The Witching Hour Poetry Gathering by Konrad Tademar Wilk Held on 24 October 2026 in Pasadena

The 36th Annual Witching Hour Poetry Gathering will take place this year at the home of artist Monique Lehman and her husband aerospace engineer and manager David Lehman on Saturday 24 October 2026 at 6 pm.  Please RSVP to maja.trochimczyk@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

Konrad Tademar Wilk wrote: The 36th Annual Witching Hour Poetry Gathering is suddenly upon us. I would like to invite you to spend the evening with me and a few of my close friends at the home of David and Monique Lehman in Pasadena. [...]  Bring food if you wish, though food will be provided. Bring books, though books will be in abundance, bring loose leaf pages of text. But most importantly bring your heart and soul. For one night turn off your cell phone, tune out the world; let it be poetry not prose, for one night of the year, let it be verse and verse alone to occupy your mind and to keep you enthralled. Let the world take care of itself." 

The first Witching Hour Poetry Gathering took place in 1991 in South Central Los Angeles, the next two decades were held in Hollywood, and the last few events moved around to Los Feliz, Sylmar, Glendale, Sunland, Long Beach and finally Pasadena. The reading will include readings of poems in English, Polish, Spanish and other languages, if the poets wish to do so.  Hot dinner refreshments will be provided. 

Monique Chmielewski Lehman who will host the event is a well know fiber artist. She will speak about her artwork and about her father Papcio Chmiel, a famous graphic artist from Poland. 

During the event, Konrad Tademar Wilk will present his new poetry book "Trafficking in Time - 168 Sonnets" published by Moonrise Press in 2025, too late for the previous Witching Hour - that presented Moonrise Press's earlier publication, "Alchemy of Words" by Ella Czajkowska.

SONNETS FROM TRAFFICKING IN TIME 

UUR II

Uncomfortable dimensions* interlaced with mood

Melancholy dangling on a subtle shoestring

Lines of grain filed down flat to five minutes, crude—

— words put to simple catchy music, that idiots sing

With bitter taste of coffee filled with cyanide**

A world-wide war within a beer bottle bravely drunk

Where is the modern poet to go to hide?

Smell of Los Angeles a few whiffs from a skunk

Traffic in Time, capturing dreams, caution: wet floor

No more space left for flowers and trees, but who cares

All you’ve to do is snap your fingers for a whore

And a Country Western song to hop, skip in pairs

My cell phone battery is dead, thanks’ be to see

Blesséd silence of urban decaying debris.

                                                                Konrad Tademar Wilk, March 6, 2013

NOTES: 

* In supersymmetry (a theoretical framework of physics) eleven-dimensional gravity allows for the highest number of dimensions to explain reality. 

** A poetic concatenation of two Agatha Christie (1890-1976) plot points from her spy-thriller play Black Coffee (1930) & her detective novel Sparkling Cyanide (1945). 

UUR CLVIII

Parallel lines intersecting at vanishing—

—point of infinity constraining the bitter—

—noise of the hurt hummingbird as it fails to sing

Look to the moon, even there mankind leaves litter

Girard Desargues walks lightly… now untouching—

—plane of non-symmetric temporal vibration

A conflation of science and magic, matching—

—socks and shoes on the harsh pavement of elation

Here Terminus meets Thanatos with steel black wings

Sword drawn into perspective central axis line

Behold the moment, a pause to wait if it stings

Love within a mathematical cryptic sign

The matrix of oblivion lies in reach of all 

Torture, while we wait for the other shoe to fall.

