When Carmilla Returns, Styria Is Different, etc.
By
LindaAnn LoSchiavo
When Carmilla Returns, Styria Is Different
Covid reminded her of the Black Death,
Fatalities unfolding silently
As muslin shrouds, infecting secretly.
She’s deprived of uninterrupted sleep.
Roused from bleak dreams, Carmilla senses filth
Inside her lungs – uncleanliness. What’s changed?
A pox has blanketed the air with rot,
Its toxic aftertaste. This complicates
Her scheme – thirst urgent as a last request.
Even in darkness, she recalled her curse:
Ceaseless pursuit of youthfulness whose price
Is stolen blood – warm red wealth that buys time.
Without it, she’s the color of waiting.
Disease changed Styria, its ticking stilled:
Tram stops disused, shop signs like tattered skin
Peeling away in the unhealthy breeze.
Old beech trees loomed like ghostly chaperones.
A curtain flutters like a helpless moth –
Reveals a sleeping, pink-cheeked blonde. Alone.
A vampire knows the contract she has made
With hunger and the power of beauty,
Ruled by unfathomable appetites.
She hypnotizes, casting sly shadows
Shaped like her victim’s most unrealized
Desires, then enters – cloaked in this disguise.
A Ghost Revisits a Tattoo Parlor
Like marriage, this will hurt, a sacrament
That marks flesh, inks and needles, an array
Of patterns, birds, begonias, names entwined.
Observing his new bride, examining
Marmoreal fresh skin, I’m noticing
Three hickies on her neck, love’s artifacts.
His rage, suppressed for now, will take that throat,
Stain it with thumbprints, purple necklaces
Requiring camouflage — scarves, turtlenecks.
Inside a heart, the artist carefully
Inks her beloved’s name, an alphabet
Of dark regrets, as if she’ll be unmoored
Without this simulacrum. Ownership
Of permanent I.D. — tattoos, birthmarks --
Is useful when cops find a battered corpse,
Need ghostly guides, a name tag for the morgue.
Originally appeared in A Route Obscure and Lonely (Wapshott Press, 2019), which won an Elgin Award.
Embodiment
My sister lives forever in six drawers
Where Mom maintains her clothing, worn, outgrown.
Preserved in cameras, she’s chambered,
Sealed shut like darkroom prints, unmoving face
Still undeveloped as her unspent youth.
Moored on his island of bad memories,
Her boyfriend, claiming self-defense, wears stripes.
Nighttime she’s back, soft stabled in seizures
Of stars or hovering in ghost orb’s mist.
A pinch of lonely air lifts blankets, hugs
Half of my bedding. No heat radiates.
The younger person I still am inside
Peers out. Instead of ghost dents on the sheets,
I see her shuffling the deck, smell smoke
From phantom joints, red lipsticked, decayed dreams
Beyond my line of sight, time’s taut trapeze.
I yearn to grab her wrist, yank heart and soul
From cold oblivion, yell, "Breathe again!"
Hope hops on life support, prepared to drag
Her from the brink and storm the underworld.
Geometry’s shades fade — by dawn’s dispersed.
Originally appeared in A Route Obscure and Lonely (Wapshott Press, 2019), which won an Elgin Award.
Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. In 2024 LindaAnn LoSchiavo had three poetry books published in 3 different countries; two titles won multiple awards.
In 2025-26 two titles are forthcoming: “Cancer Courts My Mother” and “Vampire Verses.”
A segment of my formal verse functions as dispatches from the Bar-do—that liminal space I escape to with my imaginative alter-egos and my gothic predilections.
BlueSky: @ghostlyverse.bsky.social
By
LindaAnn LoSchiavo
When Carmilla Returns, Styria Is Different
Covid reminded her of the Black Death,
Fatalities unfolding silently
As muslin shrouds, infecting secretly.
She’s deprived of uninterrupted sleep.
Roused from bleak dreams, Carmilla senses filth
Inside her lungs – uncleanliness. What’s changed?
A pox has blanketed the air with rot,
Its toxic aftertaste. This complicates
Her scheme – thirst urgent as a last request.
Even in darkness, she recalled her curse:
Ceaseless pursuit of youthfulness whose price
Is stolen blood – warm red wealth that buys time.
Without it, she’s the color of waiting.
Disease changed Styria, its ticking stilled:
Tram stops disused, shop signs like tattered skin
Peeling away in the unhealthy breeze.
Old beech trees loomed like ghostly chaperones.
A curtain flutters like a helpless moth –
Reveals a sleeping, pink-cheeked blonde. Alone.
A vampire knows the contract she has made
With hunger and the power of beauty,
Ruled by unfathomable appetites.
She hypnotizes, casting sly shadows
Shaped like her victim’s most unrealized
Desires, then enters – cloaked in this disguise.
A Ghost Revisits a Tattoo Parlor
Like marriage, this will hurt, a sacrament
That marks flesh, inks and needles, an array
Of patterns, birds, begonias, names entwined.
Observing his new bride, examining
Marmoreal fresh skin, I’m noticing
Three hickies on her neck, love’s artifacts.
His rage, suppressed for now, will take that throat,
Stain it with thumbprints, purple necklaces
Requiring camouflage — scarves, turtlenecks.
Inside a heart, the artist carefully
Inks her beloved’s name, an alphabet
Of dark regrets, as if she’ll be unmoored
Without this simulacrum. Ownership
Of permanent I.D. — tattoos, birthmarks --
Is useful when cops find a battered corpse,
Need ghostly guides, a name tag for the morgue.
Originally appeared in A Route Obscure and Lonely (Wapshott Press, 2019), which won an Elgin Award.
Embodiment
My sister lives forever in six drawers
Where Mom maintains her clothing, worn, outgrown.
Preserved in cameras, she’s chambered,
Sealed shut like darkroom prints, unmoving face
Still undeveloped as her unspent youth.
Moored on his island of bad memories,
Her boyfriend, claiming self-defense, wears stripes.
Nighttime she’s back, soft stabled in seizures
Of stars or hovering in ghost orb’s mist.
A pinch of lonely air lifts blankets, hugs
Half of my bedding. No heat radiates.
The younger person I still am inside
Peers out. Instead of ghost dents on the sheets,
I see her shuffling the deck, smell smoke
From phantom joints, red lipsticked, decayed dreams
Beyond my line of sight, time’s taut trapeze.
I yearn to grab her wrist, yank heart and soul
From cold oblivion, yell, "Breathe again!"
Hope hops on life support, prepared to drag
Her from the brink and storm the underworld.
Geometry’s shades fade — by dawn’s dispersed.
Originally appeared in A Route Obscure and Lonely (Wapshott Press, 2019), which won an Elgin Award.
Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. In 2024 LindaAnn LoSchiavo had three poetry books published in 3 different countries; two titles won multiple awards.
In 2025-26 two titles are forthcoming: “Cancer Courts My Mother” and “Vampire Verses.”
A segment of my formal verse functions as dispatches from the Bar-do—that liminal space I escape to with my imaginative alter-egos and my gothic predilections.
BlueSky: @ghostlyverse.bsky.social
