VAMPIRES AND OTHER POETRY by Michael R. Burch
A Halloween Special
Vampires
Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them ...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross—such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.
Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.
We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us ...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.Pale Though Her Eyes
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking our blood,
this child, this harlot
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
dreaming of blood,
her fangs—white—baring,
revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring…Like Angels, Winged
Like angels—winged,
shimmering, misunderstood—
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.
They are as they are ...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.
Their eyes—hypnotic, alluring—
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths we gather…
to see, to touch, to feel.
Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 19 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, by 32 composers.
Here's a different take by poe:
Sonnet—To Science
By Edgar Allan Poe
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
   Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
   Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
   Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
   Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
   And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
   Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
On the night that's in it, 'Pale Through Her Eyes' is, in my opinion, the perfect Halloween poem. Who among us - who among the secret acolytes of 'the darkside' - could fail to relish this darkly vivid portrait of a female vampire that endeavours to seize our imaginations from the very first stanza?
Pale through her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking our blood,
this child, this harlot
Halloween poetry, and indeed vampire poetry specifically, doesn't come much better than this. It would almost make you want to be a vampire - albeit a romantic one, who seeks a life, an existence beyond the grave - which, of course, is the very essence of the whole vampire genre, and these dark rejoicings.