If you haven't already figured it out, poetry for me is about imagery and sound. Vivid imagery is - in my mind - a hallmark of incredible poetry. And, forgive my mullet and the rock and roll devil horns, but some of the most incredible poetry ever written can be found in song lyrics. Now don't get me wrong, most pop music is - at its heart - soulless shit, and the lyrics reflect that. Sometimes it transcends the soullessness, but not often. However, other forms of music have had some of the most incredibly poetic writers imagineable... and they don't get the credit for it.
Jim Morrison, for instance. I'm not a huge Doors fan, but I appreciate Morrison's ability to write incredible lyrics. I didn't always feel this way. My friend Kristin gave me a book of his poetry some years back and it was incredible. I realized then that he was an artist. It gave me an appreciation for his music that I didn't previously have.
The list of musicians who are poets is exhaustive and I will not go into them, but I did want to post the lyrics to one of my favorite songs; Blood, Milk, & Sky by Rob Zombie.
Zombie's got some crazy lyrics and in most cases it's just a mish-mash of imagery with little sense... but this song is somehow different. I should add that I've mentioned this song before in my list of top twenty songs of all time. But I feel it necessary to show how the lyrics, even apart from the incredible music, stand up as poetry.
Take a look and you be the judge: Does this qualify as poetry? I think it does...
Blood,Milk, & Sky
The siren sings a Lonely song of all the Wants and hungers The lust of love a brute Desire - the ledge of life Goes under - divide the Dream into the flesh Kaleidoscope and - Candle eyes - empty Winds scrape on the Soul - but never stop To realize - Animal whisperings Intoxicate the night Hypnotize the deperate Slow motion light - wash Away into the rain Blood, milk and sky Hollow moons illuminate And beauty never dies Running wild running blind I breathe the body deep 1,000 years beside myself I do not sleep - seduce The world it never Screams dead water lies Ride the only one who Knows - beauty never dies
The following is one of my favorite poems by Charles Simic. It's a short little piece that pays homage to John Donne's early Sensuality poem, The Flea.
Whereas Donne's was rife with the wooing and imagery reflective of a much more romantic era... Simic's Love Flea has a darker slant to it. The imagery shows a level of obsession that borders on the creepy. What I especially love about Simic is that, even though he is not a native born English speaker, his poetry and language skills are better than people who've been speaking English for their entire lives.
And that's really sort of the crux of why I'm celebrating National Poetry Month. Our language and the expression of it are essential. I once read somewhere that the United States was the only country in the world where more than 50% of its students fail their own language.
That's shameful. And that's why I ask you to indulge my celebration of National Poetry month. I may be an English Lit and poetry dork, but I'm also dismayed at the lack of respect our own unique language and voice gets - even from those of us that grew up speaking and reading it.
Anyway...back to creepy, obsessive poems about fleas....
Love Flea
He took a flea From her armpit To keep
And cherish In a matchbox, Even pricking his finger
A week ago, on Facebook, there was a Literary Snob meme going around. My brother Curt said, under his favorite poem, that it was TS Eliot's Hollow Men. I had to laugh because Hollow Men is my favorite TS Eliot poem. In fact, when I was filling out the meme myself, I struggled between listing that as my favorite poem, or listing Shakespeare's Sonnet XVII.
I opted for the Sonnet, but it was a hard decision.
I love all of Eliot's work. Despite claims by the literati that his poetry was not, in fact, poetry... he helped define the modernist poetry movement in the first half of the 20th century.
And Hollow Men is quintessential Eliot. Given that it is a free form poem and there is no meter per se, the mere economy of his words and stanzas generate their own meter. And the meter moves and adjusts throughout.
There is also a darkness to this poem that appeals to me emotionally. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature and his detractors can say whatever they like... but in Doctor Z's book, T.S. Eliot is a genius.
Enjoy.
The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death’s dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind’s singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer In death’s dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer—
Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man’s hand Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this In death’s other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long
Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
I was excited to finally get a chance to see Fido. I had heard great things about it on the various horror sites I lurk about on on a daily basis.
This independent zombie film does not fail to deliver.
