Banshee

Irish Clan Banshee
Book Illustration from “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland”
By Thomas Crofton Croker

the banshee wails only at night
when the screech owl
and screaming red dreams
add their terrible tenors
to terrified minds

turned and twisted with pain
cruel unbearable agonies
gather and wonder
whose death she forebodes
in her keening

cold and cowled in invisible
shadows the moon hides its
light from the ominous sound
stars blink dim through the
fear in the air

quite the worst kind of fear
that one may be among the
forgotten by this night’s
unnerving lament howled
for some other soul

desperate victims of suffering
yearn for calm morning
for morning is when people die
when some lucky one’s anguish
will finally cease