Night of the Walking Dead

~ Paul Szlosek

Happy All Hallows’ Eve, everyone!

I was trying to find something appropriate to post today on this spooky holiday, and figured the following poem might just fit the bill. It originally appeared in We Are Beat: The National Beat Poetry Festival Anthology published last year, and I am planning to include it in a manuscript of my collected poetry I’m currently working on compiling tentatively entitled Pretense & Portents. I hope you enjoy it!

Night of the Walking Dead

No matter what George Romero or AMC
Might have led us to believe, if the Dead,
One night, should ever rise en mass from their graves,
It won’t be because they developed
A sudden hankering for the taste of human flesh.
Rather, so sick of being still for so long,
They’d simply wish to practice the advice
Of their general practitioners postmortem,
Stretch their legs and get a bit of exercise.

And who among us would not care to join
Them on their nocturnal rambles, as they shuffle
Down streets, amble across the countryside?
The dead would be ideal walking companions,
Silent, never interrupting our stroll,
With inane conversation, complaints
That their feet are killing them.

Yet where would we go,
What routes would they travel?
Would they seek out the familiar,
Retrace the steps of their former existence,
Slog through the old stomping grounds,
Past the corner stores, the bars, the offices,
The homes they once adored or dreaded returning to?

Or trek boldly into Robert Frost territory,
Saunter down the roads not taken in Life,
Proving Curiosity did not kill the cat, but resurrected it?

But no matter. Any ambulatory adventures with the Dead
Can only end one way. As much as we try,
The Living can not keep up. Someone is always dying.
The Dead stride forward. We falter and fall behind
Until they are a speck on the horizon, passing
From our vision as they once did from our lives.

—Paul Szlosek (originally published in We Are Beat: The National Beat Poetry Festival Anthology)

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Published by Paul Szlosek

Paul Szlosek was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, but currently resides in the nearby metropolis of Worcester. He was co-founder and host of the long-running Poet’s Parlor poetry reading in Southbridge and Sturbridge, as well as a past recipient of the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry. His poems have appeared in various local publications including the Worcester Review, Worcester Magazine, Sahara, Concrete Wolf, and Diner. He’s probably best known in the Worcester poetry community for his fanatical obsession with obscure poetry forms, and has invented his own including the ziggurat, the streetbeatina, and (most recently) the hodgenelle.

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