Twenty-First Entry

So, my computer is dead, yes. But I ingeniously emailed myself all of this last year's work before it died! Go me! Sorry to the patrons of this computer lab, but I'll be doing a lot of printing.

P.S. i updated this on a mac and i don't know how to fix the size of it so sorry.


Here's my poem:

IN OUR ZOMBIE MOVIE

things happen in slo-mo
in our lavishly overgrown back lawn, medium to sunny.
The zombies sit cross-legged and slowly, patiently
teach us everything: pushing us to re-read Salinger,
to finally 'get' algebra as a perfect system.
It clicks.
We begin to see the applications in our everyday lives.

It's bearably cool outside, the zombies cook a good meal.
Sitting at a long table, we hear their elongated moans,
we feel this strange warmth of contentedness swell.
The zombies are strong believers in zen
even without its Buddhist context
to sit is to sit
to walk is to walk
we feel the sun in the afternoon

falling through the apple tree to mosaic on our shoulders.
With so much time to tend to ourselves, the zombies organize
all kinds of walking tours, filled with enlightened commentary
and good-natured dirty jokes.

We find all these old tapes in the neighbor's garage.
We all piss ourselves doing pompous David Bowie stage moves.
We all scream the chorus to 'Rio' but hum wordlessly to the verse.
We bump shoulders with the zombie with the sash in her hair.

Then sunning on the back porch
without a single thought in our heads
we suddenly become unhappy
we miss things we never had
and silently begin to wonder what might have been.

That night, resolved, we sneak away from home.
In black turtlenecks we sweat and silhouette against the moon,
scared, conspiring, we want only the strange quiet void of freedom,
not realizing we are leaving it behind,
we escape.

And in the windows of our childhood home the zombies moan.