~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.
~damned to be rabid dog bitten~
~the twisted vein at the business end of a needle~
~molested by someone’s older sister~
~or was it your own~
~alone in the bathtub~
~the only one in the room~
~cryptococcus in the tomb~
~c’mon l’il girl~
~got somethin’ for ya~
~brethren misguided~ ~the woman has broken his heart~
~says she loves him too much to love him~
~unable to say goodbye~
~she refuses to say hello~
~the mystery of gender is elusive~
~islands are free as they stand~
~defenseless in the face of tides~
~the loss of love is a nearer death~
~as its constituents are breathing still~
~a double suicide as it were~
~grief, a shifting wall of shadows~
~the pallbearers were blindfolded~
~united in their stilted, stiff-gait stride~
~a corpse enters & owns any room~
~he longs to be the last man standing~
~the whole damned world has gone to sleep~
~the refrigerator and tick tock clock~
~growl through his sleepless insomniac mind~
~is a wizard buried under a dead tree~
~whose roots strangled the life from him~
~when he attempted to ingest its seeds of knowledge~
~he is the prefect of loneliness~
~a crowded voice in an empty room~
~ten-penny wishes on saturday night~
~the tinsel voice of the woman says I love you~
~as recorded on the telephone machine~
~so long as you promise to stay away~
~& realize I need not to need you~
~his flesh is onion skin stretched~
~o’er the starched bones of mediocrity~
~a spider web bouncing on his eyes~
~whose maker has seen who he is~
~& eaten her way through his brain~
~is a thin masque veil of death smoke~
~rising from the fading ember life~
~she told him & his brother~
~tostand up & act like men~
~they argued, fought over bananas~
~chased naked women up & down halls~
~life gets swallowed by alleys~
~mad dogs on the moon~
~he said he was glad she was dead~
~either a lie or the tears in his eyes~
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©graphic artwork & words conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner©
~Quodlibet~
~The Hundred Bites~
~VII~
~in heaven~
~all the interesting people are missing~
~Nietzsche~
~the most important kind of freedom~
~is to be what you really are~
~James Douglas Morrison~
~here I am an old man~
~sitting in this cell~
~that's the damndest thing I ever seen~
~you know~
~Charles Manson~
~who cares how time advances?~
~I am drinking ale today~
~Poe~
~VII. Dignity/Currency of Beggars~
~there is no noble death~
~living so singularly significant~
~where dignity may only be found~
~in proper acts on walking faces~
~days tied on strings end to end~
~our lives a dangle of fishes~
~never meant to fly underwater~
~it just ain’t christian to lie~
~we all try to go outstanding~
~twist & present ourselves~
~as some convoluted truth~
~opine dignity is the currency of beggars~
~laugh about honor amongst thieves~
~dead folks don’t want to be alone~
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©artwork & words conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner©Quodlibet was published by Howling Dog Press
~standing on the parapet~
~drifting~
~falling away~
~he combs his moustache~
~tries the lock on the door~
~he can’t get out~
~she can’t get in~
~he laughs at his own sex games~
~a prisoner of id~
~aware~
~startled awake~
~a leather thong about his throat~
~locomotives blasting through his mind~
~bird-speak in the outside yard of himself~
~darkness fails to quiet the night of leather wing & dervish whispers~
~The Danse/After Midnight~
Listening to a train again blowing down the tracks, his room has a window he refuses to look out of. Do you have any idea of your timelessness, how you took his breath away in a single note of dismissal?
With pen in hand, he is strong. He wields the slender instrument, uses it to dig holes in himself, with firm hand and quivering gait to pen mystery, bravely walk away, weeping to that monster awful shrieking whistle – God! Damn those wandering tracks of love.
You tied a strip of rawhide around his wrist, kissed him sweetly in your poor lost house. You smelled and looked lovely, asked him to leave so you wouldn’t have to say goodbye in the morning, in the blue morning, there to attend him, birds in the yard, creatures who speak a language he understands.
It is the hour before midnight, a time of deep, blue/black darkness. He is a leather wraith drifting down the road, climbing out of the muck of himself. Established of ebon spirit, he experiences liberation, divinity, vulgarity of faith as he seizes the opportunity to finally know who he is, discover through crumbling walls of reality, the bare dangling roots of creativity, the mangled remnants of his self-worth tied inexorably to a lady lost, you, to yourself, in yourself, seeking. He is not the knot of leather tied.
He hears a child laugh while enjoying conversation in a room full of strangers. This night he is claimed of shame, a man failed in the midnight hour. He damns his tears their salty tracks, prays to deaf gods for the peace of leather dreams, faces the night alone in his icy human flesh.
