubim.

Chimera.

Christmas:
Curtailed by the ever-growing Christmas trees - Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan "Gosh, It's Too Beautiful to Exist Briefly in a Parallel Planet"

Chthonic:
Keep the meddlesome chthonic wordslingers cranky - Bob Holman "Scotty and the Rib Tips"

Through vast chthonic reservoirs - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"

Clairvoyant:
Their own sweat and clairvoyant uncertainty - Kyle Dargan "Not Blue"

A visionary more clairvoyant than Mother Dream - Alfred Kreymborg "Old Manuscript"

Although clairvoyant, she saw no salvation - Harry Martinson "Aniara 56" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Conjure.

Consecrate.

Creed.

Cross.

Crusade.

Crystal Ball:
Its crystal ball, buoyed by all the vacuum - Duane Ackerson "Various Horses"

A crystal ball lowered into low-hanging helium - Ian Goh "Firework"

Cult:
Join Hercules' cult to Mammon's - Ruben Dario "To Roosevelt" transl. unknown per poets.org

Hymn of a thrice-ancient cult - Kostes Palamas "An Orphic Hymn" transl. by Aristides E. Phoutrides

Curse.

Cyclops.

Daemon:
Could a daemon avenge this hurt - H.D. "The Cliff Temple"

Death's fell daemons through the flashes glare - Luís de Camões "The Lusiad; or, The Discovery of India: Book I. Argument" transl. by William Julius Mickle

Formless as a daemon's shadow - William Lumley "The Dweller" [Fantasy Fan, v.1, no.6, Feb. 1934]

Give me no coil of daemon flowers - Muriel Stuart "The Cloudberry"

A daemon-fane that echoes with mad mirth - Duane W. Rimel "Dreams of Yith" [The Fantasy Fan, v.2, no.1, Sept. 1934]

Damned.

Deity.

Demigod:
My children half wild screaming demigods - Saida Agostini "black aphrodite entertains a mortal lover"

Demon.

Dervish:
Giant dervishes dancing under the ancient stars - Jenny Blackford "Power Men"

Becoming another strobe-lit dervish - Kyle Dargan "Not Blue"

Devil.

Devout:
At Pleasure's shrine devoutly kneeling - Mrs. Lois B. Adams "Hath Not Thy Rose a Canker"

Having fashioned so devout a snare - Tommaso Campanella "XXXIV. Hypocrites" transl. by John Addington Symonds

Devoutly mended her wasted taper - George Santayana "Cathedrals by the Sea"

More daring than devout - Louis Untermeyer "Prayer"

Diabolical:
Slip into the diabolical roles I've played - Sally Wen Mao "Anna May Wong Rates the Runway"

Disciple.

Divination/Divine (prophecy).

Divine (holy).

Djinn:
The djinn shows me many moons - Tarik Dobbs "A Djinn in Sakhnin"

Dogma.

Dowser:
The motto of modern-day dowsers - Thomas Lux "Indigo Felix:"

Dragon.

Druid:
Weave a low and druid chant - Fanny Stearns Davis "Profits"

A sacrifice steam at the knife of a Druid - D.H. Lawrence "Under the Oak"

Left me under the Druid moon - Joseph Millar "One Day"

Hears Druid's groan and Dryad's shriek - Francis Noel Clarke Mundy "The Fall of Needwood"

Dryad.

Eerie.

Eidolon:
Blossoms stirred by wings of eidolons - Clark Ashton Smith "Ode on Imagination"
[phantom/ghost/spirit]

Eldritch:
Eldritch visions of the Armageddon of the Elder Gods - Jenny Blackford "Eleven Exhibits in a Better Natural History Museum, London"

Eldritch ship of the sea - Clinton Scollard "The Mist Barque"

Shivered with outcry of eldritch voices - Clark Ashton Smith "Remembered Light"

The eldritch laughters of the wind - Clark Ashton Smith "Saturn"

Elf/Elves.

Enchant.

