Tales of the Zombie War » Poetry

LITTLE SURFLE GRRRRRL by Helen R. Peterson

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:51:03 +0000

She rises early to scrub her flesh in brimstone

and ashes, waxes her board to surf the waves

of undead coming through the gate, their shoulders

bent at just the right angles. Her skin glows sulfur,

a bottle placed high on a blackened shelf, fallen

through the cracks between life and afterlife,

the miracle potion of a quack now dust beneath

the soles of an undead little girl.

QUARTERS by William D. Tripp

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:08:55 +0000

We move together in mass
Like preteen girls at a concert

held at the mall, the day before
the outbreak Now that music

with no elevator, is drowned out
by the masses, whose feet

drown out the screams. We move
separately together
All looking with no eyes

for the slow
tender
fat man

who smells of summertime
barbecue, and the woman

who is filled with tomato soup
and crackers We feed and drink

as the oblivious children play
in the arcade, with light guns

that will not save them.

THE END by Eileen Neary

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:33:56 +0000

Broken urban desert, stale, parched
Dusted and frosted with collapsing automobiles
Skeletal juices crunch and ooze underfoot
All is dead
And as I stumble past a window I see my blackened eyes
Dry lips, death-blown hair, empty gaze
And with each step another ravaged wound
My heart begins to sputter
And when my left arm goes I don’t feel a thing
because the horde has swallowed me
New York City couldn’t save me

ZOMBIE HAIKU by Joshua Gage

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:00:27 +0000

calliope whine
the clown’s greasepaint
smeared with blood

scabrous eyelids
the tips of her finger bones
beneath cracked nails

shoulder bitten
the burnt taste
of the rifle barrel

SOMALIA by Brian Rosenberger

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:39:48 +0000

This is Somalia, land of tradition

A cock crows
beginning the fast
from dawn to dusk
sins burned away
the living pray.

This is Somalia, land of corpses.

Vultures circle
the feast never ends
from now till forever
skin stripped from bone
the dead hunger.

This is Somalia.
Old traditions have fallen
There is no god but Allah…
replaced by
There is no god.

This is Somalia. This is hell.

END

—–

Brian Rosenberger was last seen in the company of Sushi, a featured dancer at Innsmouth’s infamous Thrills and Gills Gentleman’s Club. Recent publishing credits include Read by Dawn V. 3, Yellow Mama, Cemetery Moon, the 2008 Rhysling Anthology and Erotic Tales. Updates concerning his current whereabouts can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~brosenberger.

WINTER by Brian Rosenberger

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:53:03 +0000

They say Winter doesn’t forgive

Gospel, true as the grave is cold

But it does forget

Eyes snow blind with hope, believing

The lies told with frozen breath

A blizzard of desperation

Lies like everything is under control,

No cause for alarm, do not panic,

We are safe

False reality melts with

Spring time thaw

Truths now revealed

Their prisons of ice melted

Now rivers of freedom

The Dead of Winter

Resume their stunted march

Their frost bitten victims

The dead of Summer

If they survive that long

—–

Bio: Brian Rosenberger lives in the suburban wilds of Marietta, GA and is active in the Adopt-A-Bigfoot program, a volunteer organization concerned with the care and rescue of this unrecognized endangered species. Additional information about Brian and his other inhumanatarian efforts can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~brosenberger.

QUARANTINE by J. Michael

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:22:53 +0000

She knows the taste of nails,
a clutch of them in her mouth
like a dressmaker’s pins.
The flavor of iron is comforting,
something she can wield.
Something that will not decay.
She knows the weight
of a hammer, its friendly lever
the extension of her own bones,
its metal face, her fist.
She has plans for this.
She knows every centimeter
of the house, could walk it blindfolded
in the 3 a.m. dark and rearrange
the delicate teacups
on their petal-thin saucers.
Each whining floorboard, each notch
in each door. She knows the number
of cans stacked in silver towers,
each match and bullet.
She hides her life like a secret,
rolls it in her palms.
The burnt crevice that was the stoop,
the boards pounded in layers
as thick as a scab, the bolts and braces.
Her heartbeat is her treasure.
She knows each thud.

STATUES by J. Michael

admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:30:37 +0000

We first played this game as children
some three thousand miles south of here,
clattering out of screen porches
and down back steps onto cushioning grass.
Here my thick boots snap the snow like bone.
Freeze, somebody would yell, and we’d halt,
our traitorous hearts still pounding their drums.
There is no pulse on the tundra but mine.

Around me, the statues hold their poses,
breathless, dull-eyed, professionally mum;
better players than we could ever manage to be.
I wander among them like a museum visitor
with a sledgehammer. I am a leisurely vandal.
It is winter, the cold stretching solid as steel,
sunless sky exhaling a faint silver light.
It is beautiful. It takes no notice of us.

The statues catch the faint sheen of the stars.
They sprawl and balance, they kneel and crouch.
Freeze. It is my turn to be It. My eyes flick
side to side for the faintest stir. — Nothing.
I gaze at them like a connoisseur, finding
the twisted face of a Rodin, a driftwood skeleton;
here and there the lifelike curves of a Michelangelo.
Profiles I will leave in pieces on an empty gallery’s frozen floor.

A STOP ALONG THE POST-APOCALYPTIC TOUR by G. O. Clark

admin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:24:05 +0000

The cuckoo clock
has turned quite sinister
in the darkened parlour of
your ancestors,

that very same room
where in ornate frames
your nightmares linger atop
a keyless piano.

Outside, the lunatic
parade flows around the
tinted windows of an idling
black stretch limo,

chauffeur asleep at the
wheel, white as piano keys,
stiff as a wooden bird’s beak,
silent as a 4 AM closet.

When the clock
cuckoos your cue, and the
impatient horn begs departure,
you bag up your scars,

exchange bony hugs
all around, and slip out into
the zombie night, next gig,
the gallows stage.

G. O. Clark