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©artwork & words conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner©
~trees through the window~
~shaking medusa heads~
~the snake is long~
~seven miles~
~a rich woman’s son stole his songs Doris~
~the monster Zarathustra~
~put your head between your legs~
~kiss your ass goodbye~
~for the love of a woman~
~Nazi disguise~~boots & lies~
~mad synthesis~
~Poe, Nietzsche, Morrison, Manson, & me~
~Cave Jams/Suicide Promises~
Remember me in your days to come as the man of seven summers. Your words and girlish excitement ignited a frightful explosion in my heart. A bowl of strawberries and a beautiful woman, I had no idea what they meant. In the forever of my life they will wear your name.
Sorrow is a tempter, a loaded gun. Loss is the finger on the trigger. Equanimity demands sanity, equilibrium. Being sane and sensible drives me crazy. The inmates are running the asylum, arming our children and stealing our faces. I am a mad beast howling at road signs.
When night pulls its masque o’er my face it is ten ton terrible to be alone. The monsters in my brain are afraid. They send minnows out through my eyes to chew holes through the fabric of darkness. Life is a flesh-tone shroud we wear to fool the mirror and the face of death.
There is a place where only we go, you and me, woman. When I am away from you as I am now and go to that place I am not so lonely. Though alone, it is good to always know that you are there for having been there, never far away for the same reason.
The churchman has opened his door. Its shaft of light divides my face. He chooses sides against me to support his religion, a proprietary bent toward you as if he hails from a house of Lords. Fear owns the loose juice of my bowels, the price I’d pay to do what must be done with him.
I favor songs about hearts of stone, the impenetrable forest, man’s id of trees pounding his breast and stomping his feet, howling epithets against the feral night. You step nimbly through the seven of my senses, frail and quick-footed, nude dancer. Woman, you are a twelve pound hammer.
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~aborted strangers in the mud~
~Jim Morrison~
~two great European narcotics~
~alcohol & Christianity~
~Nietzsche ~
~I realize I am only what I've always been~
~a half-assed nothing~
~Charles Manson~
~filled with mingled cream & amber~
~I will drain that glass again~
~Poe~
~two things I can’t stand~
~sober people when I’m drunk~
~& drunk people when I’m sober~
~WordWulf ~
~Madmen~
~we drink a cup or two or ten~
~& press our faces against~
~some frozen window~
~mirror of agony~
~lost hope~
~we cry for you with each swig~
~we attempt to die for you~
~until we become bloated~
~floating flowers~
~rootless & faded~
~ah whiskey~
~you make us real~
~without you we are dried up~
~pressed between brittle pages~
~of our lives until~
~the winds of time whisper~
~riffle the leaves & blow us away~
~ain’t no good whiskey men on the wind~
~we are floating phat~
~in the dark liquid of our gloom~
~laughing & pinching the titties~
~of night ladies~
~we are yours until the sun~
~brings us down again~
~amen & amen~
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: V~
~birds at the sepulcher~
~black wing twisted waistcoats~
~looking through the window~
~her lover disturbed him~
~a dead one-eyed stair~
~climb me up quick~
~don’t wanna drown alone~
~the semen dream~
~bathtub coffin~
~Music the Winter Moon Invites~
My brother called me a liar. Some days he knows me better than I have strung words around my throat. One day I might just jump off this planet. I feel like the moon owns me. Fearful of water, I am drawn to tides. The drowning man contemplates suicide.
If hell existed, this would be it you know. I’m hiding in the body of my former self, telling it no, refusing it succor. The woman it loved is poised and ready to bury her fangs and rip off its head. Some folks are too ignorant to be afraid. They become the next brave victims.
We made noise like cannibals, aborigines in the desert pounding dry sticks against hollow stones. Drug lions pounced from under cars, stole away the children from our used to be. He has a live puppet for a wife and a corpse for a bed mate.
Wondering as I pull the winter moon down to my eyes that they may yet be drawn to it without her at my side, the sky reach of our seek. Will she share it with a new stranger while I fade from her heart, disappear from her dreams. I truly dread the end of winter. Summer lightning without her will rip through my heart.
Children with your sidewalk wagons come rolling down to meet me. There is nothing in the world like their laughing, its absolute synchronicity with my being. Bells, bells, do you hear them peeling, peeling. Where the church spiders live, my eyes follow them alone and no one sees.
Tomorrow the ten-penny city awaits. Counters mete out the coin of the realm. In the shadow of the woman stands a boy, his face a face I have come to love. His father devours and I must run away because and before he swallows them both. She will not have me; there is nowhere left to hide.