Eucharist:
Drained floodplains and eucharistic jimson weed - Megan Fernandes "The Jungle"

Evil Eye:
Beneath the invader's evil eye - Charles Sprague "An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the City"

An evil eye is grudging of bread - "The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus 14" [Project Gutenberg. The Wisdom of the Apocrypha. 1910. Ed. by L. Cranmer-Byng and S.A. Kapadia]

Exorcism.

Fairy.

Fairyland.

Fairy-Ring:
Fresh verdure clothes each fairy-ring - Marguerite, Countess of Blessington "The Belle of a Season: Song [O Nature! let me dwell with thee]"

A fairy ring wrought of the silver light - Thomas Hood "The Two Swans"

Fairy rings on floors of moss - Sidney Royse Lysaght "The Forest"

Around the May-pole on the green, a fairy ring - George P. Morris "The Queen of May" [Graham's Magazine v.XX no.1, Jan. 1842]

Fantasy.

Fate.

Faun.

Fay/Fey.

Feng-Shui:
The neatest feng-shui'ed produce aisles - Mouna Ammar "In a Fancy Supermarket"

Fiend.

Firebird:
The storm that douse the firebird - R.B. Lemberg "Firebird, Stormbird"

Folklore:
Folklore filling the desolate lecture halls - Joshua Bennett "Summer Job"

In fable and folklore from farmyard to seashore - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "jackdaw"

The folk-lore of each of the senses - Wallace Stevens "The River of Rivers in Connecticut"

Fortune.

Four-Leaf-Clover:
Painted with four-leaf clovers - Martin Espada "The Trouble Ball [excerpt]"

Gabriel Hound:
Gabriel hounds in chorus through the dark - Robert Graves "The Sibyl"

Gargoyle.

Genie:
In whose dismal cave the genie of the lamp died - Harry Martinson "Aniara 77" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

A tarnished lamp with a genie inside - Tom Sleigh "Three Wishes"

To trick the genie back into the lamp - Tom Sleigh "Three Wishes"

Ghost.

Ghoul.

Giant.

Glamourie:
And taught me art and glamourie - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Gnome.

Goblin.

God/Goddess.

Golem:
A golem from a palmful of dirt - Susan Comninos "Bequeathal"

Stood between us and the venom of viper golems - Adam Ford "The Strangers Came" [Strange Horizons 5 May 2025]

Some Texas limestone golem - Elisheva Fox "Tzedek: The Wild Hunt"

Gospel.

Grail.

Griffon/Gryphon:
From her griffin steed alights - Benjamin West Ball "Elfin Land"

Visions, gryphons, Nothing, and the Night - Robert E. Howard "Voices of the Night" [The Fantasy Fan, v.2, no.1, Sept. 1934]

Folded up like griffons - Maggie Nelson "Nap"

Kings six cubits high with gryphon's wings - Robert Nichols "A Faun's Holiday"

Hagiography:
holographic hagiographies remember our heroes - Davian Aw "Those Who Tell the Stories"

That is no obstacle to hagiography - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Hallow.

Hamadryad:
Hamadryad of the sculpted oak - Vita Sackville-West "On the Statue of a Vestal Virgin by Toma Rosandic"

Harbinger.

Harpy.

Haunt.

Heathen:
We are heathens not researchers - Henry Farnan "How to Make Contact with a Lost Star System"

Heaven.

Hecatomb.

Hell.

Hell-Hound:
Hell-hounds on her heels - D.H. Lawrence "Purple Anemones"

To seek the hell-hounds out at last - Duane W. Rimel "Late Revenge" [The Fantasy Fan, v.2, no.5, Jan. 1935]

The dragons of the air, the hell-hounds of the deep - Henry van Dyke "Lights Out"

Heresy/Heretic.

Hex:
Through the metal hexes of fence - Rodger Kamenetz "The Living Hive"

their fruits ripened in pixelated hexes - CP Nwankwo "Error 404: Expiation Not Found" [20 Oct. 2025]

Hexes, unwanted gifts, and othersuch hexes - Alyza Taguilaso "Add to Cart" [sic]

strung their frosted hex-cells starwise - Amanda Gafford "Tigerlily"

Holy.

Horoscope.

Hydra.

Iconoclast:
Hail the implacable Iconoclast - Rachel Annand Taylor "The Hours of Fiammetta LXI: The Ways of Love"

Idol.

