the origin of poetzombie

recently,
i was asked by a friendin the poetry scene, such as it is, where the title poetzombie came from, what inspired it,ect,ect.
the most obvious ansewer being that it came from my email,which is true, but it does of course go much further than that..


it goes back to the beginning of 2004,
when i was living in a truly inspiring house on southeast morrison street, one of the better parts of portland,though there are many great parts to p-town.
what was inspiring about it was the people, the synergey brought about by them,
an amalgam of activists artists writers people of spirituality, and intellectuals.

cheif among these friends was a young man named Josh Lorring,
who possed an acerbic wit andand warped sense of humor that the likes of hunter thompson and memebers of monty python would be impressed by,
who at the time worked at a pet store and told his co-works of the recent anecdotes of things around the house, changing the names, calling cetain members the monk, the activist, the ninja, the supehero,and i was referred to as the poet.
Josh loved zombie movies;
his enthusiasm for them rubbed off on me,
and in 04 they seemed to come back in fashion with a vengence with the likes of the dawn of the dead remake, the recent resident evil flicks, and the british farce shaun of the dead.

one afternoon, after a day in the factory where i was working t the time,
i,feeling sore and hot,since it was mid july,
i sat on the couch in the kitchen(dont ask) just groaning,in my quasi-miserable state.
Josh walked in,heard me,then saying aloud, "I think we have a zombie in here some, oh, its the poet. poet,zombie,poetzombie,whatever." then it stuck.
that title carried ith it kind of a morbid humor and unique image that i asociate with josh and sometimes,when i am at my best,i hope to almost share.

Josh commited suicide in september of 2005,
and with the title that he had given me,i try very hard to be as good a writer as i can be, since he
thought well enough of my writing to call me the poet.