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A Tender Wrapping: Quodlibet IX

3/29/2018

Quodlibet: Introduction to IX: A Tender Wrapping

The tiny woman
wraps them in her housecoats
forces bunny slippers on their feet
dries their shaggy heads with towels
“You are old men now
in your fifties, for god sake
You have no business
riding those damned machines”
They sit on her couch shivering
grinning sheepishly at each other
Her two oldest sons
having ridden their Harleys
five hundred miles in the rain
to celebrate her birthday with her
She brings them hot coffee
loves them well
helps them roll their machines
into the dark warmth of her barn
The very next year
her bunny slippers are gone
and so is she
The brothers ride
Their tears hide the rain

Elders and infants
learning to know one another
understanding
they are the same
dependent as separate hues
vibrant as each string
the chord humming
life

A Tender Wrapping
Quodlibet IX

Standing up for pennies
All hail at a dollar down
these blankets
a hundred-pound weight
Strive to earn alive, a shroud
a safe place to bury your worried face
O children, learn to walk away
plant your garden seeds of youth
Be tall and good to yourselves
Those older, they look away
are kind and understanding
ever useful in the odd circumstance
such as surviving under siege
construction of birthing and burial blankets

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Letters from the Monastery: II Tempered by the Woman Without

3/21/2018

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What can I read her on a Sunday morning?
What can I do that will somehow reach her?
~Jim Morrison from "Miami"

In revenge and in love, woman is more barbaric than man is.
~Friedrich Nietzsche~

There are times you wake up
when you haven’t yet been to sleep
lost to the moon’s dictation as tides
murder in your blood
riding the storm
The bad sister’s face in the mirror won’t drop

Tempered by the Woman Without

Memories call his attention to the moon
Reluctant to follow a heart
so recently exiled to the roam
he stares at a single blind window facing east
imagines mad dogs in the yard
considers the other portal door
icicles’ frigid need to pierce his feet in the night

His heart is a lonely wanderer
It listens to the howling voice of winter
wind threatening to enter the room
It was cold the day he left her
in the tiny city of the owls
Wisdom has bitten his love dreams in half
He is lost in a labyrinth of pain

The teacher warned her students, “beware
lest your noodle poems bite you”
She knew a man who drowned in the soup of himself
Photographs are mind whips to the lonely
reminders of that other reality
He has gathered his tablets in piles
an impenetrable wall of words

Digging through papers, a card fell in his lap
It was a note from his mother
begging forgiveness and too late now
He speaks desperately to her box of ashes
Is it shameful for a man to weep?
There are seven levels of revenge
the winds of time disregard

There’s the moon he shared with her
It captures his eyes, draws them
through a wintry haze of clouds
He has stood too long in the yard
trapped ‘neath a masque of ice
Where have they taken his princess
the lightning of her desire?

When eyes close and hands reach
what nimble creatures of habit they are
open on empty and holding without
Their disappointment is a near-step to misery
They torture the mind that made them so
Spirits of darkness invade
and slip away with our dreams

http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 graphic artwork music and words
conceived by and property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

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Alms for the Digger

3/8/2018

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Meet me with your bodies for crosses,
goodness overlapped by sin,
jewels of your imperfections
worn as bracelets ‘round your thighs.

He steps into his shovel.
Stones sing; steel voices ring.
Yes, the morning dew clings
to the flesh and his face.
His face weeps sweat
at three by six and two yards deep.
A blackbird whispers:

Alms for the Digger

Will we finally remember to be satisfied of moment,
realize there is no surprise in time spent seeking back.
Mysterious connection, we of human invention
tend to view ourselves as extensions
of god beasts, anal retention.

Shadows in the cave lake,
wicked teeth and no eyes.
Glide smooth, serpent fish.
Celebrate darkness of vision,
an ancient realm, copper seam.
So pure, we existed before
heathen events of mutation.

One last curtain call;
an old blues man adjusts hiss steel teeth.
He takes the bit into his mouth
and rides ‘er one more time,
each unspecified event of madness.
(howling harmonica)

(this part sung)
I don’t care when the night-wind blows.
She gon’ say me a prayer.
She gone, she gone, she gone.
Tell ya ‘bout woman,
author of madness, priestess, witness.
Carry me to the killing ground.
Lay me on a field of fire.
My flesh won’t burn.
My flesh will not burn.

A mist of ghosts rise,
divided by distance and slaughtered anew.
They are blue and gray in the dawn,
boys wearing masks of men,
thin whiskered and hollow of cheek.
She gon’ pray us a prayer,
mark the end of our war,
mark the end of our war.
(harmonica moan)

A fisher of pearls probing your wound
of flesh, discovers a cache of fish eggs, roe.
The fisherman fertilizes them,
carries them away in a canning jar,
calls them sea monkeys.
He ends up joining a circus
where his life becomes an adventure,
a chance to be all he can be,
no idle passing of time.
Then there’s the plan to feed the homeless in China,
inspired by the bleached bones of home,
walked over and tossed aside.

Few see beyond the tinted glass,
pleased to be on their way to aid the less fortunate.
Who’s gonna shovel the elephant shit?
To youth I say,
rejoice in a ravenous feast of years,
your blood lust to have it all.
Hump your way toward oblivion.
Suck energy from the day.
Spit it into the faces from whence you came;
defecate on the courthouse steps.
Wiggle your ass silly and walk away.
Breathe deep your smoking revenge.
Soon enough you will bury those who made you and,
when you went too far, dug deep to arrange your bail.
A reoccurrence of dawn is no swift illusion
or less real, the morrow.
Too young for wisdom, old enough to know better,
climb onto your soapbox.
Wear them proud, your half-assed clothes.
Ah hell, nobody gonna pay the digger.

http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

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A Tender Wrapping: Quodlibet IX

Letters from the Monastery: II Tempered by the Woman Without

Alms for the Digger

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