Are you being influenced

(A lone voice whispers)

As I dreamed and entered the lower levels of the Astral Realms

I passed enormous cobweb halls filled with huge silver scrying mirrors

All placed in front of old ancient soothsayer's

Strange mystics watching the world turn 

And trying to influence those in control

To make it burn

The shadows in this dark cave had bright headlights everywhere I looked

Red eyes that illuminated that depressing room 

As it gently hummed and shooked

Red lights from countless unknown things that guarded the once human soothsayer's

Now chained to those black chairs to try to influence the world

As they whispered low-frequency bleak thoughts back

Through their own silver semi-conscious scrying mirrors

Suddenly as all the gnarly soothsayer's looked up with huge black orbs where their eyes used to be

A light voice whispered 

It was time to leave

To go back to the land of the living and to write what you've seen

So others might know that those angry voices or dark hypnotic thoughts

They think are all their own

Voices that plague the many suffering mental trauma

Are just the old soothsayer's from the Great In-Between

Weaving and whispering dark spells from unseen Grimoires

Humanity could never conceive

From New Year's Eve to Christmas Eve

Until a targeted living individual punches their ticket to leave

Only to arrive in this heavily guarded cave

To then take a seat

Beside another soothsayer and start whispering

Somniferous messages

To make a soul greave

Tell them to pray whatever their faith

For to believe in just something good 

Will help to deflect the dark thoughts

Sent insidiously from the Other Side

Whose only intentions are to cause pain and endless suffering 

As they start to unravel hope and magically start to deceive

Copyright John Duffy