Inspired by my recent Working Title podcast with poet Hope Whitby and in honor of National Poetry Month, I thought I’d challenge myself to write some haikus this month.
But I need focus. What can I base these brief poems on? Vampires, certainly. Hmm. Guess I should start with Dracula. Warmer. Ah-ha! How about a haiku summarizing each chapter of the eponymous novel?
So that’s what I will be posted below. Each day I will add a haiku for the next chapter. Let’s see how it goes.
Chapter 1
Jonathan Harker
crosses Bistritz savoring
paprika hendl
Chapter 2
Icy hands greet Jon
but nicked neck brings him warning
too late, exits barred
Chapter 3
In the wrong/right room
three smiles welcome, hands caress.
Fangs skim his parched throat
Chapter 4
Bleak baying music.
Fiends devour innocence while
a childless mom mourns
Chapter 5
Lu loves excess, but
exes: Tex, Rx won’t do.
Oh, Art, I choose you
Chapter 6
Swales sings of souls lost.
Renfield’s flies-and-feathers feast.
Shambling, Lucy sleeps.
Chapter 7
Crucifix found clutched
by captain–dead, alone–on
ghost ship Demeter
Chapter 8
Dracula’s red eyes
twin the wounds on Lucy’s neck.
Don’t trouble mother.
Chapter 9
Wed in Buda-Pest
Jon recovers, Mina seals
his journal with wax
Chapter 10
Helsing’s transfusions
fail what ails Lucy, safe in
garlands of garlic
Chapter 11
Madness on the prowl.
Wolf runs pell-mell, shatters calm.
Renfield shivs Seward.
Chapter 12
Mother’s dead, maids sauced.
Quincey rides in, but too late.
Goodbye sweet Lucy.
Chapter 13
Godalming seeks clues.
Mina reads Jon’s diary.
Children lost, then found.
Chapter 14
Bloofer Lady treds
Hampstead Heath; evil rises
upending virtue
Chapter 15
Lady is Lucy?
Seward denies, appalled, but
her tomb stands empty
Chapter 16
Four men bear grim task:
To free Lucy’s soul to God,
they must stake her heart
Chapter 17
Fifty earth-filled crates,
where Count now dwells, right next door
to tempting Mina
Chapter 18
Renfield receives guests
and asks for release. Denied.
Time to take on Drac.
Chapter 19
Dirt boxes missing.
Renfield spurns Helsing’s pleas, while
Drac stalks Mina’s dreams.
Chapter 20
Harker finds the crates.
Doc finds Renfield blue, burdened,
then later, bloodied.
Chapter 21
Alarmed, the men race
to see Drac drink Mina’s blood,
and she swallow his.
Chapter 22
Sacred wafers cleanse
Drac’s earth; ‘Unclean!’ cries Mina,
her forehead branded
Chapter 23
The men lose the Count,
but under trance, Mina spies
he fled to the sea
Chapter 24
Pledged to destroy Drac,
the men plot sans Mina, who
insists she join them
Chapter 25
Mina fears her fate:
Should she change, she makes them vow
to end her unlife.
Chapter 26
Race to the castle:
Drac leads, but hunters close in
by train, boat, and horse
Chapter 27
Jon and Quincey slash
Dracula, who dies; his face
held ‘a look of peace’
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