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somethingdarker ([personal profile] somethingdarker) wrote2012-08-19 11:41 pm

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"

Apparition.

Archangel.

Astral.

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

Augur/Augury.

Aura:
The wind will still carry their auras and prophecies - Emanuel Xavier "Legendary"

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

Bible/Biblical:
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"

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"

Conjure.

Consecrate.

Creed.

Cross.

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"

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

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

Curse.

Cyclopes:
Where crashed the cyclop's head - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Hvmken 7"

Deep and wide as an old Cyclops' drinking bowl - Aldous Huxley "Behemoth"

Daemon:
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

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

Damned.

Deity:
The chief of blue Valhalla's deities - Benjamin West Ball "A Hermitage"

Some deity preparing to depart - Leonard Cohen "Alexandra Leaving"

Your dollarstore deities - Amaud Jamaul Johnson "Black Dragons"

Awash in a fog of deities - Maggie Nelson "Proposal"

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"

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"

Disciple.

Divination/Divine (prophecy).

Divine (holy).

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

Dogma:
That renders dogmas bashful - Max Bodenheim "Reluctant Lady"

In equal scorn dogmas and dreams - William Lisle Bowles "Banwell Hill: Part Second"

All the dogmas of our life - Arthur Davison Ficke "Ten Grotesques: VI. To an Outrageous Person"

The monarchs of dogmatism - Aimee Le "The Age of Hypocrisy Widely Derided"

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

Dragon.

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

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

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"

Exorcism:
A troupe of exorcists - Catherine Chen "My Poem Asks to Be Read Right to Left"

Diving into a dark, incenseless exorcism - Jack Kin Lim "Kuala Lumpur Urban Legends"

In an exaggerated exorcism of breath - Rusty Morrison "please advise stop [the rustle of a Sunday bundle of newspapers tucked under my father's arm stop]"

Fairy.

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:
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]"

Gargoyle:
Like the soaring gargoyle - Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey "Spring Song"

The Ghost of a Gargoyle riding his night colored mare - Michael Marsh "Gargoyle Poems: Spiders Dance"

Like a gargoyle with nothing better to do - Jenny Zhang "under the chiming bell"

Genie:
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"

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

Gospel.

Grail.

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

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.

Harpy.

Haunt.

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

Heaven.

Hell.

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

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"

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

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

Holy.

Horoscope.

Hydra.

Idol.

Ill-Starred.

Illusion.

Imp.

Incantation.

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

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

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

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:
Burying my Lares in the basement - Sandy Florian "House"

Unto the Lares consecrate - Mary E. Hewitt "The Hearth of Home"

Stole right in among the Lares - W.P.P. "Epistle to the Editor" (The Knickerbocker v.23:5, May 1844)

Our Lares shivered on the hearth - Richard Henry Stoddard "Abraham Lincoln: An Horatian Ode"

Libation:
Spilling libations from the brim - Eleanor Farjeon "Pan-Worship"

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!"

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

Manna.

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"

Muse.

Mystic.

Myth.

Naiad.

Necromancy:
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"

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"

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

Nymph.

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

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

Omen.

Oracle.

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

Pagan:
What the pagans called god - Atticus "Love Her Wild"

In lost pagan caverns dark and deep - Charles Baudelaire "The Accursed" transl. not credited

Wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples - Amy Lowell "Solitaire"

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

Paradise.

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

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.

Phoenix.

Piety:
Where newborn pieties spark and strike - Joan Houlihan "Turn of a Year"

That draw their fellows deep into impiety - José María Heredia "Niagara" transl. by Thatcher Taylor Payne

How the volcanoes stand piously over the water - Ariel Francisco "On the Shore of Lake Atitlán, Apparently I Ruined Breakfast"

Pilgrim.

Pilgrimage.

Pixie:
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.

Pray.

Prayer.

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

Priest/Priestess.

Prophecy/Prophet.

Psychic:
Color provokes a psychic vibration - Mike Allen "Kandinsky's Garden"

Our vast psychic habitat shrunk - RK Fauth "Playing with the Bees"

The dim psychic crystals of my soul - Iris Tree "[I met an Indian underneath a tree]"

How psychic storms survive to power flesh - Dana Wilde "Abductions"

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"

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.

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:
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"

Sin.

Siren.

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

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.

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

Superstition:
Unscourged by Superstition's rod - Thomas Campbell "Hallowed Ground"

Cruel wolves of superstition - W. Wilfred Campbell "Phaethon"

With superstitions silvered in - Sumita Chakraborty "The B-Sides of the Golden Records, Track Five: 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder'"

Bowed mandibles chittering superstitious drivel - Sara Omer "Djinndroid"

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

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

Synod:
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"

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"

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"

Underworld.

Unearthly.

Unholy.

Unicorn.

Vampire.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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