~baby boomer hell~
~coming of age upside out~
~downside in~
~where the hell did my kids go~~when I’m trying to figure out where I put my framitz~
~find some other damned thing~
~forget what I was looking for in the first place~
~wondered if I’d ever see an alien~
~look in the mirror~~there ya have it~
~blind dawg~
~what a trip-hammer slap~
~knock ya on your ass wallop~
~memories provide~
~instantaneous reactions~
~totally wayward spontaneous~
~appearing from nowhere back there~
~to steal your sleep~
~devour moments~
~of the now whatever~
~feeble & nearsighted~
~walking into walls~
~backing up~
~walking into them again~
~wondering~
~if the now incident~
~will invade later~
~as some fragile flickering remembrance~
~out of bounds~
~pissing on the bedroom floor~
~falling up the stairs~
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~a cool breeze drifted through the thick sway of grass~
~up the down hill we had so recently climbed~
~my friend & me~
~old dogs talkin’ about new tricks~
~we could just write ourselves inside out~
~damned straight I was excited~
~doors~
~wire hinges~
~fire in the night hole~
~I haven’t slept since that day~
~a year ago~
~could be two~
~grave epitaph~
~hinge theory as I under/misunderstand it~
~bugs the hell outa me~
~when applied to creativity~
~the foursquare side of me~
~cringes~
~in its shadow~
~its very existence threatened~
~by the certainty~
~of changelings~
~shape shifters~
~it is terrifying~
~& exciting to edit~
~written pieces & graphics~
~in light of the moment~
~to realize the absurdity~
~of considering them finished~
~unsettling when I review them~
~in their tens of tens of thousands~
~new work piling up in steno pads~
~& bulky graphic files~
~songs whittle deeply~
~at the stick of me~
~decades of writing & performing~
~guitarists & percussionists~
~singers & keyboardists~
~whose energy & input~
~is difficult if not impossible to assess~
~hell some of them have died~
~right in front of me~
~come to think of it~
~excuse me~
~I must compose my epitaph~
~its worth hopefully~
~equal to my last breath~
~its final edit~
~its last line~
~a sweet flower & carcass~
~to attract honeybee poets~
~& burial buzzard madmen~
~to continue as I have~
~in the digging of my grave~
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~drifting down that rat hole~
~he don’t want to go there alone~
~so he invents superman~
~trades women sex for drugs~
~gets the boys that way too~
~the world is his his stage is his world~
~everybody wants to see it~
~make him run~
~run away~
~die rockstar die~
~angels run away~
Is it only our lives slipping away or some inconceivable broken covenant made with gods come to punish us for lies told. We struggle with our dragons, harm those nearest our hearts and homes. Is any future worth the destruction of moment, a process whereby seeking we throw it away.
Last night he slept with her, his woman, experienced a connection of spaces, armor set aside, bartered for skin on skin, become one complete, whole again. As he drove away, his mind retreated to a forest, to a canyon, where he heard her voice first and stared into the reflection of lightning in her eyes.
Reality is his gallows of hope, a death sentence to all inhabitants of dreams. He said life was supposed to be fun, the puppet-master, thief of souls whose strings labeled, “dainty delights” were tripwires opening drop-doors to the dungeons of fun seekers’ hearts.
When he discovered she no longer cared, he offered himself to stand instead of the murderer, stood resolute before the firing squad, life, metal on metal, click, ready, aim. He smiled beneath the blindfold. Bullets cannot break a broken heart. God damn all governors and their pardons.
No prayers aloud in this room, always, forever, the whispered lies born desperate, denied asylum. He left his child’s eyes underneath the bed baptized in splashes of mother’s blood. Each night alone is a fresh haunting, a crippled man in a crooked room.
The boy is afraid of chickens and spiders in the outhouse hole. Voices laughing into his blind eye face became the home of the impossible dream where the woman would come to hold him tight against her breast, keep him safe from himself.
Angels run away, angels run away.
~swarm~ ~My Space sends me an e-mail~
~“don’t miss out on what everyone else is into”~
~that message must mean something to someone~
~it means next to nothing to me~
~except that it is a lure~
~a wiggle worm hook~
~baiting a mad society of starving fishes~
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I wrote Mother in May 2004 and sent it to Momma for Mother’s Day, what turned out to be the last Mother’s Day of our life. A couple of months later she was gone. Momma’s Hands was written then. I miss her and wish her spirit well. Mine will spend the remainder of its life here on earth healing in the light of my children’s love.
Speaking of healing and adding joy, Happy Mother’s Day! to Tammy, Christy, Tommy, Harley Blue, Zedidiah, Danni Jo, and Michelle and Heather! Wish I was there to collect some hugs and eat cake with you all today. I love each of you in myriad ways and the beautiful little People in our Family.