Ill-Starred.

Illusion.

Imp.

Incantation.

Incubus:
Raise high the swine-like incubus - Ralph Chaplin "Salaam!"

Jinx:
This year's jinx rides us apart - Anne Sexton "All My Pretty Ones"

To wish and not jinx it - Brenda Shaughnessy "Me in Paradise"

Kabbalah/Cabala:
With glyphs & a cabalistic moon of May - Paul Cameron Brown "Reading the Tides: Petroglyph Park"

Admitted to the cabalas of the light - Lola Ridge "Firehead part I: He 3: The Light"

The workings of each cabalistic vision - "The Times" [The Knickerbocker v.10, no.4, October 1837]

Karma:
Where trauma starts and karma loops - Votey Cheav "When a Kingdom Falls/Shakti's Kisses"

karma confines me in isolation - Huy Tưởng aka Đức Hiệp Nguyễn "Night in the forest" transl. by Phương Anh

What karma will justify sedition - Varsha Saraiya-Shah "Anthem for America"

Free from the fetters of Karma - Shinran Shonin "Buddhist Psalms" transl. by L. Adams Beck and S. Yamabe

Their karmic credit scores, their moments of grace and gravity - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]

Kraken:
Crakens and coils of mystery - G.K. Chesterton "The Ballad of the White Horse: Book VIII. The Scouring of the Horse"

Beware Old Kraken's pledge of faith - George Meredith "Archduchess Anne"

Lamia:
And curse her for a lamia - Stephen Vincent Benet "De Bellow Civili"

Lares.

Levitate.

Libation.

Limbo.

Liturgy:
This liturgy of pragmatism - Emily van Kley "Last of the Month"

Lorelei:
The crooning notes of a lorelei - Herbert Randall "The Derelict"

Drowning in the tresses of a darker Lorelei - Humbert Wolfe "Heine's Last Song"

Maenad.

Magic.

Magician.

Malediction:
With awful maledictions on the two who were such fools - Stephen Vincent Benet "Come Back!"

Maledictions that startle the stars - Henry Kendall "The Curse of Mother Flood"

A day so black with maledictions - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Ordeal by Fire"

Manna.

Manticore:
Invite manticors down from neighbouring height - Robert Graves "Manticor in Arabia"

Masjid:
On the Masjid's cobalt globe a ghost - Aria Aber "Can You Describe Your Years in Prison"

Mermaid.

Messiah:
Spoke our own gospels like mad messiahs - K. Iver "Gospel for Missy During Our Three-Day Birthday Season"

Metaphysics.

Mind Reading:
Only a mind reading God could unfold - Phil Wright "Howling with Ginsberg"

Minotaur:
The Minotaur weaving toward its meal - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

To stuff the Minotaur back in his Harlequin cloak - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

A minotaur of your own making - Julia Alvarez "Touching Bottom"

The ones rage has twisted into minotaurs - Cyrus Cassells "Soul Make a Path Through Shouting"

Miracle.

Miraculous.

Monster.

Mummy:
And mummified for eons in a jar of brine - Ted Kooser "The Celery Heart"

Mummies, jackals, Buddhas, and the long stalled ride back - Roger Mitchell "Going Back"

Muse.

Mystic.

Myth.

Naiad.

Nativity:
Mannequins perennially enacting the nativity - Tory Dent "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Necromancy:
Put little faith in the toad's necromancy - F.B.C. "The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic"

The necromancy of a Prospero holds in thrall - Don Marquis "A Golden Lad (D.V.M.)"

By Titania's necromancies - Don Marquis "Silvia"

Nephilim:
Nephilim, invincible as David - Elisheva Fox "Tzedek: The Wild Hunt"

Netherworld.

Nirvana:
Lure them deeper and deeper into a quest for Nirvana - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"

Pardoning hapless prospects to nirvana - Leyla Guirand "The Abstract Maker"

And through us all Nirvana's current ranged - Harry Martinson "Aniara 103" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Our souls shall taste nirvana in such sleep - Ann K. Schwader "Ossuary"

And nirvana comes with a software update - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]

Novena:
While wailing women recited novena - Barbara Jane Reyes "Brown Girl Creed"

Nymph.

Oblation:
To make such an abhorred oblation - Euripedes "The Children of Hercules" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Shall partake with us the rich oblation - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Occult:
Which reads with swift, occult divining - G.C.J. "En Passant" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.35-v.I, 30 Aug. 1884]

Outlines occult of abstract scope - Coventry Patmore "The Angel in the House: Prologue"

A charge transmitted and gift occult - Walt Whitman "Starting from Paumanox"

Ogre:
Who bound the ogre with a fetter of spiderwort - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman "Down in the Clover"

Scarce like to feed the ogre - James Russell Lowell "Fitz Adam's Story"

Dragons and ogresses, fevers and lethargies and pains of heart - Kostes Palamas "The Fairy" transl. by Aristides E. Phoutrides

Ogres, toads, and nursery rhymes - Deborah Ruddell "The Swan"

Omen.

Omphalos:
Omphalos quick with swirling aura - Michael Waters "Homo Sapiens" [Poetry, January 1988]

Oracle.

Orthodox:
Those content with stale orthodoxies - Diane Seuss "Poetry"

Pagan.

Pantheon:
Tentative sun-gods of a lost pantheon - Ryu Ando "Season of the Ginzakura" [Strange Horizons 13 July 2015]

Claim the pantheon of dream - Clark Ashton Smith "The Masque of Forsaken Gods"

Paradise.

Paranormal:
In the paranormal cadences of cathedral - T.J. Anderson III "Ancestors Are Calling"

To organize my thoughts on the paranormal - Timothy Donnelly "Globus Hystericus"

Patron Saint: See Patron.

Perdition.

Peri:
Blush of a Peri that smiles in a dream - A.J. Requier "Love" [Graham's Magazine v.XL no.4, April 1852]

Phantasm:
Dream phantasm it spread aloft at night - William Rose Benét "The City"

Exhaling phantasms of steam - Jaswinder Bolina "Portrait of the Self"

Phantasmal flux of moments - George Eliot "I Grant You Ample Leave"

When phantasms could appease - James Russell Lowell "Endymion"

Phantom.

Philosopher's Stone:
The key to a philosopher's stone - Noel Quiñones "Orange"

Phoenix.

Piety/Pious.

Pilgrim.

Pilgrimage.

Pixie:
Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands - Jean de Esque "Betelguese"

Of castle moats and pixie clans - Deborah Ruddell "The Swan"

The pixy-pears burn in yon hawthorn tree - Walter de la Mare "Sam's Three Wishes; or Life's Little Whirligig"

Poltergeist:
Poltergeist among the grand spirits - Sir Geoffrey Hill "Genius Loci"

Poltergeists in the rooms of each other - Jamaal May "Love Poem Moving Back and Forth Across Glass"

Portent.

Potion.

Pray.

Prayer.

Prayer Wheel:
The spindles manic prayer wheels - David Wojahn "Catawba Cotton Mill, 1908"

Presage.

Prescience:
As yet no prescience of their doom - Cal Bedient "Expulsion"

Need no prescient sibyl - Felicia Hemans "The Widow of Crescentius"

Predestination:
Thorns and briars will only part for the one predestined - Theodora Goss "Thorns and Briars"

In predestination's kiln - John Updike "Marine Hotel, North Berwick, Scotland, May 1998"

Presbyterian:
Astrologists and Presbyterians agree for different reasons - Dean Young "I Am But a Traveller in this Land & Know Little of Its Ways"

Presentiment:
Hover like a presentiment, fading faint and vanquished - D.H. Lawrence "Suburbs on a Hazy Day"

Priest/Priestess.

Prophecy/Prophet.

Propitiate/Propitious.

Psychic.

Purgatory.

Reincarnate:
Climbs the tower of reincarnation - Mihee Kim "time travel"

A cowboy reincarnated as a skateboarder - Tan Lin "RPT MC-60 00.27 8"

Relics.

Religion.

