AIM FOR THE HEAD, an anthology of zombie poetry edited by Rob Sturma, offers a multitude on perspectives on the concept of zombie apocalypse, from the literal to the figurative kind. I’m not a big poetry fan but I really enjoyed many of the voices, some funny, some sad, some lonely. Here’s an excerpt from one poem, “The Shotgun Was Just a Misunderstanding” by Adrian Wyatt, about a needy woman expressing the love she feels for a zombie, whom she feels understands her:
My girlfriends won’t listen to me when I tell them
that you are not using me for my body.
When I said I thought I was fat?
You tore my thigh clean off the bone.
That was really romantic.
I’m sorry I screamed.
Twitching in an oozing heap
You garbled my rebellion with a kiss
so deep to my throat
it crushed my trachea with a wood-chipper hush.
Here’s a great short poem by John Andrews, “Leaving Ashlee”, in its entirety:
in another life
your stomach hangs
with weight from our children
we are slow dancing
the kitchen is on fire
we don’t turn
our heads
watch it burn
in this one
your stomach hangs
the weight of what could have been
I left you
on the front porch
shackled to a column
legs folded underneath
blood flowering out
your mouth
a hunger I could
never feed
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