~Mother~
On those days when life is just too damned heavy to carry, I set it down and think about her.
She is young in my thoughts, so full of hope she just might burst. That round hard belly, the load she must carry, is part of her. It defies understanding. She must not and does not set it down. Even when it journeys from womb to breast, a cradle her arms make. When it learns to walk her hands take and it walks away but never leaves her. She must not and does not set it down.
On those days when life is just too damned heavy to carry, I set it down and think about her.
My load is diminished in the shadow of her courage. I am enlightened to know she is there. Yes, she is
just there. She must not and does not set me down.
~Momma’s Hands~
Momma’s hands held mine, patty-cake, tickling my piggies, baby powder soft. “I was raised by sisters in a Catholic orphanage,” she told me. My tiny fists around her fingers, I learned to walk in Momma’s hands. Momma’s hands offered love and solace, fingers pushing Vicks into my nose, rubbing it into my chest, pinning towels tight around a cold that never had a chance, caressed my face, trembled, that I might be tended by, the awesome healing power of Momma’s hands.
Momma’s hands knew every part of me, my young and broken heart. A cradle they would make that I would be safe and secure beneath their wings, a tender-keep they were. Brothers and sisters, each and all, gathered within the circle of Momma’s hands.
Momma’s hands birthing and growing, teaching and knowing when to let go, when to shelter and pull away, the wounds of her life made small by the desire to tend to helpless things, danger held at bay and more ‘neath Momma’s hands.
Something fell Momma down. We gathered in ones and twos in the hospital ICU, doctors and nurses understanding, shaking their heads. “I’m so tired,” she said. They lay limp at her side and I cried at the sight of Momma’s hands.
“Where’s the priest?” “Are those the sisters?” she asked my sister. “Are they coming to tell me what they used to tell me... Wake up, little girl, don’t you cry?” Her voice was thin, “I’m not gonna die.” A tear slid down her face, “I’m going home.”
Later, after she has rested, she is much weaker, once proud lips full, no, clouded eyes, the merciful opiate haze of morphine. Oh, you candle spirit, what are we without you? What is life without her?
Time stops. My lips, one last kiss, those hands, whose job is done are finally at rest. I lift them up, one by one. I kiss them goodbye, Momma’s hands.
In loving memory of my Mother, Carroll Belle Hart (Stene/Sterner)
7 September, 1931 – 11 July, 2004
~A Tear for the Choir~
Poor; she taught us to be proud
Proud; she taught us to be humble
her example of integrity and individuality
true and pure beyond question or explanation
She asked more of herself
and expected it from others
yet never refused to lend a hand
to lost, world-weary, and hungry souls
be they human or beast
One doesn’t say goodbye to her
She created a space in those she loved
to make them stronger
We are come to say hello to those spaces
to sing their praises
to the extraordinary lady
who never knew how to let us down
but gave of herself and just enough
to make us strong
all who carry her song in our hearts
that we might go on without her
In loving memory of my Mother
Carroll Belle Hart (Stene/Sterner)
7 September, 1931 – 11 July, 2004
~passive shades~
~sun filter~
~a rip in the umbrella~
~stroke of noon~
~dog panting~
~water dripping~
~saliva from its tongue~
~if I adjust the umbrella~
~I’ll have to do it all afternoon~
~the sun will move past the tear~
~if I leave it alone~
~the truth of my ponderings~
~answers seldom as clear as that~
~two days after the big moon~
~the dog is asleep~
~the rip moving past me~
~like a night~
~like a day~
~like a life~
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~the will~
~to kill to kill~
~there is nothing natural~
~about being or becoming enemies~
~as evidenced in observations of coexistence~
~predators & prey alike~
~are aware what they are~
~each with its own~
~natural bent for survival~
~any creature attempting~
~to establish absolute dominance~
~condemns itself to extinction~
~an unavoidable & necessary suicide~
~in order to reestablish balance~
~& maintain a natural state of being~
~other than in cases of survival~
~&/or self defense~
~aggression is by its nature~
~self destructive~
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~chapter one~
She was third born in a litter of five pups that warm May morning in Northern California. She was big-boned just like her father, Jett. Jett’s mistress, Mary, loved him dearly. She often looked out the back door of her home to see him standing in the near woods that bordered her property. He appeared majestic to her, every bit the North American Timber Wolf in her eyes. He was a long-haired German Shepherd, purebred, papers going back for generations. Mary made an arrangement to sire him out. For her part she would be given pick of the litter.
