The March Selected Poet is Juan Pérez
Please feel free to email Juan at: gotobulldog87@yahoo.com
SHAKES-FEAR: A ZOMBIE ZONNET
Zombie or not zombie is the query
That distracts the living in troubled times
For the dead have no thoughts nor any cares
Except for the insatiable hunger
That propels them without a single thought
Dreams stay dreams, only nightmares are fulfilled
The oppressed and the proud, all taste the same
Death now only matters to the fearful
Death is the grand prize you win to begin
The dead but walking carry no worries
Writers of history, stories, and poems
Among those that now search for human flesh
All of it to say that what matters now
Matters not at all but to few alive
HERD: A ZOMBIE ZONNET
Herd mentality, a precocious set
When those in masses have no mind at all
Irony, deep remnants of the senses
For years to no end after one has turned
Savoring what life has yet left to give
Despite stimulus of the spur of self
Do the cows feel the same for the green grass--
Full of great, digestible minerals
As the dead do about the living flesh
Or is it more like the pack of grey wolves
Where they need to kill to eat and survive
No matter where it is or who it was
The stench of fresh, uncleansed, unsettled flesh
Drives the herd to quench their hunger madness
UNMASKED: A ZOMBIE ZONNET
are you smarter than a zombie, I ask
because they most surely will outsmart you
their drive for flesh will push them beyond the task
they’ll wait for days to see what you will do
are you smarter than a zombie, I ask
tunnel vision is the mechanism
controlling their lust, filling up their flask
preparing you for their next baptism
are you smarter than a zombie, I ask
for they were once, maybe smarter than you
not that there’s anything under the mask
eternally affixed, doomed to the cue
are you smarter than a zombie, I ask
eternity waits for you to unmask
A SONNET FOR ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE MACABRE: NO. 15
This is the pot of immorality
That serves every sense and form of sexuality
That requires your farfetched attention in formality
That is prospecting to plunder your perceptive personality
This is the pot of immorality
That was cooked to reconstruct your corrected normality
That was made with uncommon plants in plurality
That will test your love for sweet, dear immortality
This is the pot of immorality
That teams with the steam of sick abnormality
That bleeds with the bliss of the bleak finality
That rests with the reap of repugnant punctuality
This is the pot of immorality
Especially made by her for your impeccable municipality
Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of indigenous descent and the current Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020), is the author of Another Menudo Sunday (2007), O’ Dark Heaven: A Response to Suzette Haden Elgin’s Definition of Horror (2009), WUI: Written Under the Influence of Trinidad Sanchez, Jr. (2011), Live From La Pryor: The Poetry of Juan Manuel Perez: A Zavala Country Native Son, Volume 1 (2014), and Sex, Lies, and Chupacabras (2015), as well as the co-editor of The Call Of The Chupacabra (2018). He is the 2011-2012 San Antonio Poets Association Poet Laureate and the Lone Star State’s only El Chupacabras Poet Laureate (For Life). The former Gourd Dancer for the Memphis Tia Piah Big River Clan Warrior Society is also a Pushcart Prize Nominee as well as a SEATTAH Scholar (Striving For Excellence And Accountability in The Teaching Of Traditional American History) through the University Of Dallas.
Juan is a ten-year Navy Corpsman/Combat Marine Medic with experience in the 1991 Persian Gulf War with the 2nd Marines and the 1992 Hurricane Andrew Relief Marine Air Group Task Force. This two-time Teacher of the Year, along with his wife, Malia (a three-time Teacher of the Year), is a co-founder of The House of the Fighting Chupacabras Press. Currently, Juan worships his Creator, teaches public high school history, writes poetry, and chases chupacabras in the Texas Coastal Bend Area.
His latest collection, Screw the Wall! and Other Brown People Poems, is forthcoming from FlowerSong Books.