Vampires

The silhouette on the staircase,
The candle in the mirror:
Who stalks pleasure after dark?
The seducer and the killer.
Wolfsbane, monkshood, aconite:
Trust the devil to kill or cure.
Contagion haunts the air,
The she-wolf suckles her own.

The vampire bat alights at a distance,
And steals with hopping crawl
Towards the slumbering prey,
And homes in on the heartbeat
In neck, or eyes, or anus,
Then razors open the skin
With surgical skill,
And gorges itself to exhaustion,
So bloated it can scarcely fly away.

There is evil in the blood,
Pestilence in the breath;
See the stigmata, the snake-bite,
The rat-fanged lesion of love.
What is this rage, this hunger?
O, joy of destruction!

Beloved, you are the bread and wine
With which I celebrate the Mass,
Intoning my soul’s bastard Latin
For the demons in the trees.

Beloved, seal me fast in my coffin:
Place a crucifix under my tongue,
And lay me face down in the grave,
That I may not trouble the living.

The torch is extinguished, inverted:
In Highgate Cemetery, among the tombs,
The crypts and catacombs of the undead,
I breathe the trees and flowers,
And see the rotting sun exhumed.
O, let the sunlight drive its stake
Into my heart, and my earth-filled mouth
Turn into a fountain of blood.

Stranger, beware, you are in Transylvania now.
Ah, roses in the snow,
I tear out your petals with my teeth!
My soul is as old as time itself,
Stretching back through aeons of isolation;
Is there anyone who can understand me,
And share my loneliness?
Wet city pavements stretch before me,
Opium bedlam, neon glare;
Ever paler grows my skin,
Caressed by the moon.
Blood is the drug,
The poppy’s essence,
I need to feed, to feel the heat,
To hear dark angels sing.
I can smell your thoughts and emotions,
I can see in the dark,
I can hear the tiniest sound,
I can make myself invisible,
I can manipulate your will,
I have the strength of a giant.
You are on the tip of my tongue:
I will suck you to a dry husk,
And throw you away.