Naked Snake Anthology Series Presents

RIGORMAROLE
zombie poems
Copyright 2005 by Michael A. Arnzen All rights reserved. All illustrations copyright 2005 by John Skipp All rights reserved. Cover Design, Back Cover Graphic, and Digital Image Enhancements by Michael A. Arnzen Edited by Donna Taylor Burgess First Edition ISSN 1545-7202

Naked Snake Press

6 Rain Tree Lane Pawleys Island, SC 29585 email: publisher@nakedsnakepress.com publishers website: www.nakedsnakepress.com authors website: www.gorelets.com artists website: www.johnskipp.com

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Michael A. Arnzen

Those Who Landed, Surprised to Discover that Zombies Had Taken Over the Planet
Most of the passengers on Delta Airlines Flight 27. The balloonist entrepreneur crossing the Atlantic. The entire submarine crew from the Norwegian Navy. The gutsy hang glider off Mt. Pisgah. The drunken trapeze artist at Circus Circus. The chief of Ladder Crew 32 in downtown Detroit. The adventurous boy who slept in the treehouse behind 101 Oak St. The nuclear snowflakes. The armored tadpole mutation with three legs. The freewheeling aliens from Zhymbarhomboid Six. God.

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How the Zombie Holocaust Changed the Holiday Shopping Season

Taxidermy became trendy again the latest zombie dolls replacing those stupid singing santas with real-life disco dead dudes struggling and twisting against their metal skeletons and stitch -fixed poses. The really cool ones actually scream whenever you pull a string, without falling apart like their cheaper cousins. The super deluxe models are trained to cry "BRAINS!" but I heard there was a recall because sometimes the drawstrings won't let go.

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Michael A. Arnzen

Home Depot of the Dead

We keep resurrecting the clerk in the stained orange apron busy with patches and pins. He keeps offering to help us fix our bathtub and we tell him our plumbing is fine but his isn't before tossing the next power tool into the tub where he fries. It's electrical help we need.

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Zombeanie Babies
The tiny rhino's eyes gleam gray as the featherless toucan swings on the baby giraffe's upturned head, dangling down his erect broken neck. Happy monkey scratches his ribs, satanically squeals, and spills his guts as the dead kitten purrs wetly beside the stiff boa at your ankles. They've come to collect you.

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Michael A. Arnzen

Zombie Spurt
wet brain slips free from the squalid skin casket of its splitting belly

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Arnzen currently resides just outside of Pittsburgh, PA, where the living dead still shamble in a nearby shopping mall. His other poetry books include: Freakcidents, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems, Dying, Sportuary, Paratabloids, Writhing in Darkness, and Chew and Other Ruminations. Arnzen holds two Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, and a Ph.D. in English from University of Oregon. He currently teaches horror in the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University. His latest books include 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories and Play Dead, a novel. His award-winning website gorelets.comis popular with horror fans online.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

John Skipp remains one of America's most cheerfully-perplexing Renaissance mutants: New York Times bestselling novelist -turnedfilmmaker, satirist, cultural crusader, musical pornographer, splatterpunk poster child, purveyor of cuddly metaphysics, interpretive dancer, and all-around bon vivant. His recent books include Stupography, Conscience, and, as editor, Mondo Zombie. Along with one-time collaborator Craig Spector, Skipp also edited the Book of the Dead zombie story series and several bestselling horror novels, like The Light at the End and The Scream. Eats and treats are served up on his excellent website at johnskipp.com.