Available in Trade

Paperback and Ebook

on DarkRegions.com

and Amazon.com

From the Bram Stoker Award nominated poet of Shroud of Night,

Strange Vegetables, Bone Sprockets, 25 Cent Rocket Ship To The

Stars and The Other Side of the Lens comes a new collection of 42

poems in the realm of the undead. Full of humor, charm and chilling

imagery, Scenes Along the Zombie Highway by G.O. Clark strikes the

perfect balance of levity, commentary and horror in the realm of the

living dead.

Zombies! There are all kinds of zombies out there these days, from the

slow-witted, slow-moving kind, to the more steroid pumped-up

versions of recent film and TV. In Scenes Along the Zombie Highway,

you'll encounter the living dead in all their ragged, rotten glory, and

upon finishing the book, leave with a twisted smile upon your face.

Praise for Scenes Along the Zombie Highway:

"G. O. Clark's Scenes Along the Zombie Highway is stylish, chilling,

clever and sly. Beware: it will eat your brain and have your sense of the

absurd for dessert." - Mary A. Turzillo, Nebula Award winner,

Rhysling Award finalist, author of Lovers and Killers.

"Grisly and smartly funny! G. O. Clark renders the juiciest bits of

modern zombie lore into ironic, poignant, and often wry reflections of

modern society filtered through a warped sense of humor we all hope

the walking dead will have when the zombie apocalypse finally

arrives." - James Chambers, author of Corpse Fauna and The

Engines of Sacrifice.

 

 

 

 

SCENES ALONG THE ZOMBIE HIGHWAY

 

 

 

G. O. Clark  

 

 

 

 

Illustrated by Marge Simon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Dark Regions Press 2013

 

 

Poems in this collection appeared in slightly different form in the following: 

 

"Zombie Eyes," "Saturday Night Social Scene," "Some Advice to Prospective Zombies" were published in Mor‐tician's Tea, 2009, Sam's Dot Publishing. 

 

"Dead Eyes In the Rearview Mirror," "Some Zombies One Should Avoid," "Little Zombies," "Two Drink Mini‐mum," "Zombie On A Leash" were published in Shroud Of Night, 2011, Dark Regions Press. 

 

"The Carolers" was published in Star*Line, Fall 2012. 

 

All the other poems included are original to this collec‐tion.  

 

Dark Regions Poetry Five Editor: Bruce Boston 

First Edition ISBN‐13: 978‐1‐62641‐001‐5  ISBN‐10: 1‐62641‐001‐1 

 Text copyright © 2013 by G. O. Clark 

Cover art copyright © 2013 by Alex McVey Text art copyright © 2013 by Marge Simon 

 Dark Regions Press 

300 E. Hersey Street, #10 A Ashland, OR 97520 

www.darkregions.com 

 

 

Contents  

  7  At the Tipping Point 

  9  Little Zombies 

10  The Carolers 

11  New Moon/No Pulse 

12  The Picnic Is Over 

13  Seasons of the Living Dead 

15  Saturday Night Social Scene 

16  Zombiemobile 

17  Zombie Clowns 

19  The Ventriloquist 

21  You Just Can't Get Good Help Anymore 

22  Slapstick 

23  Pool Party 

24  Night Parade 

25  Zombie on a Leash 

26  Zombie Loner 

27  Scarecrow 

29  Writer's Block 

30  Roadside Shrines 

31  The Library 

34  Zombies Crossing 

36  Road Kill 

37  Albino 

38  Rag Doll 

40  Clothes Make the Zombie 

 

 

41  A Stop along the Post‐Apocalyptic Tour 

42  The Curse of the Aware Zombie 

43  Zombie Eyes 

44  Reanimated 

46  Some Things Zombies Suck At 

47  Some Advice to Prospective Zombies 

49  Breaking News 

50  Playtime's Over 

51  Two Drink Minimum 

52  Bottom of the Ninth 

54  Old Flame 

55  Dead Eyes in a Rearview Mirror 

56  Road Trip Advice 

57  All in the Family 

58  Some Zombies One Should Avoid 

60  Quotes from the Zombie Fact Book 

62  The Last Zombie 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCENES ALONG THE ZOMBIE HIGHWAY

 

 

 

 

At the Tipping Point  

You're in a cheap cafe, 

eating the breakfast special, sipping 

watered down coffee, when you 

notice the guy at the far end 

of the counter. 

 

He looks old, but seems 

young; hair uncombed, skin 

a sickly gray, dark suit looking  

slept in, both hands shakily raising  

a coffee cup to his lips. 

 

You think, poor guy, 

tossed out on the street by his 

wife, on the edge of losing his job, 

likely spent the night on a park bench, 

just trying to get by. 

 

Eating your greasy‐spoon fare, 

you wonder if you should start up 

a conversation with him, give an ear 

to his verbal blues; two guys  

just trying to survive. 

 

Before you can follow through, 

he lunges over the counter at the poor 

waitress, bends her over his untouched 

breakfast, and starts gnawing on her 

face, biting deeper and deeper 

7 

 

 

as if trying to get inside  

her skull to feast on her brains,  

scrambled eggs no longer appetizing.  

In time the big picture will come into  

focus, the consequences of the 

 

incurable, mutated virus become 

old news. On this singular morning,  

however, you’re ringside at the tipping 

point, the end of the status quo, 

the rise of the living dead. 

 

8 

 

Little Zombies  

It's Halloween night 

and all the little zombies 

are stumbling from house to house,  

pressing doorbells with rotting fingers, 

gurgling trick or treat, trick or treat  

through yellowed, broken teeth, 

bloody bags thrust forward for candy, 

pennies and that all time favorite,  

slow‐witted human brains,  

the adults handing out the goodies  

so amused by the cute little zombies 

that they never see the trick coming, 

each about to become the bloody treat. 