Reliquary:
Reliquary for the off-white light of January - Michael Dumanis "Joseph Cornell, with Box"

Reliquary for what the World has seen - Michael Dumanis "Joseph Cornell, with Box"

A reliquary in a wall of silence - Carolyn Forche "The Notebook of Uprising"

Resurrect:
The moon through a resurrection of vapors - Monica Ferrell "The Irresolubleness of Diamonds"

The zero resurrected in plants - Yaxkin Melchy Ramos "The Boxwood Sketches" transl. by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Hangs from a branch called death and resurrection - Yaxkin Melchy Ramos "The Boxwood Sketches" transl. by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Revenant:
A revenant in worlds Edenic - Clark Ashton Smith "The Star Treader"

Rite.

Ritual.

Roc:
Shards of the engraved roc egg - Jenny Blackford "Eleven Exhibits in a Better Natural History Museum, London"

Sacrament.

Sacred.

Sacrifice.

Sacrilege:
Lights of sacrilege and scorn - G.K. Chesterton "The Ballad of the White Horse: Book III. The Harp of Alfred"

Their bold and sacrilegious flight - J.S.D.S. "The Poet" (The Knickerbocker v.10:1, July 1837)

Saint.

Sanctify/Sanctity.

Satan.

Satyr.

Scripture.

Sea-Serpent:
Replacing the usual mermaids or sea serpent - Duane Ackerson "Trawling for Trolls"

Where the coiled sea-serpents dwell - Danske Dandridge "Lost at Sea"

Second Sight:
Whose tears are prophecies and second-sight - Natalie Clifford Barney "More Night!"

Witch and troll and second sight - John Greenleaf Whittier "Abram Morrison"

Sect:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

And melt not in an acid sect - John Greenleaf Whittier "Snow-Bound"

Secular:
Only the secular powers of the Atlantic thundering - Seamus Heaney "North"

Seer.

Selkie:
Neither selkie nor siren am I - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"

The selkie who slips her wet pelt - Caitriona O'Reilly "II. The Mermaid (from The Sea Cabinet)"

Seraph/Seraphim.

Sermon.

Shaman:
Sanctuary for renegades and shamans - Gregory Pardlo "Antebellum"

Our shamans were women and our gods multiple - Emily Jungmin Yoon "Say Grace"

Shapeshift:
Who shapeshifts in an effort to please - Ama Codjoe "Come One, Come All! Step Right Up! Welcome to the World of Wonders!"

Shapeshifting sleeper agents hiding in plain sight - Adam Ford "Arrival!"

If you destroy my species I will shape-shift and hunt you - Arthur Sze "Jaguar Song"

Sin.

Siren.

Soothsayer:
Soothsayer of the eldest gods - Ralph Waldo Emerson "May-Day"

Priests and soothsayers were summoned - Mark Irwin "Monster"

a soothsayer with sandpaper hands - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Maternal Otherhood Of Mythematists Will Now Come To Order"

Sorcery/Sorcerer.

Soul.

Spectre/Spectral.

Spell.

Sphinx.

Spirit.

Spook:
Of a spook on a spree - Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey "Vagabondia"

When spooks and goblins climb the stair - Edwin C. Ranck "Halloween"

Sprite.

Stigmata:
The quality of my self served stigmatas - Gia Anansi-Shakur "The Owl"

Succubus:
Succubi that Hecate taught - Jean de Esque "Betelguese"

Supernatural:
A starling with supernatural restraint - Jenny Johnson "Aria"

Superstition.

Surplice:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

Sylph:
That ever Sylph had stolen from France - Marguerite, Countess of Blessington "The Belle of a Season"

Shadows stretched into sylphs - Roshani Chokshi "To the High School Sweetheart, in Snatches"

Synod:
And the whole synod of encircling gods - Euripedes "The Cyclops" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Two opinions in the martial synod - Euripedes "Hecuba" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

And hold a Synod in thy heart - Marquis of Montrose "I'll Never Love Thee More" (Per Wikipedia, the 1st-4th Marquesses of Montrose were all named James Graham. Later, the title attached to the Duke of Montrose as a subsidiary title, but I'm assuming that, if the poet had a ducal title, the editor would have used that instead. I decided not to dig further and just to put this under 'Montrose.')

