Tom WordWulf Sterner - Tom (WordWulf) Sterner

Pariah

2/21/2019

2-21-2019

Our garbage is treasured
delicious to children of poverty
Unexpected and unknown
it tastes better than government
commodities and/or nothing at all
Have you watched hungry children
in their rush to eat and gobble it down
when mother notices worms crawling the food
that they might consume it before she takes it away
Damn me damn, wish I didn’t understand

Pariah

On a cold steep night
Harley rumbling ‘tween my knees
I watch the beggar man dig
his gleeful dance at morsels found
a gobbling pirouette
Eyes closed tight
a beast warren of hunger
prowling bones of the poor
Momma got no fat kids
Proud and fearful, she prays.
She works at the club restaurant bar
a ten-penny waitress, pinch and tip
empties plates into her hideout bag
treasures she smuggles home to her litter

Ah, Mister Beggar Man
we are brothers of the blood
Underneath coffee grounds
slick ash cigarette, lies the prize precious ort
We are proud in our poverty
angry in our shame
wrong side of never and lost, found wanting
I kiss the wind between us, ride fast into the night

http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2019 artwork, music & words
conceived by and property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2019 ©

Farewell Captain Charlie

12/26/2018

Great to get an email from Number One Music this morning advising me that Farewell Captain Charlie was in the #1 spot locally (Colorado), #158 Nationally, and #289 Globally. We had five songs in top ten local, top 300 national, and top 500 global. Merry Christmas to us and thank-you, those who request and play our music. Your support is the only marker that matters. Hope your Christmases went well. Good tidings in 2019!

Thanks to my talented sons, Tommy, for the guitar work and Zedidiah, for putting together the video for this song. I believe the three of us have been doing this together for thousands of years. https://youtu.be/tZjL5dWFxr0

Farewell Captain Charlie

Seems like we were talking and arguing away
when I walked out the door to see the sunny day
Vaguely I remember what it meant to kiss your lips
but then I’m sure you know how my memory slips
how my memory slips
Yes, I really loved you, more than I can tell
I followed you to heaven; we ended up in hell
There’s nothing more surprising than seven yesterdays
I’m thinking of tomorrow, all that I can say
oh, all that I can say
is farewell Captain Charlie
bright and sparkly eyes
patches on your blue jeans
a teardrop in the sky
a teardrop in the sky
Yes, farewell Captain Charlie
all good things must end
molded plastic kingdom
boys turn into men, boys turn into men

You’re beautiful today; I’ve never seen you cry
Saturday mornings weren’t meant for cold, cold goodbyes
Wouldn’t life be simple if everyone were you
We’d never have to wonder what to do or not to do
what to do or not to do
Monsters live in darkness, angels in the day
Captain Charlie’s always there to chase demons away
I know you can help me; we’ve all done this before
There’s a message on the wall, a red light at the door
oh, there’s a red light at the door
So farewell Captain Charlie
bright and sparkly eyes
patches on your blue jeans
a teardrop in the sky
a teardrop in the sky
Yes, farewell Captain Charlie
all good things must end
molded plastic kingdom
boys turn into men, boys turn into men

I’ve gone to live inside myself, there I’m gonna stay
deep inside my own creation, live my life away
I found her sort of living there, maybe she was dead
cold and still, warm inside, messing with my head
She was messing with my head
There she was, Captain Charlie, on his pillow there
That is how she went away, her fingers in his hair
Oh, Captain Charlie, I’ve protected you again
Don’t you know that we can never be what we have been
oh, be what we have been
So farewell Captain Charlie
bright and sparkly eyes
patches on your blue jeans
a teardrop in the sky
a teardrop in the sky
Yes, farewell Captain Charlie
all good things must end
molded plastic kingdom
boys turn into men, boys turn into men

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

Thank-you for the plays and requests. To those who have asked where to purchase our songs, we have uploaded a couple dozen them to https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/wordwulf
They are on sale there for .99 each. Welcome to all new subscribers. We appreciate the positive emails and spreading the word about what we do!

Tom, Tommy, Zedidiah, Kathy, WordWulf
[email protected]

Check out our songs and other endeavors at http://wordwulf.com.
http://wordwulf.com/songs
http://www.wordwulf.com/store/c1/WordWulf
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/wordwulf
http://facebook.com/wordwulfmusic
https://www.facebook.com/tomsterner2/
http://instagram.com/wordwulf
http://youtube.com/zoodious
http://wordwulf.org

Afterlight

11/14/2018

11-14-2018

Is this twilight
where I meet a bad bartender
where I need to be
What does the sun have to do with it
It ain't nothin'
but reflections of a moon
I haven't visited before
Ignore me after
bring me a drink
I am the only thing heavy in the room
then leave me alone

to think
lovely flames outside the fire
Ain't no such thing, honey
You're in or you're out
Sing the song like you wrote it
Put it down
Walk away
Run away
It's not your fault
No one can pin it on you
You did good
Behave yourself now
Lay down wooden
You turn around

