The Graveyard Stones

I spend my time in the graveyard of

St. Martin’s in the Fields,

Cleaning the moss off the headstones

Just to read what damp reveals,

The local vicar has let them go

And the graveyard’s overgrown,

As creepers cover the finer points

Of the lives now dead and gone.

 

And some of the stones have fallen down,

Some of them on their face,

Showing their stories to the ground

That wouldn’t reveal a trace,

I heave and jemmy them back upright

Under the noonday sun,

Then read the inscriptions in the light,

Long hidden from every one.

 

The work is slow and exhausting but

It gives of its own reward,

They say that it stops the haunting by

The ones that are being ignored,

The graveyard dips down into a dell

And spreads through the willow trees,

With some of the graves so covered up

I get to them on my knees.

 

And some of them have been there so long

That the tops have fallen in,

Opening up the coffin lids

To the skull’s unholy grin,

I sometimes cover the aging bones,

Then I sometimes leave them be,

It all depends if they made amends

Once I know each history.

 

But one I found in that shaded dell

Made the hairs crawl up my back,

I raised the stone when I was alone

When I should have called for Jack,

For there on the new raised frontage

Was a scene from a dream of hell,

A demon, wearing a flowing cloak

And with sharpened claws as well.

 

She stared from the stone of granite

Her horns stood out on her head,

Someone had carved her figure there

To give us a sense of dread,

Her teeth were those of a vampire bat

Protruding out of the mud,

And only once I had wiped them off

Could I see the signs of blood.

 

And then I read the inscription:

‘Here lies the Lady Vamp,

She lured her victims into the woods

Disguised as a willing tramp,

Then once inside she would tear their throats,

It looked like a beast of prey,

So no-one thought to look for her till

She’d given herself away.’

 

‘A soldier came on her sleeping

While she was covered in blood,

Her victim’s throat was in keeping

With a vampire loose in the wood,

He sharpened a stake from a sapling

And stood for a moment, apart,

Then turned in a burst of fury,

Thrusting the stake through her heart.’

 

The top of her coffin had fallen in

I saw, with the creeper aside,

And there lay the vampire, staring at me

As if from the day that she died,

The stake was thrust in through the ribcage there

She’d helplessly reached with a claw,

And tried to remove, to seek a reprieve

From what she was dying for.

 

I’m not superstitious, I should be, I know,

And in that there lies my mistake,

I reached through that rotten, coffin lid so

I’d get a good grip on the stake,

I pulled it out swiftly, and gave it a twist,

A foul wind blew in, like a breeze,

And I was aware of a woman who watched,

Stood silently there by the trees.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Barbz]

When my children were young, we vacationed in a small city in Connecticut, in the New England section of the U S A. When my five little ones were doing what little ones do at a resort, we visited antique shops, museums and an old cemetery where, on the gravestones, was carved the reason for the death of the victim. It was a far cry from the manicured cemeteries that are familiar to us today. Those ancient gravestones told of some gory details but non as captivating as you describe in this, your latest bone chilling, mind boggling, terrifyingly frightful work, with a twist!!! Great work, as usual David........Barbz

[richieb]

David, A fascinating poem with a well delivered twist. I suppose curiosity would get the best of us to pull the stake thinking we were doing the noble thing. In the summer of 1976 I worked at the local cemetery and thank God I didn't bring any witches or vampires back to life. As usual great imagery. Richie.

[TL Boehm]

ooh this is a chilling write...wasn't expecting it to go the way it did. There is to me something peaceful about most gravestones, but occasionally there is the one ... as here that terrifies to the core.