Juleigh Howard-Hobson
 
 
People Will Not Believe
 
 The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.
                                                  --Garrett Fort
 
Humans lack imagination, they see
only what they
expect. Of course this works out well for me.
I sleep all day,
have a pair of sharp fangs, and night vision.
I’ve been known to
have dried blood specks on my black coat from when
I’ve hunted. Do
my present neighbors ever notice that I
just hang around
them in the early evenings, while the sky
is grayish, bound
for darkness but not quite night? I don’t know.
but I nod, let them smile back, then I go.
 
 
 
They Didn’t Want To Tell Me You Were Dead But I Knew Already
 
 
I found where you were, it was raining
so hard that I almost turned back--
the grounds were muddy, staining
the low hem of the black
dress I wear these days.
There’s a lot of
dirt, wet through,
above
you.
 
 
Death’s Vedette
 
Death can be enjoyed; it does not need to
end in corruption and decay. Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust will only do
for those who’ve never batted their lashes
at much more fancy stuff than rot allows:
those content with worms, and the nothingness
that follows the worms, in buried hollows
in lines, in lawns, with stones above. No mess
no fuss, no anything at all. Give me
more than that, please. Give me articulate
majesty. Give me blue eternity.
Let Death fly with some weird reanimate
freedom across my bones like a bird. Let
my soul shine, let me become Death’s vedette.
 
 
 

Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s work has appeared in Midnight Echo, Bowery Gothic, The Dead Lands, Under Her Skin (Black Spot Books) and many other places. Her most recent book is Curses, Black Spells and Hexes (Alien Buddha). X: poetforest