Vampires And Other Poems

By Sean Eaton

Vampires

Those night-hunters, vampires,
unable to go out in the sun,
arrange moonlit picnics for
themselves on scenic hillsides
during the warmer months, on
the young and supple or ancient
craggy hills of their grandmother
Earth. They plant tall torches in
the dry dirt in perimeter around
antique Persian carpets, smaller
candelabra placed on the rugs'
centers, as stars burn overhead
and the harmless moon, milky,
obfuscating mirror of their
destroyer, hangs its wan smile.

They eat what small delicacies
as  they can stomach
off antique forks and plates
of burnished, scrollworked silver,
hearts and livers, severed fingers,
veins and arteries webs of lace,
and listen to the  crickets sing
their rustling canzonettas,
and feel the cool night breeze
lighten the heavy, singing air,
tickle at their hair and faces,
as pearls of dew form on their
time-worn, hand-loomed clothing
and the folds of their skin.
Their hands ruffling the wet grass.

November

The North winter wind caresses the willows
That dip their long branches into the shallow
Pools of the river where they sway in the ripples
And sigh softly in the breeze, while like a bellows
Call out the trunks of the trees to the callow
Phantom chill cascading down through the hollow,
Cracking and shivering in the chill wind advancing
In the dim dusk of the light softly filt'ring
Through the boughs naked and branches e'er-swaying,
As, in the remaining rays of the day,
While dips the sun lower, still lower, away,
Where maples and beeches stand shadowed and primal,
Gleam birches un-leafed, pale and phantasmal,
Gossamer ghosts in the gathering dusk,
Their slender crowns bald and full-bared, all husk
And all phantom, all bogle, all goblin and all banshee,
Bone-white and bone-slender limbs thrust like sword-sheathes
Into the belt-loops of Night's coming soldiers,
Their sabers aloft, their blades death and splendor,
Marching, advancing o'er ground and o'er water
That bevy of Commandants Night and of Winter,
Thousands of fallen leaves scattered in bursts
By their black leather boots so spangled with spurs
That jingle and ring through the sky, all appearing
One after each other in the black-ink now nearing
Total eclipse of the gold-burnished sun-sheen
Retreating and fleeing through the hills and ravines
Away, far away, taking the Day with it,
The Lord of all warmth, the King of all splendor,
Bringing a vacuum of pow'r in his wake,
An absence of Life, that bountiful giver,
An absence of Joy, and a desertion of fever,
Vanished entirely from the land, from the water,
All light and all majesty banished forever,
or at least until Spring comes to supplant General Winter.

The Catamount Wind

I walk through the woods on the way to the bank.
A shortcut I’ve often trod. The air bites,
a chill New England early spring. The wind feels
playful, scampering about on all fours.
It crunches the mulch under soft-padding paws.
It swirls the leaves with a swish of its tail.
I feel the wind paw at my back, hear it scurry on
through the mulch. I ignore it, and walk.
The wind’s lip curls up in displeasure. Its eyes
glow bright, all white and yellow iris, pu-
pils shrunk to tiny cat-slits. It paws more insistent-
ly, demanding my attention. It swirls the
leaves around me in a wind-dervish dust-devil, cast-
ing earth in my eyes—still I walk on. The
wind snarls, and bares its claws. I hear it pacing on
all fours around me, tearing the dead leaves
to shreds. On agile feet it bounds and leaps up behind
me, bearing its claws right at my neck—
I become afraid for my safety, of this terrible catamount—  
I whirl around—nothing. Only the wind.

Schema

I had a dream the other day
that sang a song in descending scale:
First I was a mountain, grand and lofty,
my peak carving up the jet stream;
Then I was a bay, cutting up the alluvial plain
to kiss the base of the mountain;
Then I was a wave, one of many in that bay,
throwing myself upon the sands;
And then I was a droplet, thrown aloft by the wave
and hanging in the air for just a moment
before dashing myself upon the ocean's surface.

The message was clear, of course:
God was telling me to humble myself,
to remember my place in the grand
scheme of things. Same old, what’s new?
But I'm a sinner, soiled black
and brash with great ambition,
and I have Things to accomplish in this
one and wondrous life.

I am but a drop of water in the heaving wave,
a droplet in immensity,
one of billions in the driving surf
that breaks upon the shore.
But, if I'm lucky, then for a moment
the light will hit me,
at just the perfect angle,
and then, for a moment, I'll shine.

Sean Eaton is a self-taught poet and artist hailing from the hills of New England. His favorite poets are Lisel Mueller, Ruth Stone, and Joanna Newsom. He has written one chapbook and one full-length book of poetry, both of which he hopes to have published.