Bow me down to you
Bend my legs beneath me
Pull my head to the floor.

I have lower status than you.

Or so I chose.

Pull my hands out in front of me
Position me just right
Just how you want me.
Want me.

Claudia Lake

July 20, 2003 (Jascha Hoffman / The Boston Globe) - When a Strigoi starts sucking the life force out of its surviving loved ones, the Romanian folk cure involves digging up its corpse, mutilating and burning it. New Englanders have dealt with their own parasitic undead in much the same way, claims the Rhode Island folklorist Michael E. Bell in "Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires" (2001).

September 25, 2007 (AP / Alina Wolfe Murray) -- The Transylvanian fortress commonly known as Dracula's Castle was illegally returned to an heir of Romania's royal family, the country's parliament ruled Tuesday. In a vote, the legislators said the restitution was illegal because of procedural errors and called on authorities to launch an investigation.

A collection of poetry and prose submitted to VO in 1996.

"Budapest seems a wonderful place... The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East." So begins Bram Stoker's Dracula, written in a time when the city was seen as Europe's final frontier. Today, Budapest is rather more familiar (it joined the EU in 2004) - although it has lost none of its original appeal.