NOC Poetry: “Blade, The Daywalker”

Last year, my friend and mentor, the poet Tim Seibles, was a finalist for a National Book Award in poetry for the book Fast Animal.

In the book, Tim writes a series of poems from the perspective of Blade, the Marvel Comics vampire hunter made famous by a series of movies starring Wesley Snipes.

For Lit Week, I asked Tim if we could publish one of the “Blade” poems here on The Nerds of Color. After the jump, you’ll find the first poem in the book’s series of five. The other poems are titled “Blade, Historical,” “Blade, Unplugged,” “Blade, Unsympathetic,” and “Blade, Epiphany.” So, if you haven’t already, go out and get a copy of Fast Animal right now — and hell, all of Tim’s other books of poetry. You won’t be sorry.

Years ago, a pregnant woman was bitten by a vampire
and turned. Her son was born with the thirst
but, being half human, he could walk in sunlight
unharmed. Though vampires quietly dominate the
world, he fights them—in part to prove his allegiance
to humanity, in part to avenge his long isolation, being
neither human, nor vampire. Because of his deadly
expertise and weapon of choice, they call him:

BLADE, THE DAYWALKER

Like a stake
in my heart: this life—

the seen,
the unseen—the ones

who look in the mirror
and find nothing

but innocence     though they stand
in blood up to their knees.

You see them:  shadows
not shadows, people who seem

to be people, You don’t
believe me? I watch

their news, drink coffee
in their chains.

There’s no place
they haven’t touched:

it’s almost like I can’t
wake up, like I’m living

in a movie, a kind of dream:
action-packed thriller.

I never
dreamed this

hunger in my veins, this
mind that cannot sleep: why

do I whet this blade,
when they will not die.