Gheorghe Coşbuc: Strigoii (Vampires)

The Christians that are awake, with fear they call
The Mother of Christ and-light rushed
Incense and garlic on a bronze vessel
She's single in the lodge, poor mother
image sits stunned...

Mihail Eminescu: Strigoii ( Vampires )

... for it fades away like smoke above the earth.
They bloomed like flowers, were cut like grass,
Wrapped up in a linen and buried in the ground

Within an ancient church with lofty soaring dome,
Between tall waxen candles, does in her coffin lie,
Her face towards the altar, wrapped in white drapery,
The bride of brave King Harold, the King of Avari,
While softly chanted dirges do from the darkness come.

Upon the dead girl's breast a wreath of jewels glows,
Her golden hair hangs loosely over the coffin side,
Her eyes are sunken deep; a sad smile sanctified
Rest on her parched lips, that death to mauve has dyed,
While is her lovely face as pale as winter snows.

Beside her on his knees is Harold, mighty King,
And from his bloodshot eyes does shine untold despair,
His mouth with pain is drawn, dishevelled is his hair.
Though like a lion he would roar, grief holds him silent there;
Three days he thinks upon his life in nameless sorrowing.

"I was still but a child. Within the pine-tree glade
My greedy eyes already had conquered many a land,
I dreamed an empire grow beneath my fancy's wand,
I dreamed the world entire was under my command,
The foaming Volga's ford I fathomed with my blade.

Countless mighty hosts my youthful zeal led forth
By whom as of some God my name was worshipped.
I felt the very earth tremble beneath my tread;
Before my marching hosts the wandering nations fled,
Crowding in their terror the empty frozen North.

For Odin had deserted his frosty ancient home,
Down long and tortuous ways his wandering people went;
Priests with snowy locks and backs that time had bent
Roused and led through forests where peace an age had spent
Thousand diverse tongues along the way to Rome.

George Bacovia: Strigoii ( Vampires )

With red lanterns, yellow, green
The vampires pass in night over wheat
And the dogs bark on in the night at the fields
The vampires have entered the loft of an inn,
And the loft is seen to be queerly lit
By red lanterns, yellow, green.

The vampires have returned to the loft to retrieve
Pledges left long ago in their lives …
So goes a story that now I’ve forgotten
That at night, in the inn, there appear silhouettes
With red lanterns, yellow, green.

But when the cock crows toward daybreak,
In a pack the vampires tumbles out of the loft,
`Cross the fields, and in chaos they all disappear,
Either red, yellow or green.

Christopher John Brennan: The shadow of Lilith

The tuberose thickens the air: a swoon
lies close on open’d calyx and slipt sheath
thro’ all the garden bosom-bound beneath
dense night that hangs, her own perturbing moon:
no star: and heaven and earth, seeking their boon,
meet in this troubled blood whereunder seethe
cravings of darkling bliss whose fumes enwreathe
some rose of rare-reveal’d delight: oh, soon! —
Ay, surely near — the hour consents to bless! —
and nearer yet, all ways of night converge
in that delicious dark between her breasts
whom night and bloom and wayward blood confess,
where all the world’s desire is wild to merge
its multitude of single suffering nests.

Cloth’d now with dark alone, O rose and balm,
whence unto world-sear’d youth is healing boon,
what lures the tense dark round thy pulsing calm?
Or does that flood-tide of luxurious noon,
richly distill’d for thy sweet nutriment,
now traitor, hearken to some secret moon.
Eve’s wifely guise, her dower that Eden lent,
now limbeck where the enamour’d alchemist
invokes the rarer rose, phantom descent;
thy dewy essence where the suns persist
is alter’d by occult yet natural rite:
among thy leaves it was the night we kiss’d.
Rare ooze of odour drowns our faint delight,
some spilth of love that languishes unshared,
a rose that bleeds unseen, the heart of night;
whose sweetness holds us, wondering, ensnared:
for cunning she, the outcast, to entice
to wake with her, remembering how she fared
in times before our time, when Paradise
shone once, the dew-gem in her heart, and base
betrayal gave her to the malefice
that all thro’ time afflicts her lonely face,
and all the mournful widowhood of night
closed round her, and the wilderness of space:
O bleeding rose, alone! O heart of night!

