Originally published in Shadowplay #24, 1992.

Recently at a small convivial gathering of Witches, Wizards, Pixies, Goblins and other assorted esotericists, I was delighted to make the acquaintance of a tall, jewel-bedecked visitor to these shores from the beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois, a street poet who delighted in the unusual nomenclature of M.C. Spiced Mead. Mr Mead (or Spice as he invited me to call him) was apparently active in a form of street theatre relatively unknown in Australia called ‘Wrapping’ and was an intimate of such luminaries in this field as Iced Vanilla Thickshake, X J T L M Z Kid F K 12¾, and L L Cool Becoming Cloudy with Isolated Drizzle in the Early Evening.

We are very proud to have been given permission by Spice (or SM, as he later invited me to call him) to reproduce one of his verses in this anthology. I was actually given the name of the person upon whose life this humorous tribute was based, but sadly have mislaid the scrap of paper on which I wrote it. Perhaps any reader who recognises the subject in question from this wry but essentially warm-hearted ode could notify us here for future publication.

Here then is the first published work by SM (or Sugar Thighs as he bafflingly asked me to call him rather late in the evening, when everyone else was leaving).

Cyfrin

QUASI-ESOTERIC MOFO BEE-ESSER

by M C Spiced Mead

Seen you hangin’ in the bookstore
Where the esoteric jerks shop,
Drummin’ up some business
For your weekend Wiccan workshop;
The master man of magic,
You’re another Gerald Gardner;
Paragon of Tantra,
But you never had a partner.

To penetrate your bullshit,
Man, we don’t need second sight there;
You’re another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.

Any secret that you dig up -
Gotta rush right out and tell it;
Any wisdom that you overhear -
You package it and sell it;
Anybody’s revelation -
Know you’ll steal a big slab of it;
Any myst’ry that you find -
You’ll always turn it into profit.

You never knew integrity,
You never learned to fight fair;
Another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.

You ain’t got any discipline,
You’d rather have disciples;
Insist on skyclad ritual
Because you like an eyeful;
Some psychopathic vampire,
You want virgins to deflower;
Your circle-jerkin’ circle-work
Short-circuits any power.

Heard pledges of obedience
You make your acolytes swear;
Another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.

Just take in how you’re lookin’ -
Doncha know we know you’re fakin’;
Your cut-glass crystal round your neck
And pentagrams a-clankin’;
Crankin’ out some metaphysic crap that’s frankly wankin’;
By fakin’ like you’re Pagan,
You be rakin’ in the bacon;

Want the world to buy
Your latest How to be Witch an’
Flyin’ Ointment Recipes
To Mix Up in your Kitchen.
Well, cont’ry to your promos,
You ain’t spreadin’ any light there;
Another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.
Another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.
Another Neo-Pagan
Nineteen-Nineties
New Age Nightmare.

Yo, eat smudge sticks and die,
Quasi-Esoteric Mofo Bullshitter.
You hear what I’m sayin’?

Sheeee-it
Night-
Mare.

(cuss and gripe to fade)

T'ain't nothing inherently odious about making money out of the various New Age-isms but there is in just making money out of them.