The Hole In My Head

The summer rain leaks into my brain
through a hole made long ago by a mad surgeon.
They said he was a warlock,
and his associates were ghosts and vampires.
Somehow I came to him in a waking dream.
He told me I was mad, like himself,
and he let in through the hole in my head
a luminous liquid from the stars
and the living words of a rite older than time.
How can I free myself from this evil rain?
My God, my house has holes in the roof,
and vampire bats crawl out of them into the night.
In a moment, my body will evaporate,
and I will be both haunter and haunted.

Gary Crawford is the author of two books of poetry, Poems of the Divided Self and In Shadow Lands, and the short story collection Gothic Fevers. I have published works of literary scholarship and criticism, such as Ramsey Campbell, J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography, and Robert Aickman: An Introduction. He is also the founder and editor of Gothic Press (http://www.gothicpress.com/.)

Find more by Gary William Crawford in the Author Index.

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