Directed and written by a relatively inexperienced team, this wonderful zomcomrom (zombie comedy/romance) hits all the right notes and, in addition to paying homage and respecting the genre's established conventions, it manages to add to the genre with a story line that is innovative and fresh.
The story takes place sometime in the late 1940's or early 1950's. It's after the war, but instead of having fought Germans, Italians, and the Japanese... mankind was pitted against hordes of the ravenous undead. This simple premise is what makes this film seem so absolutely brilliant. It still has America luxuriating in the blissful, innocent, post-war years that my father was born into. The "golly gee", Leave It To Beaver world where men wear chinos and work to provide a living. The women wear house gowns and wait for their men to return home, their makeup done and a pre-diner cocktail waiting for their man. And the kids dream of being cowboys and trade baseball cards while playing ball in the sandlot at the end of the street.
And Fido perfectly captures that nostalgic innocence beutifully, although there's now a darker side to it. Kids have shooting practice in their curriculum at school, learning to defend their families and selves with zombie killing headshots. The idyllic towns are surrounded by fences, behind which a wasteland crawling with the undead shamble about in search of warm, living flesh. As an added bonus...technology has now enabled the Zombie War survivors to even domesticate zombies with a special collar... turning them into the perfect, docile house servent.
And this is the crux of the story. The Robinsons are living the new American dream.. with ineffectual and zombie-traumatized dad (played by the always great character actor, Dylan Baker), neglected wife Helen (Carrie Ann Moss) and their son Timmy. Helen, tired of her husband's fear of zombies and wanting to 'keep up with the Joneses', orders their own zombie. Fido (played by Billy Connelly) arrives... and Fido becomes the dog that Timmy never had.
That is, until Fido's collar begins to malfunction.
The cinematography and visuals of this flick were absolutely incredible. The Director and DP did a fabulous job of capturing the look and feel of 1950's America. And then, there are scenes like the one where a recently zombified neighbor goes on the hunt. Beautifully rendered, the zombie stalks through the night against a backdrop of the moon which fills the screen.
There was little gore in the film, but what was done was done brilliantly. The costumes, the sets, the actors...everything was dead on.
The true standout performances though, go to lead zombie Fido and Carrie Anne Moss' Helen. Despite heavy zombie makeup that makes him near unrecognizable, and the limiting of his lines to zombie moans; Billy Connelly manages to express more emotion and pathos with just his expressions then Kevin Costner has done in ANY of his movies. Carrie Anne Moss, who I've wanted desperately since The Matrix, furthers adds to my unrequited love and sexual frustration by appealing to my 1950's pinup girl fetish.
The other characters are interesting and comic in their own right. There's the Robinson's neighbor, Mr. Theopolis (played brilliantly by Tim Blake Nelson) and his ucloseness and unexplainedly unnatural relationship to his zombie, Tammy. Then we have the villain, Special agent Bottoms, played by the excellent Henry Czerny. All of the characters are written well and the actors breathed life into the script.
Quite simply, this is one of the best zombie movies to come out in a long time.
And, I think what works so well is it's retelling of history. It makes a zombie war... and the time period in which it happens... seem believable. Recently, many of the zombie and horror sites have been excited about a novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith. It's a retelling of Jane Austen's literary classic, Pride and Prejudice, but only with zombies.
I think this, and Fido, are an incredible idea. The zombie genre has become stale and something of a cliche; and historic reworkings are breathing new life into my beloved genre. And Doctor Zombie couldn 't be happier.
So - Fido. This is a must see. That is all!
Doctor Zombie's Rating: 5 Out of 5 Chomped Brains!!! P.S - Mmmm.... Carrie Ann Moss...
So, as promised... I led off National Poetry Month with one of my favorite Sylvia Plath poems, and now it's time to share some of my own humble work. And by humble, I mean shitty, trite, childish, and really really really bad!
This is one I wrote and had published somewhere or other. I believe it was online and the site is no longer around - which could mean one of two things. A) They were less concerned with paying the bills as they were with publishing poetry, or B) I'm the Ted McGinley of poetry and, if you're publishing a poem by Dr. Zombie, you'd best get ready to start bailing because your boat's a-sinking!!!