Konrad Tademar Wilk, September 13, 2013 – the Ides of September on Friday the 13th

Wilk - Trafficking in Time - Moonrise Press

ISBN 978-1-945938-81-8 paperback, 226 pages, $30.00

ISBN 978-1-945938-82-5 hardcover, 226 pages, $48.00

"Trafficking in TIme - 168 Sonnets" by K. Tademar Wilk Nominations for 2025 Pushcart Prize

California State Poetry Society: Poetry Letter No. 1, Spring 2024, Part 2 - Sonnets by Konrad Tademar & Three Book Reviews (Ewa Lipska, Judie Rae, & Millicent Borges Accardi)

TRAFFICKING IN TIME - 168 SONNETS

Konrad Tademar Wilk’s 168 sonnets, written in a period of seven months in 2013, from 1 March to 30 September, are all entitled UUR with the appropriate Roman number. “UUR” means “hour” in Dutch and there are 168 hours in a week. The poems contain a plethora of quotations and references making their comprehension difficult for the uninformed. To clarify the complex web of allusions and multilingual citations, they are annotated with translations from Polish, Latin, French, German, Russian, Sanskrit, and other languages, as well as explanations about concepts referred to in the texts. While written in response to events of their time, and firmly rooted in the year 2013, it might be said that these sonnets “traffic in time” by transcending time and bridging together worlds of myth, science, linguistics, psychology, spirituality and religion. Six sonnets from the book were nominated for the Pushcart Prize for 2025. 

~ Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D. CSPS President

Maja Trochimczyk, Konrad Tademar Wilk, and Ambika Talwar

celebrate 250th Anniversary of American Independence, 4th of July Parade 2026, Sunland.

In honor of the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. poets will present verse dedicated to this occasion. But there will be plenty about the End of Time

Elijah's End


And the curtains of fire opened. 
And God walks through.
And I fall on my knees
Struck down by the might
Of his presence.

And the ground under my feet
Roars and trembles.
And God is with me.

In awe, I do not dare to look
Into the laughing beauty of his eyes.
And the gale changes into a breeze.
And God speaks in a whisper,
Sweetly announcing
The end of the world as it was.

And the sun stops in its tracks.
And the world explodes.
Filled with love, so much love,
It could not bear existing
For one more minute.

— now it ends --
— now it blossoms --
— now it grows again --

(C) by Maja Trochimczyk. Published in Into Light,

http://www.moonrisepress.com/into-light-by-maja-trochimczyk.html

Easter Apocalypsis

—After "The Discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch


It is coming. The angels know.
They dwell in their Piranesi castles,
twisted spaces where outside
is inside. They are not indifferent.
Not too smart for their own good.
Not cruel. They don't tell us.

The end is coming, it is near.
Not death, mind you, not that
ugly spinster without its twin.
No. The end of the end. Finis.
The satin fabric of a wedding dress
trails behind the veiled beauty
as she glides towards her beloved.

The river's end tastes of salt
in its own mouth, opened widely
into the waves of the ocean.
Nothing we can do will stop it.
Just stretch your fingers,
let the water cool your skin.

Why resist? Heraclitus
dipped his toes in this river.
Shape-note singers praised it.
Saints dove in and swam around,
luxuriating in incandescent glories
that passed us by.

The end is coming, flowing
swiftly down the slopes.
Let's sit on the porch, doze off
in honeyed sunlight,
before it, too, disappears,
transfigured.

Let us believe there will be
light enough inside us
—that kindling of kindness,
a half-forgotten smile—
to keep us afloat in the final flood
coming, coming to erase the world
and remake it, anew,

bejeweled.


(C) By Maja Trochimczyk, published in The Scream Online http://www.thescreamonline.com/poetry/poetry7-4/trochimczyk.html

ABOUT MONIQUE CHMIELEWSKI LEHMAN

Lehman weaves a portrait of her father comic-book creater Mr. Chmielewski

A native of Warsaw, Poland and a graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Monique Lehman is an accomplished and original tapestry artist whose work may be found in museum collections around the world (the Vatican, Long Beach Museum of Art, Central Museum of Textiles in Lodz, Poland and the Space Museum in Cape Canaveral, FL), as well as in many American public buildings, city halls, churches, hospitals and synagogues. Her creative output continues the centuries of development of unique fiber art tradition, previously unknown in America and created exclusively by Polish artists.  