This is of Lilith, by her Hebrew name
Lady of Night: she, in the delicate frame
that was of woman after, did unite
herself with Adam in unblest delight;
who, uncapacious of that dreadful love,
begat on her not majesty, as Jove,
but the worm-brood of terrors unconfest
that chose henceforth, as their avoided nest,
the mire-fed writhen thicket of the mind.
She, monsterward from that embrace declined,
could change her to Chimera and inspire
doubt of his garden-state, exciting higher
the arrowy impulse to dim descried
o’erhuman bliss, as after, on the wide
way of his travail, with enticing strain
and hint of nameless things reveal’d, a bane
haunted, the fabled siren, and was seen
later as Lamia and Melusine,
and whatsoe’er of serpent-wives is feign’d,
or malice of the vampire-witch that drain’d
fresh blood of fresh-born babes, a wicked blast:
faces of fear, beheld along the past
and in the folk’s scant fireside lore misread,
of her that is the august and only dread,
close-dwelling, in the house of birth and death,
and closer, in the secrets of our breath –
or love occult, whose smile eludes our sight
in her flung hair that is the starry night.

Charles Baudelaire

The Ghost

Like angels with wild beast's eyes
I shall return to your bedroom
And silently glide toward you
With the shadows of the night;

And, dark beauty, I shall give you
Kisses cold as the moon
And the caresses of a snake
That crawls around a grave.

When the livid morning comes,
You'll find my place empty,
And it will be cold there till night.

I wish to hold sway over
Your life and youth by fear,
As others do by tenderness.

Mary Elizabeth Frye: Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Alan Frost: Croglin Grange - a Halloween poem

A curious place was old Croglin Grange,
with a graveyard and church in plain view.
And a girl sleeps in fear, one night in some year
of which I admit there’s no clue.
From the trees outside, there appears a face,
two flickering lights do fix her gaze.
Nearer now, larger, something
ghastly emerges: eyes ablaze
it approaches, on and on,
til it clings to her windowpane,
this fiendish, unearthly one.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
It finds the latch, and creeps inside,
bony fingers primed for violence.
Embracing her neck,
a smile; a gloat.
She cries out, but only silence
now quenches her throat.

Jeremy Stewart: Hidden city

Neighbours had under their house an ossuary
blamed it for evil emanating for a block
inverted saints manifested
supernatural reek
they told me it was there when they moved in
right
I planned to buy the bones     to remove them
but when I went inside they got         to me
now barking dogs are invited to my party
they’re the only ones
neighbours took their loud bass
& fell into a ravine
let them be added
to the number of the numberless
remains to be seen
what will be left when they’re gone
large enclosures armed with woofers speak
to me, it’s a numbers racket
I can’t read you anymore because
there isn’t any more now go to sleep
dust & sand in my mouth & muffled
sounds above, so be low

the disaster already
happened, & it made
a lousy movie. A pack of wolves against the orange horizon
watch the lousy movie. Daylight’s yolk
about to crack. Smoking
year-end best-of lists
of lists of lists burn in muted
television light             watching
the fireplace show, the log, every
so often a hand
or day of infinite justice          the chamber
of commerce should welcome erasure

searching out blind spots
          I created Nosferatu’s mirror

saw a tangle of black dogs & hair run after
unspooling tape

 & I felt like nothing so much
as

wounded absence of a line
while the house falls in
violet repeat offender
song of the violent repeat offender

can’t get nothing right
don’t you motherfuckers ever fuck with me
don’t fuck with my family
can’t get nothing right

watching TV puppet shows as a kid
gravel parking lot skid
I was a poet with no M.O.
never seen a poem before

bang this empty skull
about to fly away on the shop wing
no one’s gonna try to reach out to me
bang this empty skull

 honest work for honest pay
oh, you say you already heard that one?
I was a victim until I rewrote the scene
now it’s cops try to victimize me

I will buy one smoke off you for fifty cents
six weeks of compulsory anger management counselling
all the places I won’t get to go
with my hand smashed in the car door

yeah, you think you can fuck with me?
steal my bike & step on my hand?
suffocating in the space between
two burning buildings
mirror the hip sounds
of Bloody Holly


I quit the band, too
but somehow survived
traded interior deserts
for coastal deserts before falling
asleep at the bottom of a lake
where I could hardly hear the phone.

You asked for a complete account
of myself & that’s it
anything further will be in my RCMP file
along with urine, hair, teeth

Gail-Nina Anderson: The Vampire's Own Alphabet

A is Anatomised, cut up and pickled
B is for bruises, which shouldn't be tickled
C is Cadaver, greyish and greenery
D is the Devil's Gorge, Satan's own scenery
E will Eliminate, terminate, End
F is the Fiend oft disguised as a friend
G is the Ghost, wraith-like and liminal
H is the Hangman who waits for the criminal
I is the Incubus, riding your nights
J is the Jugular, throbbing for bites
K is the Kite flown to harness the lightning
L is the Lamia, lovely but frightening
M is the Mistletoe, sacred for Druids
N's Nosferatu, who'll sup on your fluids
O is for Orgasm (refer back to I)
P is the Poltergeist, making things fly
Q is the dusky-robed Queen of the Night
R stands for Runes which you never pass, quite
S is the Succubus, sin in your dreaming
T is the Terror that wakes you up screaming
U's the Uncanny you hardly dare mention
V is the Vampire, of sanguine intention
W's Werewolf, all bristling and lupine
X stands for Xena, who'll lay you out supine
Y is the YETI, who's not just illusion
Z signals Zero, and draws our conclusion.