9 

 

The Carolers  

The zombie carolers  

crowd my front doorstep,  

their voices slurred,  

badly mangling “Jingle Bells,”  

the beginning of each chorus  

sounding like jellied brains,  

jellied brains, need some  

right away, while spastically  

flailing their arms around and  

clumsily marching in place  

like decaying wooden soldiers. 

10 

 

New Moon/No Pulse  

It's the new moon, 

and the zombies are sluggish, 

milling around on street corners, 

stumbling about the cemetery, 

wandering aimlessly in the night 

in search of fleshy leftovers, 

 

allowing even the weakest human 

to dance circles around them, 

beneath the star‐bright sky,  

the cycle of the heavens like  

a ticking clock, the silence inside 

each zombie's head complete. 

11 

 

The Picnic Is Over  

A perfect summer's 

day for a simple picnic lunch, 

in the solitude of the city cemetery, 

away from all the hustle and 

bustle of corporate life. 

 

Skyscrapers look down 

upon the peaceful afternoon, 

giant, hollow cement and glass  

tombstones now filled with  

the bones of the living. 

 

The mighty buildings  

still stand tall, but lifeless. 

The cemetery quietly waits,  

its headstones toppled, flowers  

trampled, graves empty. 

 

Perfect summer days 

have given way to endless nights  

of flesh eating zombies picnicking  

without pause, not even the graves  

immune to the madness. 

12 

 

13 

Seasons of the Living Dead  

Come spring 

the snow pack melts 

and the zombies thaw out, 

picking up where they left off 

before the winter freeze. 

 

Summertime 

is hard on decaying bodies, 

the strongest sunscreen no longer  

an option, sunglasses useless,  

swimwear a bloody joke. 

 

In autumn 

the leaves turn, days grow  

shorter, nights cooler and the  

living dead perform their gruesome  

tricks for bloody treats. 

 

Winter brings 

huddled nights by the fire, 

burnt out Christmas lights, off‐key 

zombie carolers in the distance, and an  

empty toast to the New Year. 

 

 

 

 

Available in Trade

Paperback and Ebook

on DarkRegions.com

and Amazon.com

Available in Trade Paperback and Ebook on DarkRegions.com and Amazon.com

"G. O. Clark's Scenes Along the Zombie Highway is stylish, chilling, clever and sly. Beware: it will eat your brain and have your sense of the absurd for dessert." - Mary A. Turzillo, Nebula Award winner, Rhysling Award finalist, author of Lovers and Killers.

"Grisly and smartly funny! G. O. Clark renders the juiciest bits of modern zombie lore into ironic, poignant, and often wry reflections of modern society filtered through a warped sense of humor we all hope the walking dead will have when the zombie apocalypse finally arrives." - James Chambers, author of Corpse Fauna and The Engines of Sacrifice.

"Scenes Along the Zombie Highway is an absorbing collection of emotionally poignant poetry. G. O. Clark brings a fresh take to the zombie genre, so if you love zombies, then you will love this book." - Jeani Rector, Editor of The Horror Zine.

"I'm going to guess that G. O. Clark had a good time with the poems in Scenes Along the Zombie Highway. Oh, there is some serious work here, but Mr. Clark is playing at the top of his game...when he's tongue in cheek. A great wry, witty look at the whole zombie craze. Highly recommended." - Gene O'Neill, Stoker winning author of Dance of the Blue Lady and Other Stories.

Scenes Along the Zombie Highway                                                                                              G.O. Clark 

G. O. Clark's writing has been published in Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog, Talebones Magazine, Strange Horizons, Space & Time, Retro Spec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Tales Of The Talisman, and many other publications. He's the author of eleven poetry collections, the two most recent, "Shroud of Night", 2011, Dark Regions Press, and, "White Shift", 2012, Sam's Dot Publishing. His fiction collection, "The Saucer Under My Bed & Other Stories", was published by Sam's Dot Publishing in 2011. He won the Asimov's Readers Award for poetry in 2001, and has been a repeat Rhysling and Stoker Award nominee. He's retired, and lives in Davis, CA.

See http://goclarkpoet.weebly.com/ for more info.

  2

Scenes Along the Zombie Highway                                                                                              G.O. Clark 

Author:

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G.O. Clark

Alex McVey

Marge Simon

Bruce Boston

9781626410015

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POETRY / General / Horror

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42

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6”x9”

06/04/2013

$9.95 USD

$2.99 USD

DarkRegions.com, Amazon.com

  3

Scenes Along the Zombie Highway                                                                                              G.O. Clark 

This sample was provided by

Dark Regions Press is an independent specialty publisher of horror, dark fiction, fantasy and science fiction, specializing in horror and dark fiction and in business since 1985. We have gained recognition around the world for our creative works in genre fiction and poetry. We were awarded the Horror Writers Association 2010 Specialty Press Award and the Italian 2012 Black Spot award for Excellence in a Foreign Publisher. We produce premium signed hardcover editions for collectors as well as quality trade paperbacks and ebook editions. Our books have received five Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association.

We have published hundreds of authors, artists and poets such as Kevin J. Anderson, Bentley Little, Michael D. Resnick, Rick Hautala, Bruce Boston, Robert Frazier, W.H. Pugmire, Simon Strantzas, Jeffrey Thomas, Charlee Jacob, Richard Gavin, Tim Waggoner and hundreds more. Dark Regions Press has been creating specialty books and creative projects for over twenty-seven years.

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  4

Scenes Along the Zombie Highway                                                                                              G.O. Clark 

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