I want to escape to the winedark of night

My eyes are afire but see no fire’s light

A coffin deathbed awaits my darkened arrival

Yet I’ve stealthily found the key to survival

 

Teeth laughingly bite

With incisors of fright

Under duvets of cloud as full moon transcends

My raven’s skyblood in torrential rivers descend

 

I want to suck blood, 

Until it’s a flood

To see fear of transition as you drain to my world

What’s formerly human, dawnlight’s milkblood has curdled

 

And how did commence

This sharp toothed intent?

A murder committed, judged, juried and sentenced

I smiled with black evil, no thoughts of repentance

But rope once knotted for that murder committed

Hooded hangman’s noose was left hanging loose

The hangman as he lowered the tool of his trade

With razors of teeth my incision was made

Though none but he knew his ripped skin was rent

The hangman thus authored this vampire’s lament

 

That hangman now my close demon and fiend

And fiend from the gallows will be so to the end

So now on black-carcassed horses we take fearsome flight

Though we still may cavort only the darkness of night

 

No magical Ray Bans,

this curse can’t be broken

But when Sun leaves the sky

don’t leave windows half open

 

No bridges relieve this coursing red-river’d fright

Our ghost horses in shadows must avoid searing sunlight

These tiger-toothed thoroughbreds; mares, stallions and geldings

Apocalyptic nail-hoven screams they are yelling

 

Our equine army no skin to protect

A target of innocence yet we needs must select

Our pure breed of stock, a vicious wild gallop

Charges willingly like a pack of wild dogs rabid

 

But a new day is dawning, or so goes the pun

An era of mercy may’ve tomorrow begun

So let’s break the icons, the soothsayer whispers

If you let bygones be bygones, I’ll cease bloodied persistence

 

If you just let me sleep, I’ll not make you weep

If a trade we can make for jugular’s sake

No blood will I steal scar-toothed overbite

For that wound never heals, but if you listen it might

 

So with this quill pen an olive branch I write

In glaring sharpness I offer clear eyed insight

Though my delicate condition in this world never ends

I’m eternally tired and may offer profound amends

 

So fake blood I’ll devour

At witches’ curdling dark hour

Fear not my incisor

For no one’s the wiser

If none of us shares this connection

 

You’ll need neither silver bullets nor fire

To curb my desire

I’ll rest under coffin’s tight lid

Nor crosses nor garlic

All may be discarded, and I won’t paint you scarlet

 

If you’ll not be my fiend but my close, heart-beating friend