Lehman in China with a poster based on her self-portrait tapestry

Monique Chmielewski came from Poland to USA in 1978 invited by an American artist to teach at her studio in California. When the Pope John Paul II visited Chicago, Monique greeted him by presenting his portrait she wove as a 6’ x 4’ tapestry. Since the American TV showed this event on the news, the public learned about the Polish tapestry school.

Working on a tapestry at home

Monique was invited to lecture about art and soon Polish tapestries became desirable objects for American collectors. Ms. Lehman, a member of Zwiazek Polskich Artystow Plastykow, shares her time between exhibiting, working on large commissions, and organizing art shows for artists from China in Poland and Polish artists in American and China museums. She is a real ambassador of Polish Fiber Art. Her knowledge of languages and cultures help her to promote Polish art in Asia and the Americas. This year she was invited as a special guest to World Textile Art in Uruguay and Biennale of Art in Karachi, Pakistan.

Monique’s accomplishment is bringing European visual criteria to America and China, as well as sharing Polish culture. Her monumental tapestries such as the parochet for Temple Beth El, La Jolla, CA, or the Portrait of St. Francis, typically take several years to complete. The large-scale works created on commission are just one side of her creative talent. She also developed an original style of abstract tapestries, that are three dimensional, may change shapes, and have a rich palette of colors and textures to express their themes.  

With large tapestry at Pasadena City College

Since 2010, she participated in 29 prominent international exhibitions on four continents (Asia, North and South America and Europe), including exhibitions held in: Ottawa and Vancouver, Canada; Oaxaca, Mexico; Beijing and other cities in China; the Lodz Triennale, and many other exhibitions in Poland (Bytom, Czestochowa, Gdynia and so forth), as well as Long Beach, Palos Verdes, Ontario, and Pasadena in California. She was recently invited to show her fiber art as a solo artist in Montevideo, Uruguay, during the WTA Conference in October 2017, and will hold a Retrospective Exhibition in the Museum of Textiles in Beijing, China, in the following year. 

Lehman with her Rain Forest tapestry

She promotes tapestry art by organizing international shows in Europe, China and the U.S. One of her internationally exhibited projects with contributions by 100 artists from 20 countries was the Memorial Tapestry commemorating the victims of 9/11. Monique’s goal was to promote polish art not only in the USA but internationally. The artist participated in many Contemporary International Fiber Art Exhibitions and served as a jury member since 2006. 

For her achievements in the field of fiber arts, Monique Lehman received an honorary degree of Professor from Zibo Vocational Institute, in the city of Zibo, Shandong Province, China. She included many Polish artists in the largest Fiber Art show in Asia,“From Lausanne to Beijing.” She is a judge of this show and invited eminent Polish professors to join her in selecting the work for display. 

Modeling Wearable Art on the Beach

Chopin Academy and Poems about Music at Modjeska Historic House and Gardens

Maja Trochimczyk with actress Ewa Boryczko as Modjeska in Arden, 2011

Arden - the Helena Modjeska Historic House and Gardens in Silverado Canyon area of Orange County is a second national Historic Monument in the county. It is a former residence of Polish actress, Shakespearean star, director, producer, as well as costume designer, writer, and artist, Helena Modrzejewska (1840-1909), the first world-famous celebrity and theatre star of California.  As President of Helena Modjeska Arts and Culture Club for nearly 10 years, I frequently visited the beautiful site, brought the Club members and Polish guests there. I  collaborated with the Helena Modjeska Foundation that supports the site with docents giving tours, gardeners planting and weeding, and fundraising to fix and enrich the holdings of the historic home.  The photo above shows me with Polish actress Ewa Boryczko whose stroll through the gardens in a replica of one of Modjeska's costumes was recorded by Polish TV and repeatedly broadcast in Poland whenever Modjeska was mentioned... 

Helena Modjeska Foundation's docent Pamela Harrell, member of Orange County Historic Commission, in period costume conducted tours of the interior of Arden. 25 April 2026

Maja Trochimczyk with Dorota Plazewski from the Board of the Helena Modjeska Foundation.