Dana Gioia: Vampire's Serenade (Aria from Nosferatu)

I am the image that darkens your glass,
The shadow that falls wherever you pass.
I am the dream you cannot forget,
The face you remember without having met.

I am the truth that must not be spoken,
The midnight vow that cannot be broken.
I am the bell that tolls out the hours.
I am the fire that warms and devours.

I am the hunger that you have denied,
The ache of desire piercing your side.
I am the sin you have never confessed,
The forbidden hand caressing your breast.

You've heard me inside you speak in your dreams,
Sigh in the ocean, whisper in streams.
I am the future you crave and you fear.
You know what I bring. Now I am here.

Clark Ashton Smith: The Poet Talks with the Biographers

O ghouls of fetid and funereal midnights,
Say, what do you uncover in your sad labors?
—We have disinterred the Empusa of thy fears
And the frightful Gorgon with her livid eyeballs
In our mournful labors.

O diggers all so diligent, O sapient ghouls,
What have you found in your prodigious toils?
—We have exhumed with all their antique evils
Thy loves, with features gutted by the worms,
In our enormous toils.

Grimed openers of pyramid and ossuary,
What revealed ye yesterday at crimson evening?
—We have dug up the black and ashen soil
To anatomize the shroudless nymph
Who was laid to sleep at evening.

Ghouls, what would ye do, tonight, for your pleasure,
Within these low, lugubrious and gaping tombs?
—We come to disenswathe the living dead—
The never-gelded fauns of thine old vices—
Within these gaping tombs.

Alan Loren: Transfusion Of Love

Blood oozes down from my lips
Adding a touch of crimson to my pale countenance
I feed on your essence
I sate myself with your love.
Indeed, I am a glutton for love
For what could be more endearing
More true
Than a transference from one to another
Of life’s very foundation
The fluid of being
As I suckle your neck so dear
Drawing the milk of your sustenance
I infuse your life into my own
We bond together in eternal devotion
Never to part
To love always

Vasile Alecsandri: The vampire

Near the cliff's sharp edge, on high
Standing out against the sky,
Dost thou see a ruined cross
Weatherstained, o'ergrown by moss,
Gloomy, desolate, forsaken,
By unnumbered tempests shaken?

Not a blade of grass grows nigh it,
Not a peasant lingers by it.
E'en the sombre bird of night
Shuns it in her darksome flight,
Startled by the piteous groan
That arises from the stone.

All around, on starless nights,
Myriad hosts of livid lights
Flicker fretfully, revealing
At its foot a phantom, kneeling
Whilst it jabbers dismal plaints,
Cursing God and all the saints.

Tardy traveller, beware
Of that spectre gibbering there;
Close your eyes, and urge your steed
To the utmost of his speed;--
For beneath that cross, I ween,
Lies a Vampyre's corpse obscene!

Thomas Hardy: The Vampirine Fair

Gilbert had sailed to India’s shore,
And I was all alone:
My lord came in at my open door
And said, “O fairest one!”

He leant upon the slant bureau,
And sighed, “I am sick for thee!”
“My lord,” said I, “pray speak not so,
Since wedded wife I be.”

Leaning upon the slant bureau,
Bitter his next words came:
“So much I know; and likewise know
My love burns on the same!

“But since you thrust my love away,
And since it knows no cure,
I must live out as best I may
The ache that I endure.”

When Michaelmas browned the nether Coomb,
And Wingreen Hill above,
And made the hollyhocks rags of bloom,
My lord grew ill of love.

My lord grew ill with love for me;
Gilbert was far from port;
And–so it was–that time did see
Me housed at Manor Court.

About the bowers of Manor Court
The primrose pushed its head
When, on a day at last, report
Arrived of him I had wed.

Jack Prelutsky: The Ghoul

The Ghoul

The gruesome ghoul, the grisly ghoul,
without the slightest noise
waits patiently beside the school
to feast on girls and boys

He lunges fiercely though the air
as they com out to play,
and grabs a couple my the hair
and drags them far away.

He cracks their bones and snap their backs
and squeezes out their lungs,
he chew their thumbs like candy snacks
and pulls apart their tongues.

He slices their stomachs and bite their hearts
and tears their flash to shreds,
he swallows their toes like toasted tarts
and gobbles down their heads

Fingers, elbow, hands and knees
and arms and legs and feet-
he eats them with delight and ease,
for every part's a treat.

