Monday, February 21, 2011

Formal Zombie Poetry

Neil Gaiman recently tweeted that "There is not enough Formal Zombie Poetry." So here's one I wrote about a month ago. Sent it to the letter column in The Walking Dead comics, but I don't know if they've even looked at it:

Outside, Looking In
Not hunger, quite; but want no feast can sate
We who are dead so yearn for what we’ve missed
To taste, to feel, to fill the hollowness with weight
We’re pulled, and by your gravity we’re kissed

I call it love, this ache to join your life
With us, diffusing warmth throughout our chill
We see your eyes, haunted by some grief
And only wish your heartache to be still

And though you shoot us down, yet still we come,
Again, again, we die and resurrect
But never do we sink so fully numb
To fail to feel the pain of your neglect

One day, I will break bread with you, my friend
We cannot lose, we cannot win, in the end

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Well, it amused me to write a pretentious, formal Elizabethan sonnet from the point of view of a mindless zombie. And yes, the slightly "off" meter was intentional (it is a lurching zombie, after all).

And, as a bonus, here's a formal alien invader/delusional serial-killer poem:

My Secret
I hide my real skin inside a cask
Of nutrients, recording what I see
for those above. To implement my task,
I've learned to mimic well humanity.

By day I show my mask, and play my role.
At night, alone, I wear the patchwork flesh
And dream of specimens in my control
Probed within a cold containment mesh.

And now you've found the cask, and seen me dressed
In my own skin, as I am, not as I seem.
And though you say you're glad that I've confessed,
Your eyes betray a stifled urge to scream.

This private shame, which was but mine to keep
Has fouled your mind; so, slicing in, I weep.