Talent in Tandem
Julia Kantic, River's Writings, and Jozef Cain
The Holloway Tree
I wasn’t always dead like this. The wooden parts of me, ‘specially the beam, still remember the surge of the sap in spring, the songbirds, the gentle fruits bursting out all round me, how we whispered each neighbour, one to ‘nother, how we called in the wind, bowed down. But I was marked for the axe, guilty of age and strength, and my executioner came.
I had countless cousins whose boughs served my new purpose, an axe never needed, nor even a judge. I have a lot of time to think on that.
Me and my kind have had many a name, but I’m rarely visited to call me by one of them. The necklace of rope and chain which adorns me invokes dread rather than admiration. I am to be avoided. But that is my function, and so I s’ppose I should be satisfied with a job well done. And if you’re asking: Derrick, or The Leafless Tree are my preferred. I can stand proud with names like those, a touch of humanity, or a murmur of my past.
For the most part, I’m left to my own. They come and check me sometimes, that everything is working. And always the day before a job. In the meantime I wait, I listen. I can hear the sounds of the rest of the building in the distance, their walls are my walls so to speak. We share a common ground. There’s not much in the way of separation between us, but the rest prefers to consider me apart, like a black sheep, or a dirty secret; but most men and, here — anyways, women, know my name.
Only when one is brought to the adjacent chambers do I get a clear idea of comings and goings. There are priests of course, and lawyers, and other visitors, and many a prayer said. Tears too.
Then I know, that Albert or another will be by soon. To test and set the rope. ‘A sacred duty’ he calls it. First, he must view the prisoner — this he does in secret from the next room, and makes a human judge of height and weight. Then he fills a bag with sand — not too much or too little — and attaches it like a pendant to my string. He moves the trigger for the trap and the bag falls, jerking as it reaches the rope end, sending a shiver through me not detectable to the human eye. But felt nonetheless, as I remember the axe well enough, the rope is little different — I feel the shock, the drain, the fear, the finality. I know what will come. The bag hangs there a night, to stretch my rope ready for its subject. I s’ppose it’s company of a sort.
The prisoners are quiet for the main, and if not quiet — sedated. He brings them through hands tied, and they are placed on the mark below my top beam, high in the room above. The last one, Ruth was her name, she tried to smile a little before they placed the white hood on her head, but she did not speak — even as it were her neck that they placed in my noose, not a hook for a bag of sand. I imagine the last thing she sees through the eye holes is the cross on the wall, put there for her.
It is quick but loud, then silence. Only seconds to walk from room to room to me to the jolt — then she’s legs-a-dangling in the pit. They leave her an hour there, she still says not a word, nor ever will again. And then my work is done. She was the fifth, and there have been no more since. Though they still test me now and then, I can’t help but wonder if I am once more condemned. I think, this time, I might be glad of it.
Now I wait, at rest in my memories. The touch of light shimmering on my leaves, the perch of a bird, the feel of roots in sweet moist earth, a pleasant cloy of moss to clothe me, no concrete or steel, nor a door, for miles. Freedom.
Between 1903 and 1955, five women were put to death on the gallows at Holloway Prison. The last of these, and the last woman to be hung in the UK, was Ruth Ellis. Tried and sentenced to death for killing her abusive boyfriend, she was executed just three months after the murder, with no chance of appeal. She left behind a ten-year-old son.
In Great Britain, the death penalty for murder was abolished in 1965.
A plan of Holloway’s condemned suite can be found here.
© Julia Kantic 2025
*Originally published in Lit Up
The Storms
I could never reconcile
The two parts inside
I lived between the sounds of my heart
But never heard the songs and storms inside
An altered state,
Hallucinogenic alteration,
Heart deviation,
All wrapped into one
Ambivalent storms pulling
My heart and mind in
Different directions
I could never reconcile
The two parts inside
A living converted into subsistence
In-betweenDeviation of who I always was
Within
Parts rejected, hidden, forgotten,
Head bowed, heart confined,
I could never reconcile
The storms and moonlight
Existing in one
Cohesion turned into disintegration
By my own refusal to
See every part of me
In cohesive, duplicitous darkness
Destruction in the light
Creation in the night
A paradox diluted in disdain
United, yet bound by separation
I could never reconcile
The two parts inside
Monochrome vices twisted
The tapestry of life and colors,
The tapestry turned into distortion,
A disruption of every part within
Leading to a canvas of impossible coexistence
The storms veiled the stars,
The mind and heart
In the center of this
Dissonance
Dreaming for a place
To land
I could never reconcile
The two parts inside,
So, I continued lingering
In the nothingness
Of who I always & never was
© River’s Writings 2025
*Originally published on Medium
I wonder… what would life look like if we could embrace the storms within and let them out?
This poem portrays mental health struggles and particularly masking. Even though there’s more awareness than years ago, the stigma still exists today. People who struggle with mental health all too often are pushed to mask their struggles, feelings, behavior, as well as who they are.
The storm in this poem refers to the inner turmoil and intense emotions trapped within but not expressed outside. It also represents the challenges on the journey toward self-acceptance and embracing every part.
Daystar
seepage from hierophant cerebrum through berserker cerebellum into plebeian medulla: clairvoyant drinks from spiked grail
minister of ophite muse who veils her view and whispers truth: let them see with their own eye
barbarian bashing the cranial orbit of luminary counsel, replacing faces with uncanny valley: walk without fear
attempts to eschew the view of pure light and punish anyone who gets distracted by the colours: dark side overpopulated
luciferian martyr for the secret of christian gnosis: time for advent
long enough nimrods have masqueraded as the morning stars of the eternal flame: hornswoggled congregations
satan persecutes those who seek the true light and distracts them so they may be burned: azazel is not my lucifer who’s anointed and ushers the eternal flame of my soul
so be it
2 Peter 1:19–21
Revelation 22:16
John 3:14–16
Hebrews 13:2
© Jozef Cain 2025
*Originally published in Black Coffee Poetry on Medium
I saw the title and thought ooh a (collaborative) threesome! Excellent selections. Now I can’t get my head out of the gutter. I’m also thinking two girls, one Cain.
Thanks Black Coffee Poetry, and great to see my words side by side with those of River and Jozef Cain :)