stahlhelm

THE ZOMBIE

Upon your bed you sleep in pain
for nightmares whirl within your brain.
You waken with a fearful start
as horror grips your heart.

You sense a presence standing there,
then all at once it meets your stare.
A zombie waits within your room
and with it dwells your doom.

And you shiver and you scream
for you know it’s not a dream
as the zombie nears your bed.

The zombie, spawn of voodoo’s charms,
has come to take you in its arms.
It longs to crush, it yearns to clutch,
and lethal is its touch.

It does not live, yet is not dead,
two sockets burn within its head.
It does not see, it does not hear,
it does not heed your fear.

Closer, closer to your bed,
closer comes this thing undead.
Closer, closer, closer still
the zombie nears with icy will.

And you shiver and you scream
for you know it’s not a dream
as the zombie nears your bed.

—from The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight - More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Arnold Lobel

(Source: hello-zombie)