Anyway, the poem below's a short piece I wrote when I was in college and - truth be told - I still kind of like the imagery in it. Especially the juxtaposition of the imagery in the context of sound.
It's one of the few poems I wrote that I actually like... so take that for what it's worth. Either way, I still suck at poetry....
Parade of Souls
Wispy ghosts dancing in the empty streets between the silent buildings and under the smiley moon and flickering street lamps
They pass soundlessly through the stillness and move on through the night leaving only their tattered shrouds and the endless roar of silence.
I have no idea what it's about, it was mostly just an experiment in imagery.
So... feel free to look at it and comment away. Don't be shy... and don't worry about my feelings. Part of being an amoral sociopath means I can't be hurt by criticism... which is cool, right?
Watch for my next post where I'll share one of my favorite TS Eliot poems.
I think it's wonderful that we celebrate poetry, although I will admit that - while I am reasonably proficient at prose - I actually suck at writing poetry. Which is funny because I have a deep and abiding love for the form and frequently read and enjoy it.
That being said, I will be celebrating National Poetry Month here in Doctor Zombie's Midnight Theater of Terror. Whether it's the English major/dork in me, or my unfathomable need to fill my life with pain and embarrassment, I will spend this month sharing some of my favorite poets and poetry -- as well as some of my OWN... as painful as that's going to be.
Call it the attention whore in me.
Look at this way, I will also be commenting and mercilessly ridiculing my own horrible attempts at poetry -- and encourage you to do the same! Nothing like a little blood sport to make one appreciate the masters, huh?
So... to kick off National Poetry Month, I figured I'd go with one of my favorite poets, Sylvia Plath. I'm also doing this because I just read that, a few days ago, her own son killed himself. Is there such a thing as a suicide gene?
This poem, by the way, is the last one she wrote before taking her own life. In essence, she wrote her own eulogy.
Edge
The woman is perfected Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare
Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty She has folded
Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.
So I’ve been criminally negligent in my posting lately. I’ve lots of stuff going on, and I’ve, quite frankly, been neglecting my blog for the evil that is Facebook. Add to that the fact that I’m working two jobs, busting my ass trying to get agents and editors to pick up my newest novel - A Darkness Within, and I’ve also been dealing with some medical stuff that is directly related to the fact that I’m a fat ass… and I haven’t had the time or energy to devote to this like I should.
So I’m going to try to be better about updating, I promise! In fact, I’ve got three or four movie reviews that I need to write up and post, as well as today’s post with the metric fuckton of links I’ve found over the last few weeks. Be patient with the good Doctor, dear reader, I promise I’ll continue to write and post because - really - I’m an attention whore and, if I don’t write, I’ll lose my mind and actually start listening to the screaming voices in my head. When that happens, it’s only a matter of time before I show up at someone’s door with a bag full of sharp and pointy medical instruments.
And none of us want that, do we?
So, on to the links…
I’ve said it countless times, but I get the sense that some of you still aren’t listening. I am a huge geek. I’m an alpha geek. When speaking of myself, I should put GEEK in all caps! Don’t believe me? Let me prove it. I’ve become a huge follower of this site and/or blog. That’s right, I’ve been following the exploits of Wil Wheaton. Now I know what some of you are saying. You’re saying, “WHAT?!? Wesley Crusher? I HATE that dude!” And believe me when I say I was right there with you at one time. The thing is, as I get older, I realize that the cat was just doing a job and wasn’t writing all the scripts. I like reading about his life post ST:TNG because he, like the good Doctor Zombie, is honest and unabashed in his self-proclaimed geekishness. So there. I’ve said it. I dig Wil Wheaton. In fact, I’d totally hang out with him. I’d buy him beer and we’d split the case, and we’d get drunk discussing the efficiency of warp nacelles and whether or not he ever saw Marina Sirtis naked. Wil Wheaton rocks!
