The Vampire Monk, Part I
I.
In the year sixteen hundred and thirty-five
I was a fool young man known as Ludwig,
back from the wars and flush with new money,
spent it on fine whores and copious drink.
One pale lady led me out into the street
where her pimp stood in shinning moonlight,
he smiled at her, said,”How nice of you,
I was thinking of feasting tonight.”
Before I could even start to react
his fangs had sank deep into my neck,
she joined in too, this woman I had held,
I black out and don’t recall what came next.
When I came too I was in a dark cave
and cried out, thankful that I was alive,
yet when I tried to walk t in the sun
it seared and sizzled my ghost-pale hide.
I’d never believed the legends were true,
but I now had no breath or heart-beat,
and when the sun set, I went out for food,
no meal would satisfy my deep cravings.
I made it six days, or should I say nights,
before the hunger overcame my will,
stalked a poor post-rider in the countyside,
recall the screams that came from my first kill.
I felt something within crumble that day,
a hollow emptiness grew deep inside,
knowing that with every kill that I made
meant another piece of my soul had died.
Before long I fled my Bavaria,
the peoples were getting restless and mean,
traveled across Europe, moving often,
forced to ‘live’ by acts heinous and obscene.
It was in Scotland three long years later,
hiding in the highlands from an angry mob,
unable to come out for days on end,
the growing hunger, it painfully throbbed.
When turned a vampire loses their blood
which causes their bodies to shut down,
I was so hungry I was driven mad,
in my mania I drained dry a cow!
Then to my surprise I felt the hunger
fade away and leave me feeling all-right,
it was any blood that would slake my thirst,
I didn’t have to take any more lives!
You think this would improve my situation,
but in truth it hurt me all the more,
couldn’t help but ask why had I never
bothered to ask this question before?
All the lives I had brought to an end,
all the families I had let bereft,
gad I the wits to ask these questions then
not a one would’ve had to face death.
The truth of these failings hounded my heels,
there was to be no peace within me,
until one night in France I came upon
ancient stone walls of a monastery…
CONTINUES IN PART II
Copyright © David Welch | Year Posted 2019
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