Tabernacle.

Talisman.

Thaumaturgy:
These thaumaturgies schemed in pain - Mike Allen "Mondrian's War"

Sows the seeds of Thaumaturgist's arts - Jean de Esque "Betelguese"

Theology:
Rewriting his theology of eternity - Kwame Dawes "At Anchor: The Real Situation"

Totem:
A mouse hands back a wolf-totem - Mary Jo Bang "The Cracked Jar Called Can it Be Taught"

Totems for the last city of gold - Christopher Buckley "Prayer To Escape The East"

Transubstantiation:
Transubstantiation of the Luminous Ghost - D.H. Lawrence "The Attack"

Troll:
Sharp-pointed skeletons of ancient geometric trolls - Jenny Blackford "Power Men"

Trolls are grown up by the time they turn eight - Daniel Errico "The Three Brothers of Maladime"

Witch and troll and second sight - John Greenleaf Whittier "Abram Morrison"

Unction:
Up to the greatest degree of cosmic unction - Yaxkin Melchy Ramos "Capybara Hot Springs" transl. by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Underworld.

Unearthly.

Unholy.

Unicorn.

Vampire.

Voodoo:
Almost enough for a voodoo doll - Alexandra Seidel "Seven Truths and the In-Between"

Votive.

Warlock:
When ghosts and warlocks haunt the troubled earth - George Francis Dawson "Myra's Well"

The warlocks of winter are dead - Kiki Petrosino "Witch Wife"

Aged monuments left behind by warlocks - Bogi Takács "A Self-Contained Riot of Lights"

Water-Ghost:
Offer tears to mourn the water-ghosts - Meng Chiao "Laments of the Gorges 3" transl. by David Hinton

Werewolf:
In a werewolf's cry to the moon and the blood - Phil Wright "Howling with Ginsberg"

Will-o-the-wisp
The vagrant will-o'-wisps do greet the sight - John Kendrick Bangs "The Country in July"

With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp - Lewis Carroll "The Hunting of the Snark"

Only a Will-o'-the-wisp to cheat a poet's eye - Joyce Kilmer "Apology"

blue will-o-wisps cross my skin - Catherine O'Ciarmacain "Steelwife"

Where mocks that will-o'-wisp - Robert W. Service "Quatrains"

Wishing Well
At the bottom of a wishing well - Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner "Seawall soliloquy number two: she built a seawall"

Witch.

Witchcraft.

Wizard.

Worship.

Wraith.

Yang:
New yang swelling, transforming old yin - Hsieh Ling-Yun "On a Tower Beside the Lake" transl. by David Hinton

the yin-yang song has mossed the roof - Huy Tưởng aka Đức Hiệp Nguyễn "" transl. by Phương Anh

Where yin and yang split dusk and dawn - Tu Fu "Gazing at the Sacred Peak" transl. by David Hinton

Yin and yang cut brief autumn days short - Tu Fu "Night at the Tower" transl. by David Hinton

Ablaze with yang and full of yin-dark - Wang An-Shih "A Lone Kindred-Tree" transl. by David Hinton

Yin:
New yang swelling, transforming old yin - Hsieh Ling-Yun "On a Tower Beside the Lake" transl. by David Hinton

the yin-yang song has mossed the roof - Huy Tưởng aka Đức Hiệp Nguyễn "" transl. by Phương Anh

Where yin and yang split dusk and dawn - Tu Fu "Gazing at the Sacred Peak" transl. by David Hinton

Yin and yang cut brief autumn days short - Tu Fu "Night at the Tower" transl. by David Hinton

Ablaze with yang and full of yin-dark - Wang An-Shih "A Lone Kindred-Tree" transl. by David Hinton

Yōkai:
The television yōkai glares white - Betsy Aoki "A crowd of yakubyō gami (pestilence yōkai)"

Zodiac.

Zombie:
A zombie sleepwalking through time - Tony Hoagland "Proof of Life"

Only tie me in this zombie form - Brianne Kerr "Legacy"

The zombies are already near - Tim Seibles "Zombie Blues Villanelle"


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