Alchemisland

I did not take my eyes from that tray, a coin apported

From thin air as the words of the ritual reported

EVPs on my recorder, easy peasy for the Thane of Cawdor

Cloak corner caught up in the cardoor

I snap back like a stretched elastic band

Rap on the casement should have seen his face, soon displace the fabric

I away like a man bound for holidays

I know what’s at the centre of that hedge maze

Been awake two days but feels like all May, popping an ecto puts paid to that

Granny flat down the back, cradled by sable oak shadows, where black magic practice

Is rampant, acting badly uninhibited, frogs ribbiting, blood rivering, black ribbon

Like you were given a chance to save in Resident Evil all those years ago

The owner comes to the door herself, resplendent, gems along her breastline and hem

A splendid queen of evil, she sits between, numbered pillars to either side, neither

Theirs nor mine, she is a being of spite and her might ensures her will’s triumph

Her brow bears a berylline diadem, the jewels thereof aligned to the repose of the great bear

In the sky, correlations none know are devices bringing about what? None know

One nun reputedly able to see demons was brought to see her one evening

And within three minutes was adamant about leaving, she was practically

Seething, shouting about deceivers, seeing things made to grieve her

She dresses greedily, heaving breast decked out like a treasure chest

I can easily imagine a dragon has slept atop, men kneel, begging to taste her slop

Her throw offs and off cuts, the fat of the mutton they are gluttons for

She is in some sense unstoppable, iron chinned and undroppable

A pinch of wormwood in her wine glass, first place in potions class

High quotient of bubbles tumbling inside the beaker glass, massing

Massive release of vapour and gas, the remnant materia alas

Far from gold, not knowing even tepid brass, tossed overshoulder

A single glance makes a man collapse if he’s older and unbold

When she speaks, often the room turns cold

The tale retold of the old lich road, the white albed Shambler

Every room even those unused hosts an ostentatious chandelier

She embraces a favourite, all night her gaze to him trained

If a maid invades the sacred space by mistake she launches into a cruel tirade

In the mauve zone, she reads aloud from Grant grimoires, allowing demons

In through the open parlour window, the summoning ardours her flesh

Her eyes narrow to dark shark slits, moths flitting inward, liminal 

Extinguished, the criminal delinquent she calls a dark prince

Cajoles the acolytes into vile sinning, I am soon in

Like too tight swimwear, careless, perhaps in retrospect I erred

Soon it became apparent that we were to branch off in select pairs

My hairs stood on end as the heir to all this plenty stared me down

She wore nothing save a mantle of eiderdown, draped down her length

A Medea, with serpent shapes and urgent spirals inked on her unshaven legs

I was prey to this apex predator, I could only beg to be spared, she moved

Like long out butter across bread, all silky and grace, poised for embrace

She hardly steeled but I braced at her feeling, a cold flame’s appealing

Cascade, her carapace thus displayed, arrayed with ritual quavers

Begged for worship, she moved confident as a warship, sat and splayed

Her legs so her shoeless feet rose about her head like two Djed pillars

No hobbyist a trained expert odalisque, she has straddled many an Osiris obelisk

A defrocked priest stands meekly in the lobby, feebly blubbing blubbering

Acting shocked as if worse doesn’t go on in dirty Dublin.