Maja Trochimczyk with Rob Brown of the Modjeska Foundation, docent at Arden,  and lecturer about Modjeska and local history.

While the volunteers from the Modjeska Foundation help furnish and care for the site, it is actually owned by Orange County and managed by Historic Curators of OC Parks. Since the fall of 2023, I have collaborated with the Historic Curators, then Mr. Bradley Flynt, now Ms. Katie McKay or Orange County Parks Department, by bringing in exhibition materials - books about Modjeska, including her 1910 memoirs and organizing a variety of displays. I also distributed free copies of my brief Modjeska's biography, small American and Polish flags, and even Polish candy. In addition, I coordinated performances at Arden by Polish folk dance group Krakusy in 2024 and by young musicians from the Chopin Academy performing Chopin and Polish composers under the live oaks of the garden. I wrote a richly illustrated report from two of these visits on the Modjeska Club blog: 

https://modjeskaclub.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-wonders-of-arden-helena-modjeska.html

A Modjeska Mini-Biography by Maja Trochimczyk, distributed at Arden - the first Chapter of Trochimczyk's book Celebrating Modjeska in California. 

https://www.moonrisepress.com/celebrating-modjeska---trochimczyk.html

The fountain was thoroughly restored in 2016, with funds raised by the Modjeska Foundation.

Presenting Modjeska books to Historic Curator Bradley Flynt, October 2024.

Krakusy dance in Arden, 12 October 2024. In regional costumes from the Lublin area.

This spring, the young musicians, taught by Roza Yoder along with her husband Douglas Yoder, appeared at Arden for the third time, following concerts given in October 2024 and October 2025.  In the past, the musicians played in-between appearances by Polish folk dancers from local dance groups, Krakusy in 2024 and Polanki in 2025.  The concerts started from the youngest performers, age 4 to 7, featured teenagers in the middle and ended with college-age star musicians. The first concert was organized by Curator Bradley Flynt who moved to another position within the OC Parks system, while Curator Katie McKay continued the collaborations with Polish Americans highlighting students of international backgrounds.  

Historic Curator Katie McKay welcomes the guests to Arden and introduces the performance, 25 April 2026.

Roza Yoder of the Chopin Academy with Maja Trochimczyk and students Bailey and Avery Tang, Angela Zhou, /sophia Xia, Ivanna Yang, and Adrien Ramos at the Modjeska's garden, Arden, named after Shakespeare's Forest of Arden.

Adrien Ramos, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, played J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and Franz Liszt.

Amelia Shirakian payed pieces by Fryderyk Chopin and Janina Garscia.

Mira Lei played music by Fryderyk Chopin and Witold Lutoslawski

Dominik Yoder finished the concert with virtuosic renditions of Beethoven and Chopin, ending the performance with his own piece.

Roza Yoder and Maja Trochimczyk with the youngest musicians, Bailley and Avery Tang.

It is such a great joy to hear youth play classical music in a site brimming with history and beauty.  The ancient live oaks, sago palms, redwoods (pockmarked by woodpeckers that also "attack" the buildings needing frequent repairs) provided a magical background to the sounds of Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Paderewski and Liszt.  These sounds could have been heard in Arden in the 1880s when Paderewski visited his mentor and friend and played for her guests... 

Again, all talented performers received gift bags with small gifts, poetry postcards, books, notebooks, markers, and toys - different sets depending on their age, courtesy of my Moonrise Press. The older pianists, Adrian Ramos and Dominik Yoder, received copies of my newest book about Paderewski with a collection of  my essays and over 50 poems about the great pianist and Modjeska's friend, written between 1890 and 1940 and found in Polish archives.  The younger pianists  got cards with a Paderewski poem from that book in their gift bags with notebooks, markers and toys.

