Thursday, November 21, 2013

Zombie Gore Manifesto

Zombies are not desperate actors with hours of makeup applied to their faces and bodies. Zombies are not the creatures who run at you from across the television screen while your XBOX internet connection suddenly shorts out during a thunderstorm and you abandon your fellow survivors to the mercy of those creatures that are not zombies. Zombies are not a composite of seven million animated creatures climbing over a wall to get at Brad Pitt’s abs. Zombies are not shouting “trick or treat” outside your door. Zombies do not organize parades and march down the streets of major metropolitan cities. The word “zombie” is not a metaphor or an adjective.


We are surrounded by brick and grafitti, the tombstones
epitaphs of prophets, red and yellow cursive
shapes the cool air, autumnal, worthy of killing trees
freezing earth, fingers
can soften the ground from which nothing will grow
for months. Feet drag shapes across 
sodden hills, the sun is vain
vines vomited upon the brick
tree branches spilling from shattered windows

Zombies are not sleeping beneath the ground.

Hundreds of people want to gather for the convention,
but they don’t know what they want
they don’t know why they walk
they don’t know
cold brick from leaf piles
LEPER CANDLE from VILLAINOUS
Latin from Martian
they want to gather for the convention
pushing into each other, oozing through the cracks 
that border rifts of space.

Zombies do not feel inclined to run. Zombies do not feel inclined to feel inclined. Zombies do not incline. Zombies are not hungry.

Their feet slap the pavement
boots scuff
cement has been ruined by this crowd
weeds growing through cracks are trampled
if only we could escape from the brick 
into the sky
glass has fallen like snow upon this plane



Zombies do not make a sound when they plunge their fingernails into your eye sockets and peel back the flesh to expose what lies beneath the skull. Zombies do not moan or dream. Zombies do not plan to attack someone, and they have no desire to run, for they do not desire. They do not want.

The smell of a thousand garbage dumps rotting
a legion of flies has perished
the worms have starved themselves
the smell of vomit and feces in the sun
the smell of a thousand things 

Zombies do not taste when their teeth scratch across your flesh like the needle on a record player, grazing the surface and making an impression upon the object. Zombies do not acknowledge the blood that fills their mouths, nor do they stop to wipe their hands on their pants. Zombies cannot remember the names of dead presidents.

Colorless renditions of Van Gogh discoloration
gray and black and green
black and black and rot
fingernails curling over shriveling fingertips
these are the knifes that won’t let go
toothless gums in askew jaws

Zombies do not suffer pain when their jaws break upon your skull. Zombies do not stop rending your flesh when their mouths fail to encapsulate enough flesh to stuff their cheeks. Zombies do not carry sticks or learn how to talk on the phone.

Spiders roam over their skulls
leathery ropes once intestines
horror tropes once invested
sound like a rake combing the beach
dead worms dangling from open stomachs
leaking the blood and chunks
undigested man
undigested child
this is the waste they have left

Zombies do not die for they are already dead. Zombies do not eat because they are hungry. Zombies do not hunger for they are no longer aware. Zombies do not exist because they cannot acknowledge themselves. Zombies do not exist because there is nobody to acknowledge them.

“I think therefore I am”
We are enclosed in red brick
They have brought us the truth
and it is violence
icy conception of flesh and bone
the concrete is the color of blood
the caves of the first man were the color of blood
they were always here
pulling faces backward, inside out
swollen tongues expunged
carrying feces in their back pockets
a thousand variations of blank
and blue

Zombies do not care about the blood on their fingers. Zombies do not notice the rain or the snow. Zombies do not step back from flame. Zombies do not have a purpose. Zombies do not exist because they cannot be seen. Zombies do not exist because they have already ripped our hearts from our chests and shoved them down their throats, beating against thorax and vein. Zombies do not vomit your eyes into the sewers. Zombies do not know you have a name. Zombies do not have names.




This is the sewer where the rats
give praise to plague
shadows fade to gray
there is nothing here to eat
a button with a smiling monkey face
floats down the turgid river
but this we cannot see
for we are not here. 

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