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: IV~
~damned to be rabid dog bitten~
~the twisted vein at the business end of a needle~
~molested by an older sibling~
~alone in the bathtub~
~alone in the room~
~cryptococcus in the tomb~
~c’mon l’il girl~
~got somethin’ for ya~
~Brethren Misguided~
The woman has broken his heart, says she loves him too much to love him. Unable to say goodbye, she refuses to say hello. The mystery of gender is elusive. Islands are free as they stand, defenseless in the face of tides.
The loss of love is a nearer death, as its constituents are breathing still, a double suicide as it were, grief, a shifting wall of shadows. The pallbearers were blindfolded, united in their stilted, stiff-gait stride. A corpse enters and owns any room.
I have a longing to be the last man standing. The whole damned world has gone to sleep. The refrigerator and tick tock clock growl through the mind of the insomniac. The wizard is buried under the dead tree whose roots strangled him to death when he ingested seeds of knowledge.
I am the prefect of loneliness, a crowded voice in an empty room, ten-penny wishes on Saturday night. The voice of the woman says I love you, as recorded on the telephone machine, so long as you promise to stay away, realize I need not to need you.
My flesh is onion skin stretched o’er the starched bones of mediocrity, a spider web bouncing on my eyes whose maker has seen who I am and eaten her way through my brain is a thin masque veil of death smoke rising from the fading ember life.
She told us to stand up and be men. We argued, fought over bananas, chased naked women up and down the halls where life is swallowed by alleys, mad dogs with moons in their eyes. He said he was glad she was dead. Only I saw the lie in the tears in his eyes.
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~Nietzsche suggested we lift ourselves up on our own shoulders~~he was imprisoned in a madhouse by his loving sister~
~Manson asked his girls to do something nice for Charley~
~they gave him their best~
~Jim Morrison said it, lived it, & died it~~no one here gets out alive~
~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: III~
~Visions from the Gallows Tree~
The isolation of this cell is a discipline to be mastered one day, one hour, one minute at a time. As a potion prescribed by a healer, it must be consumed in doses. There are voices beneath the floor, no escape, shared wailing of the damned.
Having studied the history of men with a predisposition to self-imposed misery, one might surmise I’d know better. Seems we study ourselves in others, unintentionally and near-blind. We are not what we become, a conglomerate, a mere synthesis of our surroundings. They are only and all the earth keepers of our feet.
If Jesus were a country, an island, would you seek him out, go there to pray? Not I, it would be too crowded with sycophants, councils and committees. I am sufficiently intelligent to be trained, woefully antagonistic and un-trainable. Who drilled holes in the spanking board?
She steps across his body and wonders, did she have him or him her. Pondering this, she thinks (hopes) maybe he is dead. The reverend lights candles in the choir box. His singers have refused to sing. Having rung the bell himself, he knows he’ll have to find a ringer and find one soon.
Concerned citizens drive Cadillacs to a protest against oil magnates. They read poems condemning war, high taxes, gender factors and pollution. My fists punch holes in cardboard boxes. I crush aluminum cans beneath my feet. Why doesn’t someone clean up this goddamned mess?
There is no room in this room for me. It is full of ghosts and hobgoblins. A giant golden fish has swallowed my stars. There is a lady married to the sister of her protest mate. They intend to arrange non-emotional sex to impregnate her so the ladies can be fathers. There is no room in this womb for me.
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
~Poe, Nietzsche, Morrison, Manson loosening the mind nuts~~raven speaking the dark night~~Helter Skelter & oh, my damn, the music’s over here~~goodnight my lady this~ ~Letters from the Monastery of My Heart: I~
~Confirmation of Darkness~
Monkish, I am a monkey starving in the limbs of a barren tree watching the ape community thriving on the lush jungle of life, unwilling, unable to join them, surviving by consuming vermin crawling through the skin of my brain.
There is a tin man howling whose body is a whistle stop where blackbirds rest and cackle, dance across his stiff arms, make sport of his scarecrow appearance. I scatter seeds on the ground to get them off me.
A continuum of negativity has swallowed my universe, beginning with naked parents and the poor rags of their death. My lady’s kisses have been taken, carried away in strongboxes, offered free to strangers.
Struggling to find a peace of ground, running bare-skinned through a snowfield, my spirit howls out to the gods seeking confirmation of destiny, its voice singing a litany handed down from the cradleboard in chains, the slave camp of my being.
If not for the glad-song of my children I might swallow the carpet nails of life, sing a rasping, gushing blood-song, allow myself the strength and release of weakness. Yet do they sustain me, demand with the purity of their love that I stand diminished, love them unconditionally.
She met me in a lightning storm, captured, ran away with my heart. Years grind our dearest dreams to dust. They become clouds to confuse and confound us. A poor lover, I struggle desperately to recapture what were, perhaps, only thoughts of a blind man who believed for a moment he could see.
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WordWulf
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© artwork & words conceived by & property of Tom (WordWulf) Sterner ©
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