great literature: the zombie collection

i promised to post this a while back, and i kept forgetting.  i should have done it during the halloween season, but i was busy with... yanno.  halloween-type stuff.

a few years ago, i took a creative writing class.  most of the creative writing was poetry, and my professor wouldn't let us write any free verse.  everything we wrote had to be in a form.  at first, i grumbled a lot about it.  then i started to love it.

for some reason, i got this idea in my head that it would be cool to write strict form poetry with zombies as the subject matter.  it was kind of a geeky joke, writing structured poetry about something that was falling apart.  hurr hurr.  (yeah, i'm a geek.)  i only wrote eight of them that i really liked, so i am presenting them here.  don't steal them, or i will turn you into a zombie, okay?  okay.





Bloodless

My flesh is ice. My nerves are dumb, cold, dead,
useless without the sense they used to know
when my heart sent out blood, vibrant and red.
Now it is still. My limbs are white as stone,

useless without the sense they used to know.
Breathe on the coals. Coax out the red of life.
I lie here, still, my lips as white as stone.
Please, make me feel. Please bring me back to life.

Breathe on the coals. Coax out the red of life.
I lie here, still, my body white as stone.
Please, make me feel. Please bring me back to life.
I’m useless without the life I used to know.

 __

Academic Scavenger

Hold still. Let me pick your brain.
The less you fight, the less pain
you’ll feel when I put my name
on your ideas. It’s the same
as saying them yourself. Same,
except I get all the fame
and all the good quotes. Hold still.
It’ll fill back up again.

__

Embalmed

I died,
but I still breathe.
In. Out. I look almost
like myself. Thinner and paler.
Strung out.

Zombie.
That’s what I am
now. Somewhere between dead
and alive, living to shoot up
again.

Zombie.
I drained my life
away with a syringe
and filled my veins with something else.
And died.

__

Voodoo Widow

Tonight, I’ll wear the dress with poison mixed in with the silk—
The red one with the neckline that will make the men go blind
And the women choke on envy like unnoticed chicken bones.

Tonight, I’ll paint my face to make me look like I’m alive—
Red lips and cheeks and black seduction painted on my eyes.
If you look close, you can almost see the life that isn’t there.

Tonight, I’ll prowl my favorite haunts and find a new High Priest.
I’ll feed on green and credit and lick my lips for diamond rings.
And when my hunger’s quelled, I’ll leave him drained and find the next.

__

Patchwork Girl

She finds
the pieces that have
died and fallen away.
She gathers them all together
and sews

herself
back into the
shape of a normal girl—
mostly whole, held together with
thin threads.

A piece
is missing here
and there, but if you squint
and tip your head, she almost looks
complete.

__

Patriot

He tries to smile. He lets them tell
him how good he looks now, how well
he’s doing. He can’t hear. Can’t smell
the flowers that they bring. The smell
of gunpowder, the sound of well-
hidden land mines exploding still
fill his brain. So do the nightmares—
those snares that drag him back to Hell.

__

Victor

He wonders why nobody’s even noticed that
they haven’t even seen him smile since he came back.
Since part of him came home.

He wonders why they all pretend his leg’s still there,
and that he doesn’t wake up screaming every night,
discovering it’s gone.

He wonders why they wouldn’t sew his leg back on.
They told him it was dead. That didn’t matter, though.
So was the rest of him.

He wonders if they smell the rot inside of him—
the stuff that died inside while he still walked and talked
and tried to save the world.