Gilles de Rais

Supreme general to the sainted warrior, Jeanne,
Gilles carried her wounded body from the field of defeat.
And he could only seethe helplessly as church eunuchs
defamed and deflowered her courage, mute until her spirit
flew away on the Spring breeze like an angelic butterfly
swirling in red dust and crushed beneath stone.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

He watched the angry flames lick white skin and char
golden hair, and wilt the lashes to her eyes, those stars that wept
for so many fallen, so many dead, so many gone
and never to return, to country life or heart. He fled
the ash to find the golden stone that could bring eternal life.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

For months he prayed to raise the dead, body forth air,
speak with demon Barron, who promised
wealth and power over all things that fly or crawl,
to turn men to pawns and crush them beneath his boot,
to transform heath and moor to a garden of delight
that angels themselves would seek to pleasure in.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

Still dead nor demon came and his riches were devoured
by the ceremonies and rites at the altar. "A child's heart,"
they said, "drain a child's heart over the stones"
and its blood will summon dead comrades, entreat
the devil to paste together the dream, and wash away
the memory of war and bring sleep, gentle sleep.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

He dressed the child in the finest clothes, feasted her at table,
dazzled her young eyes with light and dirty ears with song,
until such fear that comes to any beast was allayed,
lulled to languish with full stomach and dulled wits.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

He strung her from a hook in the wall, and spilled
his jism on her thighs to drip on the bleeding floor,
probed her guts with knife and sword, soaking the rags
with her sobs and ebbing life. And often he'd take
her down, lay her on the floor and into exposed
ripe cavity ejaculated again and again, cooing like a dove,
as her breath sighed its departing despair into his face.
Like so many before in combat, flesh became cold,
limbs contracted to stony silence, and bight eyes
glazed gray into a tortured mask that brought an insane laugh.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

The hills and streams ran silently thruout the land,
muffled sobs for unburied loss, invisible graves
in the hearts of parents and houses crushed by want.
The Vampire was in flight above the land, they said, the smell
of blood soaking the fields of war had unleashed Hell.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

He confessed his crimes in his home, there where the walls
echoed with sobbing ghosts, the floors stained still
with blood in marble cracks, the cesspool rank
with ashes and his hearth caked with burnt flesh and bone.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

At trial, the parents wept over their lost children, it's said,
but also over his crimes that he recounted with contrite tongue,
a people shocked to dumb forgiveness by terror and despair
at what the twisted soul can devise when wracked by war
and wealth and desire to be what no man should be.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

His dust lies there still, where they laid him in the churchyard
under tranquil limb and talking leaves. And now they tell a tale
of Bluebeard, a man young girls should fear, for in his secret room
the floors are awash with blood and strands of hair hang from hooks.

They did not come, so all there was was blood.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

This is written from the poetry prompt at dVersePoets, which asks poets to write about vampires. My poem is about Gilles de Rais, a 15th century French aristocrat who fought with Jeanne d'Arc, the Catholic saint who went to war for French independence. After the defeat De Rais engaged in various magical rituals to gain immortality, epwealth, and power. In the process of carrying out these rites, he killed perhaps 200 childrem hoping to use their blood to summon demons and the dead. After he was tried and condemned for his crimes, the story metamorphosed into the story of Bluebeard. Many stories of crimes against innocents like this have involved the perpetrators being called vampires. The attraction to the original de Rais story in modern popular culture bears this out. While I understand the attraction/repulsion to the vampire motif, I think the reality behind the fantasy should not be forgotten. As Simone Weil says, fiction gives an attractive facade to evil.