Notes on vampirism

I spent part of last week having my blood sucked, and was able to make these notes towards a study of vampirism. The last lines are, I'll admit, somewhat speculative.

Notes on Vampirism

The purple castle on a fang of rock,
and the Transylvannian clouds turning counterclockwise,
and a bride at the mirror, on the seventeenth floor,
gasping at the hickey on her neck,
and a full moon rising, with a smirk on its face,
and the Count's coffin easing open
like the door of a Rolls -

the literature on vampirism
teems with error.
Bram Stoker was no social scientist.

Empirical observation ought to show
that vampirism is a hygienic
and profitable business.

Transylvannia is a low building in an industrial park
just off the southern motorway.
where vampires wear coats and rubber gloves
as cleanly white as their smiles.
After the needles and tubes and muscle relaxants have done their work
and the harvest has been made
blood is mixed with blood, and with aspartame,
until each vat is ready to cool
and the bottling and labelling machines begin to fidget.
Work goes on until dawn.

[Posted by Scott Hamilton]