THE
VAMPIRE REGRETS
By
Sammi Rutherford
Twilight brings my season, observe how
Darkness shrugs and circumvents my shape,
Tolerant of me, its aberration.
I part night like a palm reader's curtain
Leading into evening's feast.
Pale clouds ferment on the horizon
Skeins of treeline dissolve
In dusk's focus. My sooty eyesSeek ladies of sweet creamery
shoulders.
Set aside the ruby necklace,
Let the shy camisole drop. Does not
Your blood course and bloom for me?
I offer respite from all tiresome circuits.
To be a human being, what is it like?
To sire lungs with air --
To care?
To taste the red poetry in Life?
This be my, my sanguine art,
The undoing, the irresolute life.
Dying of loneliness and misplaced purpose,
Consort only to the smell of blood,
The coppery savor. Time staggers
And cleaves to me. We meld, two
Battle-fatigued pirates, unsure
Of our meaning, or power over humanity.
Ah, God, what is this existenceBut blood and sleeping?
An escape from the excruciating light
The weight of the Sun.
I beg an end for it! But
There is never an ending to my story.
Only the whisper of a veil parting flesh
Bio: I am a 47 year old writer/artist living in
Catonsville, Maryland. My stories,
poems and illustrations have appeared in a number of
magazines under the
pseudonym Abraham R. Nox. I am an art and fiction reviewer for
the online
'zine The Harrow.
My short story "Chiral Witness" was recommended for a
Bram Stoker Award in 2001. I am the author of two self-published
Vampire novels: Bloodfellow --
Book One -- Separation, and Bloodfellow -- Book Two --
Transformation.
