poet: rigor mortis, zombies, & dehumanization

after Night of the Living Dead (1968), 1:34:35, directed by George A. Romero and in response to the rise of zombie films

it ends with a bullet to the head
or a sickle machete spiked bat
any dead-em will do

livor mortis rigor mortis algor mortis
body cools blood stains the skin fixed in its timelessness
days it takes to blacken
first the extending green divines rotting flesh
some gods blue & some gods kelp
purple bruise & then black
that’s real

only movies go bite + time = skin slip & black blood spurt

in truth
eyes protrude & challenge tongue
intestines reveal their tangle
push through vagina & rectum

black people have no futures
in sci-fi or horror

white man apocalypse :
whiteness grays & turns black
dark skin lost earth crow black eyes or embalmed roll-white

we always die first in the movies
when death leads to
black behind boards

how dare those zombies crave
beasts
everyone needs a cure

it all ends with a bullet
& a bonfire
zombies aren’t human

drag that out of here

i keep searching my head for holes
practicing, stop. don’t shoot. i’m alive.

Image Credits: Flickr: killaee

Raina J. León

Dr. Raina J. León, CantoMundo fellow, Cave Canem graduate fellow (2006) and member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, has been published in numerous journals as a writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, and sombra : (dis)locate. She has received numerous fellowships and residencies including the Macdowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of LatinX arts. She is an associate professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California and a board member of ARISE High School in Oakland.