My regular readers should know some other basic truths about me from my blog. They should know I’m a geek of epic proportions, they should know that I have an unnatural and decidedly creepy fascination with horror movies, and they would also tell you that I love stories about cannibalism and necrophilia. I don’t know why I’m fascinated with these stories, but I am. Maybe it’s my inability to wrap my undead head around how absolutely fucked up one has to be to sink to such unplumbed depths of depravity. I don’t know why, but I’m fascinated. That being said, this story is a testament to how weird, bizarre, and twisted human beings can get. And… for extra cool bonus points, this took place in Doctor Zombie’s state of Ohio, down in Cincinnati. As an aside on this… part of my duties at my part time security job at the local hospital is to pick up the bodies of people who’ve died and transport them to the morgue. I check in the bodies, move them around, occasionally help the coroner or the Eye Bank people prepare them, and even bag them when the nurse’s are being lazy. I can say, without equivocation, that the smells, sights, and sounds (yes, SOUNDS) one deals with when handling the deceased are not in ANY WAY sexually arousing. That this dude did this is seriously deranged and disgusting. Deranged, disgusting, and fascinating because of how creepy it is.
I’ve seen these before, but these crazy perspective chalk drawings never cease to amaze. The ones in this article are way cool, especially because they have a post apocalyptic feel to them. One thing I can say is that, while the good Doctor is an incredible writer, I do wish that I had some artistic talent. I seriously have trouble drawing a straight line to make a stick figure. I’ve always been in awe of people who could do things like this. What’s worse is that I friends who are artists of this caliber. And I love them as friends, but hate them because of their talent and ability. It is a hate borne out of envy. Is that wrong?
This story is a few weeks old, but I find it fascinating on a lot of different levels. An excavation of a plague grave in Italy has unearthed evidence of a vampire.
All right, it wasn’t a vampire, but it was what the superstitious, medieval gravediggers of the time did with what they thought was a vampire. I love this sort of story, and there’s an even cooler link attached to it with pictures of the actual grave. Which brought up an interesting question to me; namely, is excavating plague graves safe? I remember when Mrs. Zombie and I went on our honeymoon to London, we visited Greenwich where there is a big open field outside of the Greenwich Observatory named Black Heath. It’s a lovely park where families were having picnics, kids were playing, people were jogging, and it was being enjoyed by all. The thing is, I later found out that it’s a big, undeveloped park and called Black Heath because, back in medieval times, it was actually where London buried the bodies of victims of the Black Death. It was undeveloped because there was a risk of re-releasing the plague. Cool story, huh? Apparently, it’s untrue… but I find it deliciously chilling to think that an errant bulldozer and a misread work order could unleash a new onslaught of Yersinia Pestis on an unsuspecting world.
I can watch this GIF for hours. This is what happens when Millenials do too many bong hits and decide to do something cool and EXTREME; when, in fact, it will almost surely result in an epic fail. Idiots.
This LiveJournal entry has created quite a bit of discussion over at Zombie Squad, and I had to link to it. Fair warning before you click it, though… this is, quite possibly, the worst fantasy novel EVER. If you are easily offended by horrible writing, save yourself a click. Seriously. What cracks me up is that it is like a description of a woman by a fantasy gamer/LARP’er who’s never ventured out of the womblike safety of Mom’s basement and laid eyes on a real girl. It’s like this scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where Steve Carrell tries to describe the feel of breasts, having never felt them.
Finally, I’ve two links to the British press. I’m not really sure how I feel about the British press at times. They don’t have the standards we do, and can sometimes print outright bullshit with no care for the consequences. It’s yellow journalism at its worst, and I hate them for it. But then, there’s the snarky, sarcastic side of their reporting. I love this dearly and it’s what keeps pulling me back to The Sun and The UK Daily Mail. Nobody does snarky better than the Brits, and this article about President Obama’s visit to the UK for the G20 meeting was fucking brilliant and wholly unlike anything you’d read here in the US… even in the tabloids. The only place you can read this sort of cattiness is in the blogosphere, but even that douchebag Perez Hilton doesn’t do it as well or as well written.
The second link is to a trailer of the new Sasha Baron Cohen movie, Bruno. I’ve got to say, this cat’s a genius. He’s actually managed to out Andy Kaufman Andy Kaufman and taken this particular brand of humor and art to levels never before seen. This movie looks fucking hilarious and I’m looking forward to it.
That’s all for now, dear readers; unpleasant dreams!
