The Nightmare Sleeps

THE NIGHTMARE SLEEPS saliva drips off perfect white, gleaming white, false fangs. blood would fill, his full moon night. breathless he sleeps, bone-straight, crossed arms. deep-brown rings on antique-satin. his nightmares fly, only by night, as the living dread his piercing sight. their feet long to scream and run, but once his eyes toy with their browns, blues, grays... mesmerized - they can’t look away. young ladies started chopping off their hair, hiding under hats and masks, never dressing sultry. for the beast’s heart would beat hard, stab against his chest wall, desirous to take a burgeoning bride, draped in clinging sheath, all pulse points exposed. but for now, in the dark of day, concealed by close-fitting armor, underneath a heavy wooden lid, he stays immobile, staring, at the undersides of wrinkled lids, layered with the imaginations of his crime. a long creak, a twilight peek, exposes his blinding pale skin. the mallet above the judge’s head, speedily thrusts down, impaling the vampire’s bloodless chambers. shriveled flesh turns to bone then to ash then blows away like dandelion seeds, vanishes as if by magic incantation. the small flashlight held by his assistant leads the two heroes through the stretch of catacombs. a cache of bones gleaming, not noticed when they concentrated on the map, given to them by a stranger last night - a pretty blond with mesmerizing eyes, confident and charming. she meets them, at the last bend, smiling “Thank you for taking care of my competition.” she strikes a match, a fearless creature - her black cape becomes wings - a phantasmagorical nightmare. 10/30/2017