by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com
The Zombies have arisen swiftly,
The ones that fear the page,
The ones that are tremble-weary of the wisened word.
These walking dead have taken over the halls of power,
With minds of pewter, & clothes of gold.
Like schoolchildren they’ve scribbled empty platitudes on all the walls,
The walls that border the town squares .
By now the charletans have triumphed through all the worlds arches.
They’ve never tried Shakespeare,
& think ‘King Lear’ was a guy who got meetoo’d.
They think Dickens was probably a dick (for he liked books so),
& Chaucer simply a sorcerer (For he loved words didn’t he).
They think Keats was a brand of jeans (For they hate Poets),
& Byron they’ve confused for a beach (They love Jetskis after all).
They think Milton is only a dud town (They’ll burn for that),
& Samuel Johnson just some retired English football player (For Ignoramus Pro Sportmen are their Gods).
Though it is true they have been known to use a book,
It is only to usually to throw or perhaps to stand upon,
To see something over a fence that they are not meant to see –
Probably someone getting changed with drapes open.
These are our new leaders – the ‘new anti-book-barbarians’ – the N.A.B.B.’s
Unlike the Nazi’s –
They have no need physically burn the books – they’re to lazy for that.
They simply ignored the books metaphysical raison-de-tre entirely.
If anyone said “Look at that book” they’d look squarely at it & say….’where???’
For the N.A.B.B’s have always loved the ‘boldface lie’ – call it a hobby of theirs.
And so of course this couldn’t end well – the Earth & all its skies did soon fall.
The sound was like a table full of wine glasses suddenly tipped over by a drunk reveler.
For we let the barbarians – the N.A.B.B’s – through our too flimsy psychic fortifications,
Thinking for too long that they were not an enemy,
Because they had sneakily swindly-snuck up from the deepths – our depths.
They ‘faked it’ but we let them ‘make it’.
And so naturally, everything had to become ‘completely fake’.
And when the end did finally come,
With the falling & crashing of the skies above,
The few hiding-readers-still-alive did but shiver-shed a single ‘encoldened’ tear –
For with their foresight, they saw it all coming but did nothing –
They had never left their rooms.
For their tall overflowing bookcases, comfy chairs, & violin & piano filled spaces,
Were all far too enchanting to unshackle themselves from.
Doubly so, during those last few anarchic years.
And this legend does tell of the Earth’s last ever Reader.
& you ask ‘what dying words were ‘mumurously’ said?’:
“Damn the kooks that threw the books –
The barbarians at our door.
These blames I take for my own self –
For their unworded parrys I chose to ignore”.
Anton Martin Smith Writer 