When the puppies were born, there was no doubt in Mary’s mind as to whom her pick would be. The size of the puppy’s paws, huge and out of proportion to its body, captured the discerning woman’s attention. When the litter was weaned Mary took her puppy home to meet Jett. She was taken aback, a bit surprised, when he refused to accept his daughter at first. He sniffed her from one end to the other, shook his shaggy head, then returned to the thin woods, his place amongst the trees.
The little girl was terrified. While Jett was poking and sniffing at her with his nose she put her head down and pressed her body against the wall of Mary’s back porch. Her bushy tail held low, she watched closely as Jett left the porch and disappeared, stiff-legged, into the trees.
“Look at you, poor puppy,” Mary said. She scratched the pup behind its ears, kissed the top of its head. “You’re beautiful,” she crooned lowly, “Perfect markings, your mask and the top of your ears, tan and black, just perfect.” Mary gathered the big puppy up in her arms and sat on the porch rocking her back and forth. “You’re my princess,” she said softly, “I’m going to call you Talah.”
Talah whimpered, sounded almost like a baby crying. “I know, I know,” Mary whispered in her ear. “You miss your mother and don’t remember your daddy, Jett. Don’t worry, he’ll come around.”
Mary wasn’t so sure about that. Jett’s behavior confused her. She had supposed he would recognize his daughter immediately by scent, at the very least understand that she was one of his kind and needed him. A proud and solitary animal, he tolerated other creatures, Mary’s son’s dogs and her cat in particular but preferred to be alone. Mary led the puppy to a corner of the porch where she had constructed a bed out of old towels and what-not. Talah groaned and laid her head down when Mary went inside.
Jett watched it all from the cover of the trees. He was conscious of Mary’s every move, her comings and goings. There was a bed on the porch for him next to the one Mary had made for the pup. He seldom slept there, preferring to stay in the lair he had made for himself deep in the trees. He went there now to lie down, his ears keen to Mary’s movements in the house and the pup’s whimpering. Later, when he was sure they were both asleep, he went through the perimeter fence, deeper into the California woods to hunt.
Early the next day, Mary awoke and busied herself with her morning ritual of toast and coffee. A bumping sound from the back porch reminded her of the puppy. She tip-toed across the room and peeked out the window. She hoped to see Jett and the pup together. “Oh my,” she gasped. Her hands fumbled with the lock on the door.
Mary was terrified at what she saw when she stepped onto the porch. The puppy’s rag bed was torn to shreds. She was lying in the middle of the mess, her face and head matted with blood. “Oh no,” Mary sighed, “Jett, you didn’t.”
The puppy whined and Mary was both relieved and distressed. It was alive but bloody and crying. She rushed into the kitchen and returned presently with a bucket of warm water and clean towels from the bathroom. The puppy was waiting at the door for her, its tail wagging and head cocked to one side. Her hands full, Mary nudged the door open with a foot. The puppy walked gingerly to its torn up bed and lay down. It began gnawing on something amongst the bloody rags.
Mary dipped a towel in the warm water and bent to the task of cleaning the blood from Talah’s face. She worked slowly at first, careful and gentle, expecting with each wipe to find an open wound. The pup nuzzled her hand and nipped playfully at her. It jumped up unexpectedly and knocked over the pail of water. “Silly girl,” Mary said, a perplexed look on her face.
“Jett,” Mary said under her breath. She rummaged through the mess of the puppy’s bed and found an animal bone. “Here puppy, here Talah,” she crooned in a singing voice, picking up the bone and offering it to the dog. “Your daddy brought you a present last night, didn’t he?”
Talah accepted the bone. She sat there with it in her mouth, studying Mary with her intelligent and inquisitive puppy eyes. She whimpered a bit, set the bone on the floor of the porch, and lay down next to it.
“Well, sweety, you sure gave me a fright,” Mary said as she sat down next to Talah and worked at washing the blood away. She was startled by the sound of the screen door opening behind her.
“Ma, what happened? What’s all that blood? Are you okay?” Her twenty-year-old son, Jimmy, stood there, concern and worry evident on his face and in the tone of his voice.”
“I picked the puppy up at the breeder yesterday,” Mary explained. “Looks like Jett dragged something home last night. That’s where all the blood seems to have come from, thank goodness!”
Jimmy knelt down and examined the pup. “She’s the spitting image of Jett when he was a puppy.”
“Look at the size of those legs and feet,” Mary said, pointing a finger at Talah. “And her markings, they’re perfect. She’ll be a whole lot prettier than her daddy.” She paused a moment, glanced inquisitively at her son. “I didn’t hear you drive in. Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Jimmy scratched Talah behind the ears. “I got laid off, Ma, haven’t worked for a couple of weeks. I’m about to lose my apartment.”
“Help me get some food and water for this little girl,” Mary sighed, “Then we’ll go in and talk over coffee while I get ready for work.
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
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