Zombie

Zombie - Hadara Bar-Nadav

A zombie is a head
with a hole in it.

Layers of plastic,
putty, and crust.

The mindless
must be sated.

Mottled men who will
always return

          mouthing wet                          
          promises.                                  

You rise already
harmed and follow

          my sad circle

as if dancing
on shattered legs.

Shoeless, toeless,
such tender absences.

You come to me
ripped

          in linens and reds,

eternal, autumnal
with rust and wonder.

My servant, sublimate
and I am yours

(the hot death
we would give each other).

My dark ardor,
my dark augur.

Love to the very open-
mouthed end.

We are made of
so much hunger.

Black Cat

Are you superstitious of black cats? ?


Black Cat - Rainer Maria Rilke

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

Ghosts

It's Halloween soon, which means some spooky poetry is called for!




Unbidden - Rae Armantrout

The ghost swarm.
They speak as one 
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something
undone. 

*

Did the palo verde
blush yellow
all at once?

Today's edges
are so sharp

they might cut
anything that moved. 

*

They way a lost 
word

will come back
unbidden.

You're not interested
in it now,

only 
in knowing
where it's been.