https://www.moonrisepress.com/paderewski-essays--poems.html

Who was Ignacy Jan Paderewski and what was his connection to Helena Modjeska?  This pianist, composer, statesman, Poland's Prime Minister and an architect of its regained independence, as well as community organizer and a philanthropist (1860-1941). He was 20 years younger than the actress and was her most famous protege in his youth, and a fervent supporter when she was ready to retire.  She organized a fundraiser for his studies in Vienna  and he "paid it back" by organizing a fundraiser for her retirement thirty years later. She also helped create his stage image as an "archangel," connected him to her friends in London (painters Edward Burne-Jones that created his most influential angelic image and Lawrence Alma-Tadema), and in New York (poet Richard Watson Gilder who wrote a mystical poem "How Paderewski Plays" used in his concert program across the U.S. since 1891). 

How Paderewski Plays 

 

I.

If words were perfume, color, wild desire; 
If poet's song were fire 
That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins; 
If with a bird-like trill the moments throbbed to hours; 
If summer's rains 
Turned drop by drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers; 
If God made flowers with light and music in them, 
And saddened hearts could win them; 
If loosened petals touched the ground 
With a caressing sound; 
If love's eyes uttered word 
No listening lover e'er before had heard; 
If silent thoughts spake with a bugle's voice; 
If flame passed into song and cried, "Rejoice, rejoice!" 
If words could picture life's hopes, heaven's eclipse 
When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips; 
If all of mortal woe 
Struck on one heart with breathless blow by blow; 
If melody were tears and tears were starry gleams 
That shone in evening's amethystine dreams; 
Ah, yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue, 
Trembling to earth in dew; 
Or, of the boreal pulsings, rose and white, 
Made majestic music in the night; 
If all the orbs lost in the light of day 
In the deep silent blue began their harps to play; 
And when, in frightening skies the lightnings flashed 
And storm-clouds crashed, 
If every stroke of light and sound were excess of beauty;
If human syllables could e'er refashion 
that fierce electric passion; 
If ever art could image (as were the poet's duty) 
The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder 
Of that keen hour of wonder, —
That light as if of heaven, that blackness as of hell, — 
How Paderewski Plays, then might I dare to tell.

II.

How the great master played! And was it he

Or some disembodied spirit which had rushed 

From silence into singing; and had crushed 

Into one startled hour a life's felicity, 

And highest bliss of knowledge—that all life, grief, wrong, 

Turn at the last to beauty and to song!

                                                                      — Richard Watson Gilder, 1891

This poem was published in Gilder's collection A Book of Music (New York, The Century Co., 1906): 32-36. Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) was an American poet, writer, journalist, editor, and publisher. He served as managing editor of Scribner’s Monthly renamed The Century Magazine in 1881; he edited it until his death and promoted some of the best American poets and writers.  Gilder published nine volumes of his own poetry, including The Celestial Passion (1887), In the Heights (1905) and A Book of Music (1906). Paderewski came to know him through the recommendation by actress Helena Modjeska (1840-1909) and became close friends with the Gilder family during his American concert tours. Since the poem is too long for a postcard, I made a different card featuring Paderewski's portrait based on Edward Burne-Jones 1891 drawing, published on the cover of The Etude Magazine in 1935.

 PADEREWSKI IN GOLD 

 

Gold halo of curls on his portraits, 

Gold crowns of kings of old above the keys, 

Gold riches of fortune, spent and growing –  

Gold heart beneath it all.  

      The gleam of gold ring on his finger, 

      The gleam of brilliance in his eyes, 

      The gleam of fame that still surrounds him – 

      Gold heart beneath it all.  

The dream of music in his youth, 

The dream of kindness at his prime, 

The dream of Poland, free and mighty – 

Gold heart beneath it all.  

       His heart is gold, so bright and pure. 

       Immortal music he brought to teach 

       Us all to live his noble vision – 

       Truth, Goodness, Beauty – 

       Gold heart beneath it all.              

                                                                                   (c) 2018 by Maja Trochimczyk

In addition to the Paderewski poem-card, I put in the gift bags two of my poems about Chopin, that were earlier posted online, but in different versions.

