Zombie (?) Poems (Not Pics)
The Zombies That Come After Me
The zombies that come after me
shoot my errors from their eyes;
they aim them with their tautest bows,
my head their bestest prize.
I stoop below each window sill
flatten to the floor,
but these errors once unloosed
aren’t blocked by any door.
The zombies ride upon their shafts
feeling up the fletching–
those feathers lofted by my faults
that carry darts so wretched.
The zombies laugh to see me hurt–
how I, wounded, ache and squirm,
for those errors once they hit their mark,
will not stop their harm.
********************************
Here’s another poem for Izzy Gruye’s out of standard prompt on With Real Toads about zombies coming back. (And here’s another rather silly, i.e. more humorous, one below.) The pics (mine) are from Recoleta – a cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Taking Issue With Those Down on the Dead
Some think the dead are self-centered. Try,
they point out, getting one to return your call.
You give them a nudge, they turn a blind eye.
Gone to ground, and yet they cast a pall
on your merriment without even
bothering to rain on your parade.
But then come those hours with no reprieve, when
every self-reflection serves as spade
digging at you, a dull, sharp-edged, mirror
in which you see yourself as grey and clodded.
Then, I tell the doubters, when life abhors
you, the loving dead will sometimes come unplotted–
“Courage,” they say, in the French way–strange because
they never affected the Gallic
in their lives, but now they’re all accent grave,
(and because you see that there’s no malice
in their moues, you forgive them this artifice–)
for the truth is they are truly on your side,
and they prise from your open-mouthed surprise
much that you can’t swallow–the hurt, the pride,
your defects both general and particulate.
Yes, their misting about your neck brings fear,
but even that gripped alarm’s a benefit–
as you whisper back–not now, not here.
************************
Agh-just looked back at this and my computer had automatically changed clodded to clouded and then to clotted!
Thanks, thanks for reading–if you get a chance–please check out my book, Nice, and other books.
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: appreciating the dead who've taken on a grave accent, errors at my head poem, manicddaily, who's the zombie here, Zombiefied poems
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
ManicDDaily 
October 16, 2014 at 8:50 am
“Then, I tell the doubters, when life abhors
you, the loving dead will sometimes come unplotted–” genius line–all the wordplays just subtle and masterful both, living/loving, unplotted(!) and there are many such lines here in both poems. I tend to like the second best–it has so many artful ploys to entertain, and they are all apt, but I suspect the first is so much closer to home that I don’t want to embrace it with the same fervor…or fever, to bring in a little contemporary angst. The poison arrows fly–graceful, made from living feathers, turned into(as all arrows are) instruments of death, on whatever level. Just fine writing, k, especially for someone who just isn’t that into zombies. ;_)
October 16, 2014 at 9:27 am
Thanks–the second–the funnier one–was truly the first, and I was pleased with it because I wrote it in my head while walking a fairly long walk back to where I am staying and managed to remember a fair amount of it. (That feels like a real achievement these days–although there was a bunch I couldn’t come up with – and I may not have had it “written” out so clearly either as it felt in the dark next to Central Park–I think the head version was a sonnet, but I just couldn’t squeeze it down.
The “first” written in the middle of the night trying to channel a panic attack, so at the time, it felt more intense, and has some weird nod to Dickinson that I like, but, I agree that the other is much more entertaining, and certainly more crafted.
I find increasingly that I really like to write things in my head when I am walking around but it is hard to have a paper and pen always and I don’t really like to try to use the phone for something like that; anyway, it may be a good test if I can get it to stay in my memory somewhat.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:50 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
>
October 16, 2014 at 5:05 pm
Wooooooooo…Hallowe’en is coming… 😉
October 16, 2014 at 5:30 pm
the second one takes the cake k…really some great lines and opens with an interesting proposition on being down on or speaking ill of the dead and their inability to answer….
October 17, 2014 at 12:45 am
that 2nd one is truly artful, k (the first is fun as well) ~