The Masque of the Red Death

by Illuminara

Posted to Poetry on 2003-03-02 01:12:00

“Man creates his own heaven, his own hell.”


“Who dares?
Who dares insult us
with this blasphemous mockery!”
bellowed cruel Prince Prospero
his voice disguised
behind a thin bravado,
ringing horrified
through sudden halt of masqueraded night

Here, gathered close behind these castle walls,
so it was thought,
himself and friends were guarded from the throes of plague without
that raped the provinces of life
more so than black-hearted Prospero’s
own hand had wrought

And yet, there!
floating through the ball bizarre
Red-Shrouded Terror,
Silent Death himself, stepped forth
from out the crowd of debauched, drunken souls
casting sickly slants of mirror
reflecting each, his wretchedness,
a wickedness upon wickedness
while the ghastly gong of hall clock tolled
“off with the masks for time has come
to show the faces naked to their gods!”

And brow by brow, the costumed skins were stricken
with that vile perspiration’s blood, a hell
unique to their invention, a dissolution
gestured from the arm of the Red Death,
fulfilled in faith’s own proclamation
witnessed in affliction

Prospero in panic, white
against his scarlet guests
who were dancing in their feverishness,
smiled a knowing smile,
“I knew it, you are the Prince of Death
and I’ve worshipped you, your Excellence
as ruler of the world
while others called to their false loving god.”

“Why do you call me ‘Your Excellency’?”
Quietus coldly questioned from his cowl,
“Do you not know that Death serves no one,
appointed independently,
and now, you would presume I’m sent
to curse all these yet spare your deeds,
your calloused heart that’s long been dead
deceased from your warm body;
tell me, why should you fear Death?”

Aghast, the prince stood stiffened, mouth agape,
that fleshly flush fast draining from the lips,
“Remove your mask, let me see your face!”
and with a vicious grasp, he whisked
Death’s veil quick away, and gasped
to see his own cold countenance
dripping in that dreadful mocking red

Redemption came to claim its rightful dead.


“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” -Edgar Allan Poe