The Mistress of the Voices of the Dead

 (A lone voice whispers)

Press play before reading. Salute.

Like a lone argus-eyed oblique tattered caliginous silhouette

Moving extremely cautiously in the severe deadly silence

The Mistress of the Voices of the Dead

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

A rare blatherskite whose white emblem appears on the backs of

The Great In-Between black gull's wings

Who just love to gather in huge invisible circles above lost souls 

Like earthly Starling flocks

To crow and sing

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

The seasonal bringer of red torches to burn at midnight

By kings

Princesses

Prince's

Peers and Lords

Red torches that would never go out 

No matter even if they got soaking wet 

When she stirs up her twin Sister Anxiety 

To fight in all gathered 

As she's summoned and ceremonially swept up

By her swollen army of mindless hordes

By their pleas

Calling to be re-masked and rebranded

With her new Emotions suit of self-resurrecting armour

Which her faithful armies seek

Full black leather and a two-sided blade and a white candle

Always lit to dispel the darkness 

As old or new emotions cascade 

To help guide them 

A new follower home to atone

After they've been beautifully betrayed

And all their inner larders have been raided and waylaid

By a conjured blind colporteur

Will you grasp Poe Ravenscroft Marmosetts

Shadowy hand to then suddenly hear the summoning anthem

Proudly played loudly by her ethereal band

Like I once did

The forbidden one known only to the few by her real unspoken name 

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett 

She of the steely green eyes

Who always appears from the West 

With horse and carriages following her in straight lines

Stacked high with new black and white suits of leather 

And carrying white lit candles and sharpened blades

For those lost

Thinking about all the ones who broke the sanctity of their sacred trust

When they were betrayed 

Who now need a new armour made out of black leather

A white candle and a two-sided blade

After hearing and experiencing the traumas linked to the explosion 

Of one of her emotional hand grenades

Will you too hear these hissed words

Accompanied by the shrill sound of her ancient bejewelled Shofar

If you to her call

Surrender

Surrender

Will you summon me with your cries and pleas

The true queen 

All the real honey bees seek

Will you stand and listen as my priestess

Amongst my unvoiced bannerman 

The harsh voiced Sangoma of the Netherworlds

Gathers and commands you to pull on my black leathers

Hold up your new white candle and a two-sided blade

And return with her to go to war forever

Near my unseen home in all weathers 

A new soldier in an invisible army of the betrayed

A place where emotions no longer causes the Amygdala to get wet

For no known velleity can save you now

So will you follow I 

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

Into the sunset to reach a new land

Hidden just beyond The Green Hills in the West

Copyright John Duffy