Bruce M. Whealton is the June Editor's Pick Poet
You can email Bruce at: bm.whealton@yahoo.com
SENSUOUS AND STRONG AS THE SERPENT
This vampire lived
a lustful life,
nourished and satisfied
by flesh on flesh -
She with the strength of the serpent.
Tonight she holds
A young man, barely twenty,
Who is lost in her dark red eyes.
For a brief while,
He was convinced he had the upper hand,
Seeking to overpower her,
With his 6 foot muscular frame,
To her five and one half feet...
He thought she would be an easy
victim
to satisfy his
desires and need for power.
With each motion he made,
She wrapped more of herself into him,
Hands, arms, legs around him,
Till there was only the sound of blood
Beating louder, pulsating, throbbing.
As he struggles for air,
In this last dream of his life,
Somehow he finds a pleasure
In her pulsating blood-red eyes.
Her pointed teeth rested
Against his pulsating artery,
There was just their rhythmic motions,
As she consumed all of him,
Up to his last breath.
Not a drop of his blood was spilled,
she had not intended to kill,
in fact, she herself
was wounded in his attack.
SHELTER
It was like yesterday
when I met this vampire and
nearly moved in with him.
He offered a place to stay.
He drank from me for 24 hours
leaving me in a dream-like state.
I still see those teeth
and that shiny bald head.
I was amazed at how
he controlled that dog of his,
too amazed to notice how I
slipped into some trance
from which I might never
have awoken.
Somehow I escaped
without a scar -
I can barely find the puncture wounds
wounds – it seems like it
was just a dream.
For a while there
he followed me -
no, it wasn't my imagination;
others told me
they saw him
following me.
I'm not sure why
he gave up
some time ago.
BECOMING
The scene is
like a dream — surreal —
it’s as if we are watching this happen
on a screen or
like one might watch a play
or some bizarre parade
celebrating death…
but everything is in slow motion.
The vampire approaches her victim.
No one seems to notice what is happening
but I know it’s real.
Confronting her, I say,
“I will not allow this.”
She addresses me, saying,
“I can end your fears;
show you life
everlasting
and powers
you’ve always
hungered for.”
I say, “You are death.”
“Drink my blood and become like me.”
“You only offer me death.”
“No,” she answers, “would you rather
die than become?
If the priest says, ‘Drink this blood,’
you drink.”
I answer, “The bread I eat is protection.
“The blood I drink is life.”
“I will have you, willingly or not,” she tells me.
“And yet I live,” I say,
though still afraid.
“Only for now!
Only for a while.”
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
I'd like to think
I'm just like
anyone else,
that we all have limits...
There's only so much
we can take...
So much of what?
Pain... Fear... Loss... Trauma.
There's only so much
any of us can experience
and remain sane
and remain true to
our ideals, our values,
who we are and
the person we've become -
When the pain,
the fear, the trauma
exceeds this,
We snap
and for a while
we may escape -
go away to some place
in our mind
some place
outside reality...
maybe we come back
and then again
maybe we don't.
Bruce Whealton and Scott Urban (Scott was The Horror Zine's September 2009 Featured Poet) recently collaborated on a collection of poems titled Puncture Wounds that focused on Vampires and Vampirism. Bruce co-edits Word Salad Poetry Magazine http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/ with Jean Jones (The Horror Zine's November 2009 Selected Poet 1). Bruce has been the co-editor and publisher of Word Salad Poetry Magazine since 1995. Word Salad Poetry Magazine is in its fifteenth year of publication.
Bruce's poetry has been published in lines written w/a razor, Gravity Hill and Simple Vows Anthology (both St. Andrews College Press), Venus Rising, Port City Poets (published by the Wilmington Star News), Childe Bryde, the thin edge of staring, Chance Magazine, and Lunatic Chameleon.
See Bruce at Word Salad.
