Ghoulish Muse

GHOULISH MUSE

The sun is no barrier:

vampires abhor the light,

but you give me no quarter.

Your taunting breath

prickles my wary neck.

You leech my dreams.

My eyelids part to your lurid euphony.

Even from afar your song enthralls me,

makes belles of tolling blooms.

Your torchlight eyes hold me.

Your sleek fangs scintillate.

You crash upon me.

Drape me in your cape.

Smother me

with shuddering hungry

lips and eyes.

Suck me dry,

drooling

                        crimson

                                  p

                                  o

                                  e

                                  t

                                   r

                                    y.

9/81

I have always maintained that I had no choice in being a writer, that writing chose me.  This early poem reaffirms that sense.  Ideas and urges to write came relentlessly.  I could ignore them only at my psychic peril.  "Ghoulish Muse" was published in my first book of poetry Monsters in a Half-way House, 1981.  The poetry in that book is raw, but energetic.

Monsters in a Half-way House has been reissued with a new cover. Monsters in a Half-Way House