And when the gruesome grisly ghoul
has nothing left to chew,
he hurries to another school
and waits. . . perhaps for you.

Alan Loren: A Vampire's Pain

A Vampire's Pain

As a youth I could not foresee
What lay on the road ahead
Eternal life, the quest for love
My intentions oft misread
Can a creature of the night
A dark and bloodied, prince
Find beauty, soul, and adoration
A love I can evince
Such is the fate of a lonely vampire
To traipse the earth alone
For love is fleeting, short and bitter
My pain I do intone

dr. Ram Mehta: Dracula castle

Dracula castle

Deep in the Carpathian Mountains
Perched atop on a rocky peak
Is the castle of prince Dracula of Romania
But his way to rule was quite unique.
He was a ruler, a researcher, a law-maker
And law-breaker, a lover of a different kind.

His preferred method of torture was impalement
Hammering nails into one’s head,
Hacking of the limbs, burning alive
Cutting of noses and ears,
Mutilation of sexual organs
And last, not the least, boiling alive.

Inhuman cruelty infamous in history
Stake would be forced through the body
Till it immerged from the mouth.
Like a scientist he made research
On to make it slow to die.

Strange were the ways for the welfare of people
And what a way to keep people wealthy
Poor, vagrant, beggars, and the cripples
Were invited for the feast in a great hall.
After the feast, ordered to set fire on the hall.
What a way to solve poverty and over-population!

Dracula had a mistress, a fair one who drove him
To distraction but ready to please this moody man.
Once she told him that she was with a child
Dracula had her examined for veracity of her claim.
When told, she was not with a child he drew his knife
Cutting her open from groin to the breasts
What a strange way to verify the truth and honesty.

Marina Tsvetaeva: Attempted Jealousy

Attempted Jealousy

What’s it like with another woman –
Simpler? – a flash of the oar! –
Did the memory of me
Soon fade off-shore,

Like the beach of a floating island,
(In the sky – not in the sea!)
Souls, souls! You’ll be sisters,
Not lovers – that’s what you’ll be!

What’s life like with an ordinary
Woman? Now that you’ve dethroned
Your idol (renounced the throne).
Without the divinity?

What’s your life like – occupation –
Shrivelled? Getting up – what’s it like?
What do you pay, poor man,
For endless triviality – the price?

‘I’m through with hysteria, convulsions!
I’ll rent a place, have done!’
What’s it like with a common
Woman, my chosen one?

More suitable and edible –
The food? Boring? – Don’t complain…
What’s it like with an imitation –
You who climbed the holy Mount? A strain?

What’s your life like with a stranger,
A worldly soul. Well? – Is it love?
Like the god’s whip, does shame
Not lash your head from above?

What’s it like – your health –
How is it? How do you sing?
How do you cope, poor man,
With the festering sore of endless conscience?

What’s life like with a marketable
Purchase? The price – terrible?
What’s it like with crumbling plaster of Paris
After the finest Carrara marble?

(The Goddess made from stone –
And smashed to bits!)
What’s your life like with one of millions,
You, who’ve known Lilith?

Does the marketable purchase meet
Your needs? Now magic’s dead,
What’s your life like with a mortal
Woman, neither using the sixth sense?

Well, swear, are you happy, then?
No? What’s your life like in a pit
With no depth, my love? Harder,
Or just like mine with another man?

Rudyard Kipling: Tomlinson

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost at his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair—
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
"The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—
"The good that ye did for the sake of men on the little Earth so lone!"
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as the rain-washed bone.
"O I have a friend on Earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,
"And well would he answer all for me if he were at my side."
—"For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,
"But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
"Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you,
"For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."
Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,
For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare.
The Wind that blows between the Worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his good in life.
"O this I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,
"And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."
The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,
And Peter twirled the jangling Keys in weariness and wrath.
"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:
"By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—what ha' ye done?"
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,
For the darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:—
"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I heard men say,
"And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."
"Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;
"There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!
"For none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin
"Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;
"Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for thy doom has yet to run,
"And . . . the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"

Horace Jeffery Hodges: Succubus

Succubus

She slipped, alone, into my room
to moan low sighs upon my ear,
and catch me tangled in her hair,
and lull me in a sensual swoon.

I loved her softer in the night
than subtle hand, with light caress,
could stroke one leg to raise a dress
and brush a moistened inner thigh.

And as a wanton sybarite,
she pressed her body close to mine
and drank my love like warm red wine
as though to drink it fully dry.

Intoxicated with her charms,
I kissed, and kissed, her supple breasts,
till languished in quiescent rest,
I lingered long within her arms.