A Summer Rose Dream 

Rose petals float down 

Onto the desk covered with music  

Pages of notes and ink blots. 

Chopin looks out the window – 

A carmine blossom in her black hair,

Vibrant, exotic beauty at the ball. 

Further… the calm eglantine roses,

By the picket fence of distant home,

His sister, smiling –

Fragrance spills on the velvet 

Of midnight, sparks of notes scatter 

On the canvas of his thoughts. 

His fingers search for memories 

On smooth ivory keys of his piano.  

Roses and nightingales, roses –

                                                                       — Maja Trochimczyk 

Well, I just checked and it turned out that the letter cited above was written not by George Sand but from George Sand's estate in Nohant, by their friend, painter Eugène Delacroix. I have to fix it, next time I print copies of this card. In June 1842 at Nohant Delacroix listened to Chopin’s music: 

“At times, through an open window overlooking the garden, mixed with the singing of nightingales and the fragrance of rose blossoms the melodies of Chopin’s music reach me, because he never stops working here…” [“Par instants, il vous arrive par la fenêtre entr'ouverte sur le jardin des bouffées de la musique de Chopin qui travaille de son côté; cela se mêle au chant des rossignols et à l'odeur des rosiers.”] (Letter of Eugène Delacroix of 7 June 1842 from Nohant to J.B. Pierret in Paris) . 

Continuing on the theme of spring, flowers, and Chopin's music, I wrote another poem:  

 Spring is...

 

                        ...the poetry of violets,

the mist of lilac perfuming 

the air outside your window.

Spring is...  veiled by the Nocturnes – 

Chopin's notes floating up

into galaxies of midnight light.

...sweetened by white hyacinth,  

announced by the lively whistles 

of red-winged blackbirds in your garden.

Spring is...    forgetting darkness, 

oh, the densest, most suffocating 

shadows of death, winter, killings

              ... dark memories erased

by the flutter of sparrows' wings

and piano notes carried by the breeze.

Spring is...     the magic of the Minute 

Waltz and a half-forgotten melody 

of the nightingale – calling you 

back home, into childhood, 

back to Poland, not yet lost –  

                                                                     — Maja Trochimczyk

The last line is an allusion to the Polish national anthem that starts with words "Poland is not yet lost as long as we live" - and the traces of Polish presence are scattered around the world, just like the Historic Home and Gardens of Helena Modjeska in the hills of Orange County, California.  Let us hope that this amazing location becomes a site of great musical and theatrical performances, honoring both Modjeska and her love of music - listening to Chopin, helping the young virtuoso Ignacy Jan Paderewski start his career. 

Modjeska's Portrait by Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz, Museum at Sukiennice, Krakow, Poland.

Fragment of Ajdukiewicz's portrait of Modjeska.

Here is a poem by a 19th-century American poet Celia Thaxter (1835-1894), portraying the actress as she listens to a Chopin recital in the home of journalist Eugene Field in Boston: 

Modjeska

Deft hands called Chopin’s music from the keys. 

Silent, she sat, her slender figure’s poise

Flower-like and fine and full of lofty ease;

She heard her Poland’s most consummate voice 

From power to pathos falter, sink and change; 

The music of her land, the wondrous high, 

Utmost expression of its genius strange, – 

Incarnate sadness breathed in melody.

Silent and thrilled she sat, her lovely face 

Flushing and paling like a delicate rose

Shaken by summer winds from its repose 

Softly this way and that, with tender grace 

Now touched by sun, now into shadow turned,

While bright with kindred fire her eyes burned.

                                                                                      ~ Celia Thaxter (1835-1894)

It looked like rain and the rain scared the audiences away, but it did not rain, so this day reminded me that Californians think they are made of sugar and they would melt in the rain, so they stay home at the sight of a smallest dark cloud...

The house has a mini-stage on one side, built for the actress to perform for her friends gathered in her garden. 

Docents from the Modjeska Foundation in historical costumes conducted tours, seen here beyond the fountain the Foundation helped restore in 2016.