Twitter says this is totally a thing: Zombie Poetry

Okay, so, Twitter says this is totally a thing- Zombie poetry. It was trending on the social networking site and one of the publishers I follow- I forget which, but I think it might have been Random House- was asking for suggestions of famous poems re-hashed for the zombie age. Which got me thinking, after firing off a couple of tweets in reply with off the cuff couplets. So.

Here are my first two offerings to the great altar of undead verse, not originals, but re-workings in the vein of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Sense & Sensibilities & Sea Monsters- Be glad your nose is on your face, adapted from the Jack Prelutsky poem of the same name, and Oh, Zombie on a dais, a riff on Shelley's Ozymandias. Feel free to read them, rip them apart with a couple of chainsaws strapped to a canoe paddle, and throw the offal-shaped criticism and opinion my way. Ta.


Oh, Zombie on a dais

I met a traveller from a city of war,
haunted by "two grey and lifeless legs of bone
and flesh standing guard. And on the floor,
half hid, a rotted head had rolled, whose smile
and lidded eyes revealed the beast it had been.
Frayed rope still round its neck from where it hung
as sentry, warning of horrors unforeseen
in the corpse-ridden, colossal urban wreck.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'I am a zombie on a dais,
look on my kind, ye living, and despair!'
Nothing moves for miles. Then, inside the haze
of smoke and fog, a roar. From what? And where?
Any man would have run, as I did, here."



Be glad your nose is on your face

Be glad your nose is on your face
not in some others' chewing place,
for if it were in such a maw
soon you would shout an undead roar.

Imagine being bit on it
or nipped upon the toe,
it matters not how small the bite,
it would still be a source of woe.

Your nose would be a source of dread,
were it to spray out drops of red
or black, and should your hair
begin to shed, then just despair.

A bite or sneeze can pass it on.
You'd feel quite ill, but not for long.
Quite soon you would just slip away-
what comes back then joins the free range buffet.

Your features should, through rain or shine,
be flawless, un-torn, all the time.
Don't rest, keep watch, don't even doze-
You'll die if they just nip your nose.