STATUES by J. Michael
July 7, 2008 Poetry Tags: J Michael, poem
We first played this game as children
some three thousand miles south of here,
clattering out of screen porches
and down back steps onto cushioning grass.
Here my thick boots snap the snow like bone.
Freeze, somebody would yell, and we’d halt,
our traitorous hearts still pounding their drums.
There is no pulse on the tundra but mine.
Around me, the statues hold their poses,
breathless, dull-eyed, professionally mum;
better players than we could ever manage to be.
I wander among them like a museum visitor
with a sledgehammer. I am a leisurely vandal.
It is winter, the cold stretching solid as steel,
sunless sky exhaling a faint silver light.
It is beautiful. It takes no notice of us.
The statues catch the faint sheen of the stars.
They sprawl and balance, they kneel and crouch.
Freeze. It is my turn to be It. My eyes flick
side to side for the faintest stir. — Nothing.
I gaze at them like a connoisseur, finding
the twisted face of a Rodin, a driftwood skeleton;
here and there the lifelike curves of a Michelangelo.
Profiles I will leave in pieces on an empty gallery’s frozen floor.
Huh? I guess this poem is describing a zombie in a museum but you never know… To the author, please add a little…explanation so as to better tie your work into the post zombie-apocalypse world.
Very nice though, especially since I used to play the game as a kid too.
Thanks
Comment by lozeerose on July 7, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
It’s about frozen zombies and the one having to end them, huh? Excellent!
Comment by Arnaldo on July 8, 2008 @ 1:33 am
It is about smashing zombies when they freeze in the northern winter.
Comment by Zergonapal on July 8, 2008 @ 2:18 am
Bam! Very clear now. I guess reading this instead of working tends to cloud things a bit. As I said before, good work…
Comment by lozeerose on July 8, 2008 @ 6:35 am
One word babe…cool.
Comment by Joe from Philly on July 22, 2008 @ 8:02 am
Do kids still play “Statues” like Baby Boomers like myself did back in the ’50’s? Since the Zombie War, those days seem crazy innocent, even the “Duck & Cover” Nuke War drills in my grade school, seem like child’s play compared to the “Zombie Drills” the kids practice in the few schools that still exist…
Comment by AtomicWarBaby on August 4, 2008 @ 12:50 am
its describing a man smashing frozen zombies in winter
Comment by shiloh on August 4, 2008 @ 4:58 pm