Knaw on a brain and write some Zombie Haiku

Zombie Haiku
Brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ...
Brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brai--
Ooo, look, a kitty!

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

When in doubt, zombies make great topics for haiku. They embrace our fear of death, our love of the macabre, and our sense of humor. Zombie haiku have a rich history, as odd as that sounds, by other famous poets:

Back to the buffet
for second helpings-
Care for a rump of infant?

- Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate

Wake up to the sound
Of puppies being eaten
No more chewed slippers

- Gail Simone, author of Wonder Woman and Secret Six

Will this barricade
Keep the walking dead at bay?
Only time will tell...

- Scott Kenemore, author of "Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through The Undead"

If zombies smoked pot
maybe they would skip the brains
and settle for cake.

- Doug Benson, writer and comedian regularly seen on Best Week Ever

Zombie Love Song
You are my desire.
Eating your luscious love thoughts
My Junk Just Dropped Off

- Christopher Moore, author of You Suck: A Love Story

Veins and brains are tough
Stringy bits catch in my teeth
Chew well, then swallow

- Jeff Mariotte, author of River Runs Red

Brain famine. Eat cold
porridge, rotten possum, wet
lint. Wolves. Ashes. Gray things.

- Andrew Hudgins, author of After the Lost War and Shut Up You're Fine: Instructive Poetry for Very Very, Bad Children

The day I died you
tried to put a bullet in
my head. You missed. Lunch!

- David Wellington, author of the Monster Island: A Zombie Novel

Brain-eating monsters
Make disappointing lovers
Because of the fear

- Michael Ian Black, comedian and writer of My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face

After the Zombie Apocalypse
Stroke her oozing face
Our culture defines beauty
Rot is lovely now

- Catherine Cheek, author of a zombie short story "She's Taking Her Tits to the Grave" in The Living Dead anthology

end of everything
death consumes all and walks on
long zombie winter

- Lisa Morton, author of The Halloween Encyclopedia and The Cinema of Tsui Hark

Ryan Mecum's book, "Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains" is a great collection of zombie haiku, written almost narratively as the protagonist enjoys a normal day, is set upon by zombies, gets turned, and continues to write poetry. A few examples:

A man starts yelling
"When there's no more room in hell..."
but then we eat him.

Always be careful
when you're biting teeth with teeth.
Dead teeth tend to lose.

The two of us take turns.
I chew when he bites and tears.
When I bite, he chews.

The city is dead.
Streets are just filled with people
who aren't quite people.

Biting into heads
is much harder than it looks.
the skull is feisty.

Mecum also wrote a number of zombie haiku as though famous poets had written them:

Zombie Haiku by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle
into that zombie plagued night.
And take the shotgun.

Zombie Haiku by Sylvia Plath
From head to black shoe,
daddy, I had to eat you
because I’m starving.

Zombie Haiku by Robert Frost
Two lobes in the skull.
I eat the bloodier one –
not much difference.

Zombie Haiku by e.e. cummings
if anyone lived
in this wretched how town (they)
would be soon eaten.

Zombie Haiku by Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz
when I became a zombie.
That was one loud bug.

Zombie Haiku by Walt Whitman
Every skin atom
form’d from this soil, this air,
tastes like chicken meat.

Zombie Haiku by William Shakespeare
To bite through the skull
or beat it against the wall?
That is the question.

Zombie Haiku by Edgar Allen Poe
Beside of the sea
I killed my Annabel Lee
because zombies do that.

Zombie Haiku by Theodore Roethke
I knew a woman,
piled up once I ate her,
lovely in her bones.