Morice the Deceased

Everyone has those nights without sleep.
You’re tossing and turning, rest unearning,
A losing fight against counting sheep.
The blankets are burning but you’re discerning
That without them you are soon assailed
By cold wind that dark exhales.
The night is through by the morning pale,
This plight is over and you’ll have failed.

Don’t worry don’t fret, the tale’s not done yet!
You’re not the only one this happens to.
The dead too are beset, their rest is upset
Some nights they can’t sleep, the same as you.
So it came to pass one night that was glooming,
Morice the Zombie emerges from his grave.
He rose just as soon as the moon started looming,
Wild and hungry with urges he craves.

A hapless sheep gazed in wonder,
Munching content with his grain.
It didn’t realize what a blunder,
It made until Morice ate its brain.

The farmer looked out and saw
That his sheep were losing their minds.
It took awhile to discover this flaw
For a sheep using it is hard to find.

When he noticed he too lost his mind,
(Although not as literally as the sheep)
The farmer flew into rage unrefined,
And set out to find that undead creep.

“I don’t know why from death you stirred,
But you’re on my land and out of hand,
Eating up the brains of my poor herd.
Are you a man enough to understand?
Are you getting a single word?”

“I’m sorry to have offended you sir.” 
Morice said looking at his feet abashed.
“Which brains should I eat? Do you prefer
The cows or chickens be slashed?”

“No brains at all! You undead monstrosity!
You don’t belong, you look like a wreck.
You crawled from the ground an atrocity.
You’ll pay by hanging from the neck.”

The farmer made good on his threat,
And Morice hung by his neck for nearly a day.
Until he knew he’d paid his debt,
Because his head popped off and let him escape.

Lucky for him a woman was near by
Who helped stick his head back in place.
“It would have been better if I had died,
For real this time,” He sighed in disgrace.

The woman asked, as she stuck on his head:
If Morice felt sorry for what he had did,
“I am sorry, I am, but I must be fed.
And I know of no way that is less morbid.”

“Follow me my child and don’t despair.
I will show you the way that God has intended.
He even loves even those who’re less than fair,
And will forgive you for those you’ve offended.

‘Less than fair’ was the most generous of terms
For one with rotted skin and missing parts.
For one who instead of hair had worms,
And a hole in his chest to show a still heart.

The girl who saved him was a holy woman,
(Although not as literally holy as Morice.)
She was a nun and thought it God’s plan
To save even those who were deceased.

The nun took him back to her church,
And bathed him there in holy water
It burned, but Morice was glad that his search
Had ended his life as a squatter.

She forced him now to dress himself,
Though he felt the fool in priestly robes. .
She made him read the bible on the shelf,
Though it was very hard without lobes.
The nun fed him crackers and wine,
Which Morice tried politely to decline.
At last he tried to eat this wholesome treat,
Only to see it in a mess by his feet.
It wasn’t his fault, there was a hole in his jaw,
But still the nun scolded all that she saw.

The poor zombie had his fill with her,
And the rest of him was left starving.
He had enough when she told him he’d burn,
For not praying to a wooden carving.

He tore his robes with his best zombie groan,
And bent his knees for a wild leap.
He ate up her brain and left the bones,
“Funny, she tastes the same as the sheep.”

Morice knew the church was not his home,
And the field was not his to reside in.
He left that place and began to roam
Seeking a place without steeple or pen.

He was found by a man with a sound plan,
Spouting dreams and promises to all.
He must be profound for his every sound,
Had people around him enthralled.

“I’d follow you if you’d let me,
Though I don’t know where you’re going.
I only wish that I could speak
As if I too were all-knowing.”

The man laughed a too hearty laugh,
And smiled too big of a smile.
“You can be my chief of staff.
Come, we have voters to beguile.”

“I do not have a brain, so know not what to say.”
Morice tried hard to explain, so not to lead astray.

“Thou shall say a thousand things,
And say them a thousand times.
When you do that and say nothing,
You’ll be as great a man as I’m.”

Morice followed the politician on his mission,
Dressed up in a fine tailored suit.
Though the rhetorician never held a position,
There was not a thing Morice could refute.

While they traveled the zombie heard
The man promise countless things.
Each uttered word was more absurd.
“A thousand kings surely couldn’t bring
All of the wonders you have sworn.
All these promises you sing,
Seem an impossible bourn.”

The big man laughed in his big mouth way,
“It’s some other slob who has that job.
We say what needs saying and someone will pay.
We can just rob whoever the mob
Doesn’t happen to like on that particular day.”

“I’m sorry Sir, I can’t follow you.
Though I have no brain, I have a heart,
Now that I have a clearer view
From your company I must depart.”

“No! You said you would follow me!
You know too much and you’d tell.
You will follow and I will lead.
In my service you are compelled.”

“Keeping promises to a liar
Is as bad as playing fair with a cheat.
I will fight fire with fire
And your brain will be the next I eat!”

Morice did just as he said,
And eating it took no time at all.
It’s on account that the content
Of his head was very small.

The zombie continued on his way,
Though where he’d end up he didn’t know it.
As it would happen it was his fate
Being caught by the words of a poet.

His words had more feeling than the politician,
And less anger than those of the nun.
He trusted dealing with one without the ambition
To control everything under the sun.

The zombie spent many days
Listening to him vent his speech.
The poet meant his turns of phrase,
Though the content was out of reach.

“Your words betray that you’re wise.”
Morice spoke to the man at last.
“But all I understand from your cries
Is too little future and too much past.
You only look forward to dying,
But doing that once was enough.
What is there to you but sighing
And complaining that life is too rough?”

The poet flipped his hair
Saying “You don’t understand me at all.
Life is naught but despair
And writing notes on your bedroom wall.
The truth alone is in my head,
And the truth is better off alone.
Truly I envy you, being dead,
But it’s something I must postpone.”

“I envy the living” Said Morice the zombie.
The world is theirs but they use it badly.
“You’re eating scraps. The feast is free.
Given the chance I would gladly
Trade places with the man before me.”

Sadly Morice knew his role stuck,
He was dead and dead he’d stay.
Though he could change the poet’s luck,
By eating his brain away.

Even nights without sleep find relief,
Weariness overpowers thoughts unsaid.
So too does peace steal like a thief,
Until it devours the appreciative dead.
Morice was settled back in his tomb,
And thought as he drifted off to sleep:
“In one life there is plenty of room
If not filled up by something cheap.”