The Grimm Infliction

A reluctant servant to a remorseless vampire recounts the actions he is bonded to complete.

The Vampire Grimm is uncomfortably slim-

He ingests only quality blood.

“Ragamuffins and w****s are for werewolves,” he roars,

“Bring me something supreme to this mud!”

 

I, a dutiful slave, heard the order he gave

And my harvest has tripled in toil.

Virginal, new, and of ancestry blue,

Yet his chin drips blacker than oil.

 

How came I to boast of this psychopath’s post?

The description’s too cruel for your ears.

I’ll clue you to my actions with minor redactions

Lest you fancy a change of careers.

 

My master must feed as the innocent bleed

Once a month like the serpent he is.

In a tomb he resides and his pyramid’s pride

Shackles zealously all that is his.

 

Understand for my sake how the mortal may break

Under Beelzebub’s coercing lust;

Bear in mind while I speak how I murdered the weak

That a vampire’s never to trust.

 

*

 

The pious young girl is the kin of the Earl,

He demands of her chastity’s vow.

With a kiss Beatrice gives supper a miss

And retires to her bedchamber now.

 

From the treetops I spy with a predatory eye

That the window lock’s open inside.

A wardrobe what’s more, with a thick wooden door,

Seems a guileful place I could hide.

 

Come the dawn they depart in a well adorned cart,

Drawn by horses of excellent stock.

To the village they drive, and she looks so alive,

Rosy cheeked and with thick golden locks.

 

Up the drainpipe I climb after suitable time,

Raising open the vent to her den;

Then survey her abode, mirrored desk to commode,

Till I visage the wardrobe again.

 

*

 

Wombed therein I lie still counting seconds until

I must pounce from my spider’s trap door.

With my senses deprived my daydreams are revived

In conjecture of what is in store:

 

Will she reach for a garment, unearthing the varmint

Springing up to disable her tongue?

Should she scream I’m arrested and tortured and tested,

Leaving none of my evils unsung.

 

Worse still, her caretaker may send me to my maker

Should he follow the maid to her dorm.

My only true chance, I foresee in advance,

Is my bottle of strong chloroform.

 

*

 

This paranoid state I maintain until late

After dark when I hear them return.

After dinner the saintly approaches the sinner,

Her lone footsteps my only concern.

 

Through the cracks in the closet, I soon enough posit

Candlelight as she dresses for bed.

Such an intimate scene relives what may have been

When once I had intended to wed.

 

This nostalgia is crushed, and my sympathies hushed,

By a vision of Vampire Grimm-

“After eight hundred years my patience for tears

And for pitiful mercy grows slim.

 

People spawn and they die knowing nothing of why,

People’s lives are a blindfolded farce.

I disdain all delight for a human’s insight,

To the ancient it’s crippled and sparse.

 

Do men cry for a chimp my lamentable imp?

Nay then do Vampires cry for a man.

Should some chivalrous motive expose you emotive

You’ll forever rue slighting my clan.”

 

Whether magic or fear brought these words to my ear

Is no consequence if I am true.

I succumbed long ago, quite to what I don’t know,

Though I know it is worse than I knew.

 

*

 

Finally, she’s aslumber and over I lumber,

Applying chloroformed cloth to her face.

Taking care not too much, for Grimm’s tendency’s such

She stays fresh, perishing at his pace.

 

Far too tragic for words is my wing-clipped caught bird,

She stays graceful though robbed of her will.

Her springful bouquet is of roses and hay,

Heartbeats throb a chest soon to be still.

 

Like a bridegroom I lift her and couldn’t be swifter

To transpose her inside of my sack.

Nested there in my care Grimm is soon to be square

With the blue blood he yearns to drink black.

 

When compared to his threat she’s a featherlight debt,

Carried countrywide, hither, and yon.

I meander away and am home before day,

Making sure my pursuers are gone.

 

*

 

She awakes in a tomb further dark than a womb,

Only death can be birth from this place.

Biting back all my love I affix her above

The blood aqueducts flooring this space.

 

Once prepared and ensnared, certain not to be spared,

She revives and’s pathetically spooked.

Like a hunter’s trapped hare, she is only aware

That her freedom is damned and rebuked.

 

Her bargaining eyes find my own when she cries,

Pleading feminine, wily and sweet.

My instinct to be kind and her body unbind

Leaves me unmoved and yet incomplete.

 

*

 

Master Grimm becomes known once her terror has grown

So he smells it like flowers to bees.

He destroys on arriving her hope of surviving

Yet she eagerly yearns to appease.

 

“Little lady,” he whispers, “I’ve eaten your sisters,

Is your soul as delicious as theirs?

Let me hear your last plea and I surely will see

If I dine on the true debonairs.”

 

Long black talons untie her gagged quieted cry,

Slender fingers erase her of tears.

He kisses her cheek with a face so antique

And he secrets these words in her ears-

 

“It’s the end little shrew, confide now and be true,

Your confession will solely remain.

Once I’ve drained you of being the deceased shall be seeing

Your life’s climax again and again.”

 

*

 

With a paralysed stutter she mumbles a mutter,

At first shakily, then pronounced loud.

She shuts tight her eyes while her eulogy cries

From the foreordained, prejudged, and proud:

 

“I feel no fear to be prisoner here,

I have already rose to the sky.

This dismal oubliette harbours to me no threat,

Of the afterlife I am not shy.

 

My last memories hence disregard your pretence-

I recall only summer and sun.

When reborn this foul dream in the dark will be gone,

All your work in my world will be done.

 

I have little regret, though I’ll list them as yet-

I’d have mothered the weak and the sick.

If I’d further adored the afflicted and poor

I’d have value though demising quick.

 

Kill me painless and fast, I have spoken my last,

I’m no poet and you are no scribe.

Death awaits as a friend all the mortals who end

Uncorrupted and not of your tribe.”

 

*

 

She was thereafter slain, evermore I abstain

From describing the bloodlust of Grimm.

Her devouring’s a fact but I leave her intact,

She transcends and is better than him.

 

Had I patience to rhyme I’d recount every time

I have sacrificed beauteous youths.

Pray in eight hundred years it will bore me to tears

Yet of late I weep nightly forsooth.

 

So beware dearest friends for my warning here ends

And I leave you with monstrous news-

Should you destine your soul for a heavenly goal,

Devils live and are taking their dues.

Reviews

[Red Brick Keshner]

A tale of a poem spun with an epic feel - delightful and melodious - an apt counterpoint to its dark and sordid theme. Thanks for sharing.