Zombie Poets

They're not the Undead.
They're the Unread.

They stagger toward you
in cafes and bars,
carrying moist notebooks,
possibly wearing berets.

(Some of them were once
famous and popular. Old
anthologies muffle their
screams like thick
asylum-walls.)

They are all over
the Internet, the Unread.
("Eloise, why does he write
'they" and not 'we'?")

So much writing, so
little reading. They occupy
the night. They read poems
outside closed libraries.

They get high, the Unread,
and they behave badly in hopes
of becoming the next Bukowski.

In your nightmare,
they smother you with thousands
of saddle-stapled chapbooks
and eat from your refrigerator.
Cue ghostly music.. . . The Unread!



hans ostrom 2013

Not Afraid of Zombies

I'm not afraid
of no zombies.
They walk too slow.
I'm not afraid
of no werewolves.
They're dogs, you know.

The monsters
to keep an eye on
are the people
who seem okay.
They'll mess you up
every which damn way.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

Zombie

(image: cover of Zombies album, from Decca Records)









Here's the first definition of "zombie" from the OED online:

1. In the West Indies and southern states of America, a soulless corpse said to have been revived by witchcraft; formerly, the name of a snake-deity in voodoo cults of or deriving from West Africa and Haiti.

1819 R. SOUTHEY Hist. Brazil III. xxxi. 24 Zombi, the title whereby he [chief of Brazilian natives] was called, is the name for the Deity, in the Angolan tongue... NZambi is the word for Deity.


The second definition, the figurative one referring to seemingly lifeless persons or Hollywood versions of zombies, is pegged to H.L. Mencken in 1936, when he complained in print that the only roles Hollywood had for non-Caucasian actors were for "zombies." Things have certainly improved for Black, women, Asian-American ( et al.) actors--but how much?

But I digress, as almost always.

Quarter to Five

He works as a zombie from 9 to 5. He climbs
into a catatonic state and performs duties
as are assigned to him. He's under the spell
of employment. (It could be worse.) His
co-worker, Barton, said, "You scare me.
You look like the living dead." "Don't worry,"
he said, "I'm just behaving professionally. After
work I become vibrant and garrulous."
"But I don't get it," Barton said, "--what
job-title around here requires a person
to behave like a zombie?" "In my particular
case," said the man, "it's Chief Deputy for
Zombic Affairs." "And what is it exactly
you do?" asked Barton. "Barton," he said,
"you don't want to know." With his blank,
unnerving, but professionally appropriate
affect, he resumed his duties, for the clock
read only quarter to five.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom