Dracula Versified

Here is the doggerel (BAD doggerel! Whack!) that won the 1996 Golden Fang for Best Poetry, And Third Prize in the Count's Creative Writing Contest, Amateur Poetry Division, at Drac '97. Enjoy.

Dracula Versified
copyright 1997 by Anne Fraser

Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer
Travels Transylvania-bound abroad,
To visit Count Dracula (a boyar)
And on him Carfax Abbey to unload.

Peasants warn off our hero visiting
This foreign country most spectacular.
Harker fails to see sign "no soliciting"
And walks right into Castle Dracula.

Surprise! Old Drac's thirsty for blood,
Wants to sample hot English fare
He locks up our hero (who's a bit of a dud)
And merrily sails off on the Demeter.

Next door to the Abbey, now sold to Vlad
Is the local nuthouse and emporium.
Dr. John Seward is really quite glad
He's got Renfield locked in his sanatorium.

As if this wasn't enough, into this brew
We add lovely Miss Lucy, the dear friend
Of Mina (Jon's fiancee), so of girls we have two
Though one doesn't make it through to the end.

But wait, there's more actors in this scene:
Quincey, Arthur, Bersicker (a wolf), Mr. Swales,
Lucy's mother; and in an act that's quite mean,
The Demeter crew--drained over the miles.

Dr. Seward, however, though strange is quite handy,
His old prof is an expert on marks on the neck.
Van Helsing arrives on the scene and he
Vows to stake our friend Dracula, by heck.

Poor Lucy dies, though they tried to stop it.
She starts noshing down on tykes in the park.
Hunters take her poor little head and they chop it
Off, so she won't go bloof in the dark.

When Drac then starts on Mina to prey,
Van Helsing & Co. go after the Count.
That wuss Harker finds his hair has gone grey
As still the bodies continue to mount.

Van Helsing & Seward join in the game,
Smashing coffins and spreading their wares
Of holy wafers and things more profane
Like garlic, stakes, guns, and cold stares.

Deciding that he's had enough of this hassle
The Count looks for a new vocation.
He does a debunk back home to his castle,
But hypnotized Mina lets slip his location.

Van Helsing's deadlier than his fangy foe:
And stakes the Count's brides three in their turn.
And Mina discovers, to her immense woe
That communion wafers really do burn.

Rafting down the river comes the undead
Like a coffin-bound Huck Finn.
Harker, Quincey, Van Helsing et al spread
The word that they'll do him in.

Even though he's long dead, our Drac loves life.
He does not go gentle into that good night.
Though finally done in by spade and knife
The Count doesn't go without a good fight.

Then Quincey dies, adding to the general grue;
As the story ends on a note quite spectacular.
If none of this sounds familiar then rue
The fact that you haven't read Dracula .