Zombies

April 9, 2026April 9, 2026 Kevan Copeland

Zombies

We scanned for brains beneath a sunset smear,
a leering, frozen zero in each eye.
If thoughts were found, we’d have them disappear
in teeth that pull the synapse from the cry.

I noticed skin that flickered with a blood
that moves; it’s mine. It seems that I’m alive.
I run before the smell of life can flood
the blank that turned their minds to empty drive.

They follow me through vacant towns and shops;
familiar places are what truly haunt.
The memories and the chasing never stop.
It is the motion of my thought they want.

Your savagery destroys all that we knew—
and even worse, I was once one of you.

A version of this poem appeared previously in Polar Borealis.

As A Novelist

May 14, 2022July 3, 2022 Kevan Copeland

As A Novelist

I control words coerced into being
more than myself. A concatenation
of pages, books, brains: manipulation
is my expertise. I shape your seeing.

I appease inspiration with my clutch;
whether tomes, music, lives—I have a touch
of kleptomania. Reined in my fist:
the fluidity of a pugilist

Dancing in a pen. Personality
disorders, so my borderlines are kept
writing, as I create reality

Conforming to my vision: great. Except—
buried in my lather of character
is a girl, and I cannot extract her.

Dissolving All Distance In A Single Sonnet

April 29, 2016 Kevan Copeland

citylights2

Dissolving All Distance In A Single Sonnet

From inside, I view, from behind, your body

On the balcony, your look enwrapped by city-span,
the rising CN Tower lights coveted by Brooklyn eyes.
We understand; my room and I invite you in:

I twist myself to tilt your sight, and spill my head across the ledge
and onto sky; then begins the body press, the lips to neck. Citizens within
our borders wish to mix; immigration laws do not exist

Between our kiss, or in my bed. Among the threading
in my sheets, the strands you leave are all I count. They recount
my fingers weaving to your head, and how I watched it facing

Out, in poignant glance. That locus, under microscope, could explode
to where, with such device, you search for me
upon the slide, scrutinize, then conclude: both man and place reciprocate.

Toronto wants you. So do I.