{"id":2141,"date":"2016-03-14T11:31:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T16:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2016-03-14T11:38:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T16:38:03","slug":"poem-zombie-apocalypse-carry-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/14\/poem-zombie-apocalypse-carry-on\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Zombie Apocalypse — Carry On"},"content":{"rendered":"

In habiting<\/strong>
\nThat thin lyin’<\/strong>
\nBetween living and undead<\/strong>
\nPray and prey<\/strong>
\nPlodding for survival so chaste<\/strong>
\nEerie reverence<\/strong>
\nFor awe virtually unmoving<\/strong>
\nThey’ve got<\/strong>
\nYou’re numb-er<\/strong>
\nToo many to re-pulse<\/strong>
\nTo take account of<\/strong>
\nDe-sending from cubicles and proto-calls<\/strong>
\nContracting art and sole<\/strong>
\nAs-certain<\/strong>
\nAs a ballad to ahead<\/strong>
\nOr souled heart for a song<\/strong>
\nForging for a meal ticket<\/strong>
\nHaving mist<\/strong>
\nThe notice<\/strong>
\nOf the zombie apocalypse<\/strong>
\nHaving all ready past buy<\/strong>
\nAs things sow sterilized<\/strong>
\nAnd humanity’s fate sown up<\/strong>
\nIn arms and sordid extremities<\/strong>
\nHave eaten<\/strong>
\nHalf alive<\/strong>
\nOnly too whither the storm<\/strong>
\nThe moot in one’s eye<\/strong>
\nOf learned haplessness<\/strong>
\nAnd ever abating brains<\/strong>
\nUntil getting the best of you<\/strong>
\nAs present itself<\/strong>
\nAs in genius solution<\/strong>
\nThe just<\/strong>
\nWalk away<\/strong>
\nHope realized as traveling light<\/strong>
\nAnd renouncing<\/strong>
\nCarrion<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a zombie apocalypse poem is particularly relevant for you on a Monday, then you may be suffering the blurring of your existence as living or undead.\u00a0 The popularity of zombies in current culture strikes me as an apropos metaphor for the deep and abiding alienation present in much of everyday life.\u00a0 Alienation is endemic in multiple spheres: alienation from our own humanity by being submersed in artificial and virtual realities; alienation from others by having life mediated by impersonal institutions and technologies; and alienation from nature and the natural world by working in cubicles, living in self-contained boxes, and traveling in mobile cages of steel, plastic, and rubber over rivers of petroleum byproducts.\u00a0 Zombies seem to be the incarnation of our collective ennui and existential angst over our preternatural penchant for mistaking motion for progress and our banal disability in distinguishing between any vital life force and inanimate matter.\u00a0 The titillating trepidation of slow, barely animated monsters overtaking us in our hurried existence\u00a0gives freakish flesh to our fears.\u00a0 The undead have some surreal power to overtake the caffeinated, if not sublimely discerning, protagonist humans slash food.\u00a0 Their sheer number or inexplicable relentless hunger — fed by their will to unlive? — overwhelms any resort to our keen or ken.\u00a0 We fatally mistake our presents as mere fuel or fodder saying chow to our humanity.\u00a0\u00a0 This helpless and hapless existence is, in fact, the fantasy, a projection of our fears, that inanimate forces haplessly set in motion are the ultimate arbiters of the human sphere.\u00a0 Without resort to stale arguments about free will, human freedom and the like, I will only say that if the posers of zombie powers that be come to my door, I intend to say “Eat me!”<\/p>\n

Carry on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In habiting That thin lyin’ Between living and undead Pray and prey Plodding for survival so chaste Eerie reverence For awe virtually unmoving They’ve got You’re numb-er Too many to re-pulse To take account of De-sending from cubicles and proto-calls … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,9,15],"tags":[775,624,360,294,516,411,462,178,338,115,485,431,388,305,620,676,612,359,379,110,114,491,585,616,524,531,340,67,380,670],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-top-pun","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-alienation","tag-apocalypse","tag-art","tag-awe","tag-culture","tag-existential","tag-fear","tag-food","tag-free-will","tag-freedom","tag-genius","tag-heart","tag-hope","tag-humanity","tag-impersonal","tag-incarnation","tag-institutions","tag-life","tag-nature","tag-power","tag-powers-that-be","tag-present","tag-progress","tag-projection","tag-reverence","tag-soul","tag-suffering","tag-surreal","tag-work","tag-zombie"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Zombie Apocalypse -- Carry On | About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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