The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

I said, "Why should a pyramid

Stand always dully on its base?

I'll change it! Let the top be hid,

The bottom take the apex-place!"

And as I bade they did.

The people flocked in, scores on scores,

To see it balance on its tip.

They praised me with the praise that bores,

My godlike mind on every lip.

-- Until it fell, of course.

And then they took my body out

From my crushed palace, mad with rage,

-- Well, half the town WAS wrecked, no doubt --

Their crazy anger to assuage

By dragging it about.

The end? Foul birds defile my skull.

The new king's praises fill the land.

He clings to precept, simple, dull;

HIS pyramids on bases stand.

But -- Lord, how usual!

Eternally the choking steam goes up

From the black pools of seething oil. . . .

How merry

Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork

From Bel, there, as he slept . . . Look! -- oh look, look!

They've got at Nero! Oh it isn't fair!

Lord, how he squeals! Stop it . . . it's, well -- indecent!

But funny! . . . See, Bel's waked. They'll catch it now!

. . . Eternally that stifling reek arises,

Blotting the dome with smoky, terrible towers,

Black, strangling trees, whispering obscene things

Amongst their branches, clutching with maimed hands,

Or oozing slowly, like blind tentacles

Up to the gates; higher than that heaped brick

Man piled to smite the sun. And all around

Are devils. One can laugh . . . but that hunched shape

The face one stone, like those Assyrian kings!

One sees in carvings, watching men flayed red

Horribly laughable in leaps and writhes;

That face -- utterly evil, clouded round

With evil like a smoke -- it turns smiles sour!

. . . And Nero there, the flabby cheeks astrain

And sweating agony . . . long agony . . .

Imperishable, unappeasable

For ever . . . well . . . it droops the mouth. Till I

Look up.

There's one blue patch no smoke dares touch.

Sky, clear, ineffable, alive with light,

Always the same . . .

Before, I never knew

Rest and green peace.

She stands there in the sun.

. . . It seems so quaint she should have long gold wings.

I never have got used -- folded across

Her breast, or fluttering with fierce, pure light,

Like shaken steel. Her crown too. Well, it's queer!

And then she never cared much for the harp

On earth. Here, though . . .

She is all peace, all quiet,

All passionate desires, the eloquent thunder

Of new, glad suns, shouting aloud for joy,

Over fresh worlds and clean, trampling the air

Like stooping hawks, to the long wind of horns,

Flung from the bastions of Eternity . . .

And she is the low lake, drowsy and gentle,

And good words spoken from the tongues of friends,

And calmness in the evening, and deep thoughts,

Falling like dreams from the stars' solemn mouths.

All these.

They said she was unfaithful once.

Or I remembered it -- and so, for that,

I lie here, I suppose. Yes, so they said.

You see she is so troubled, looking down,

Sorrowing deeply for my torments. I

Of course, feel nothing while I see her -- save

That sometimes when I think the matter out,

And what earth-people said of us, of her,

It seems as if I must be, here, in heaven,

And she --

. . . Then I grow proud; and suddenly

There comes a splatter of oil against my skin,

Hurting this time. And I forget my pride:

And my face writhes.

Some day the little ladder

Of white words that I build up, up, to her

May fetch me out. Meanwhile it isn't bad. . . .

But what a sense of humor God must have!

Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright

As the blank windows set in glaring brick,

When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night

Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;

By the deserted paths, the vacant halls,

One may see figures, twisted shades and lean,

Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen,

Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls.

Turn the knob gently! There's the Thumbless Man,

Still weaving glass and silk into a dream,

Although the wall shows through him -- and the Khan

Journeys Cathay beside a paper stream.

A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door --

-- Chilly the grave-smell comes from the turned sod --

Come -- lift the curtain -- and be cold before

The silence of the eight men who were God!

There were not many at that lonely place,

Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.

The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.

Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race

Unseen by any. Toward the further woods

A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.

-- We were most silent in those solitudes --

Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,

The clotted earth piled roughly up about

The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,

Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout

Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.

Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,

The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun,

Into the free companionship of air;

Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done,

All's one to me -- I do not greatly care;

So long as there are brown hills -- and a tree

Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth --

And I can lie and hear eternally

The vast monotonous breathing of the earth.

I have known hours, slow and golden-glowing,

Lovely with laughter and suffused with light,

O Lord, in such a time appoint my going,

When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white,

And the spark dies within the feeble brain,

Spilling its star-dust back to dust again.

Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling

From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes,

Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling,

As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets

Cornell will win the relay in a walk,

While Bob and Mac discuss the Giants' chances;

Deep in a morris-chair, Bill scowls at "Falk",

John gives large views about the last few dances.

And so it goes -- an idle speech and aimless,

A few chance phrases; yet I see behind

The empty words the gleam of a beauty tameless,

Friendship and peace and fire to strike men blind,

Till the whole world seems small and bright to hold --

Of all our youth this hour is pure gold.

I sit here in the cold night air,

thinking"when is he coming to me"

but every night he fails to come,

up untill now.



He comes to me, slowly

and looking ever so handsome.

He grabs me and takes me

not leaving my beauty behind.



Though i love him

there is no one else

only because i know my heart beats true,

i love him, i know i do.



For him i cry one tear,

one tear to last forever,

For just one night be alone,

in a bed to just hold each other.

To show everyone,

that sex is not all that he does to me.

He cares and loves me..

just like one before when my family was there

but now all i have is him,

all i have to hold,

is him..