Zombie Annihilation on 34th Street

a holiday poem by Ricky Scibbe

In the distance there was moaning,
A deluge of festive groaning,
Dusty vocal chords intoning as they shambled down the way.
Dead and gone and freshly buried,
So we thought; to the contrary:
They rose from their cemeteries, joining us this Christmas Day.

At first we were apprehensive.
Some of us were downright pensive.
But none thought to be offensive towards the dead returning home.
Friends and families reunited!
Feuds forgotten, old wrongs righted!
Who’d have thought they’d been invited, summoned by a curséd tome?

Christmas spooks are often muses,
Teaching kindness, curing Scrooges,
In that way they have their uses, though they wail and shake their chains.
So we welcomed them in wonder.
That turned out to be a blunder.
No one noticed their mad hunger for our precious, tasty brains.

Screaming had drowned out the carols.
City streets were fraught with peril.
Chances of escape were narrow, pleas for rescue all ignored.
Once bitten you’d fall deathly sick
Like in a George Romero flick.
Re-animation then was quick and you’d join the undead horde.

Suburban homes were first to fall
As zombies tore through doors and walls
And ventured forth to deck the halls with pieces of the living.
The red of blood and green of rot
(So Christmas colors not forgot)
Stained all the gifts that had been bought on sale since Thanksgiving.

Naturally we felt betrayed
To have to spend this jolly day
Stuck huddled behind barricades built from trees and blinking lights.
We tried to jingle zombie bells
With molotovs and shotgun shells
But couldn’t flee our living hell as the siege dragged in the night.

There was to be no peace on Earth,
Nor merriment, nor joy, nor mirth,
Nor comfort found in virgin birth as we were soundly beaten.
The last Noel, we fear this is.
The end to Santa’s toyshop biz,
And it’s become quite clear that ’tis the season to get eaten.