Warrior Queen I sing your praises Warrior Queen, red hair badged with blood, mouth a howl of rage in blue tattooed face as you roared into battle on your chariot, javelin leaping from your hand. Was there ever an epitaph for you? Bards scorned the written word - shameful not to have it by heart, the mead hall of the Iceni destroyed. We have only your conquerors’ story, those who stole your inheritance gang raped your daughters flogged you to the bone. Tall as a man, your glance could kill, a mass of tawny hair reaching your hips, voice harsh as a raven your battle cry terrified. Your vengeance was like the Furies. They say you called on Andraste, War Goddess of the Celts your hands rising to the heavens in ecstatic appeal, a sacred hare under your cloak. You rallied over a thousand warriors, you were politician, strategist, tactician, Queen of the Celts At the last Eighty thousand of the enemy fell, for the loss of only four hundred Romans so Tacitus tells us. channelled into chaos by the Roman war machine. He said you took poison. You probably did. You were never going to paraded through the streets of Rome enslaved and shamed. What would you have thought of your statue high over London, icon of the British Empire a layer of red scorched earth deep under your chariot wheels? Sue Mackrell Sue Mackrell is a grandmother, gardener, poet and writer from Leicester, UK who loves art in all its forms. Many of her poems, short stories and non-fiction historical pieces have been published online and in print, including in Agenda Poetry, Bloody Amazing, (Dragon Yaffle) and currently in Whirlagust (Yaffle) and The Dawntreader (Indigo Dreams.) Highlights have been having her poems displayed in Ladies’ toilets in Leicester as part of a Wee Poems project and winning an Archaeology Festival Haiku prize – the most lucrative 17 syllables of her career! She is extremely proud to have poems already in The Ekphrastic Review
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The Ekphrastic Review
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June 2025
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