Hi Jim,
Thanks for the attention you're giving to the poem! My response, I guess, is that while the initial address--thus the repeated address--is to the king-looking character in the lower left corner with an emphasis on the skeleton antagonizing him, I mean for the poem to address all of us. A memnto mori. Similarly, I mean for the skeleton, the embodiment of death-come-a'callin', to represent all of the skeletons rampaging through the landscape.
Thanks John,
I'm glad you like this one. Tonight I came across a truly excellent example of ekphrasis as I understand it: Albert Pinkham Ryder's
"The Temple of the Mind", a response to Poe's "The Haunted Palace", which the poet incorporated into "The Fall of the House of Usher". There are likely Goggleable spiels on this, but one interesting note is that Ryder puts the Three Graces in for Poe's "troup of Echoes".
Note to all!: One more pass at describing death in line 2: "Jack of Bone", which is marvelous but maybe too much so, is now "grinning bone", a better image, perhaps.