Look at my child with your hungry eyes
Go ahead
You got nothin' to worry about
You aren't real
You ain't here
Goodbye
I'm headed for jail
where men like me belong
You just one more ugly-assed smear
no one has to worry with
Me
just doin' my time

I been suckin' up midnight
with creatures like myself
preying on predators
turning on a dime
Ain't no future in your limp-ass game
It ends with the wrong victim
whose monsters run deeper
trailing
tracking
stalking
Doing what you do
no victim in mind
Vengeance is a word
sure as hell ain't no crime
Go on, tempt shadows
one at a time

Screw me down tight
on your midnight throne
Come back at noon
you'll find me alone

Piss on me
puke on me
I feel your pain
like an empath
like a preacher
I'm a devil
got your name

from a book handed me
by the dying hand
of a suffering, twisted
friend of man
It's a killing list
he didn't get done
of men like you
damn sure, the very next one
Men without shadows
time undone
Is this twilight, am I
the man without shadow
the only man
in the room
with a gun in his hand

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

Fly Away Home

11/11/2018

11-11-2018

Trees on fire
in the dying forest
Flames become
the final chapter
of their fate and doom
birds’ wings ablaze
in the smoking tower
of afternoon

A sparrow sings her death song
frets about her nest
pushes them out
one by one
those born to her
nurtured
until they are devoured with the rest

Man-beasts
pour water from the sky
They tell
terrible stories
of the inferno and why
the sky fell

The tiniest tears
someone ought to know
how brave she was
the courage of the sparrow

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

Love is/Highwayman

9/3/2018

9-3-2018

A man on the road usually doesn’t have much in the way of money and possessions. What he seeks is positive energy, vitality of spirit, a predisposition toward hopes and dreams, the hunger and willingness to share them.

The Highwayman

He carries dreams in a bucket. It is shot through with holes and leaking, splashing the tarmac, shoulder of the road, in liquid arcs, tiny streams crisscrossing. He is a sight to see with his backpack and bucket, feet tripping forward, a staccato march toward what is left in the pail, nonchalant as regards what has been spilled along the way. He has half a sandwich left over from a stop at a Seven-Eleven, a battered army canteen full of cheap red wine, a ten-dollar bill stashed in the sole of his shoe.

Round and round, he swings the bucket. The sun highlights a circle silhouette, the arc of his throw, reach of his dreams. Both hands on its handle, he flips it over, sits down on top of it, opens the canteen, takes a conservative swallow. A crow shines blue/black in the tree of his shade. Caw-caw, it speaks to him in its ancient voice. The highwayman laughs, taps out a finger-beat percussion on the side of his bucket-seat full of dreams. He begins to hum and the bird cocks its head. Their eyes meet; they are birds of a feather.

The day passes and the bucket fills with bits and pieces. The highwayman sorts through lies, truth, half lies delivered in steps through holes in his mind. He waves off a ride in a Coupe de Ville, climbs into the back of an old rusty pickup truck with a lovely crowd of Cherokee children. They smile shyly with their dark eyes. He stares at his shoes and smiles back. From the bottoms of their eyes, they are birds of a feather. The children dig into his bucket with curious racoon-like hands, leave more than they could ever take. He insists their father, the man driving the truck, accept the ten dollars he has pressed into his hand while giving it a firm thank-you and shake.

The highwayman sets off down the shoulder of the road to share and refill his bucket of dreams. He offers a wink to the day, a song in the voice of the crow. His step is lighter without the weight of the ten-dollar bill on his mind.

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

9-3-2018

Love is

Sometimes when I’m sleeping
sometimes I lay awake
Sometimes I should be dreaming, sometimes
I take love for granted
Who would ever guess
It just keeps on moving, love is
Love is like a wheel
Love goes round and round
It is like a wheel
Love goes round and round

There is time for laughing
There is time for crying
There is a time for holding, there is
Years flow by like water
carrying us away
Wonder if our love grows, love is
Love is like a wheel
Love goes round and round
It is like a wheel
Love goes round and round and round

Hold me and forever
Hold me I am never
Hold me going to leave you, hold me
I hear children laughing
I hear children playing
They are me and mine and love is
Love is like a wheel
Love goes round and round
It is like a wheel
Love goes round and round and round and round

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

She Hears Kisses

8/21/2018

She Hears Kisses

She hears kisses
She rides the wild horses
She dives into the rhythm
of the seven raging waters
She falls into her pillow
cries unto the morning
Take me where the rains blow
fine against my window
She hears kisses
She rides the wild horses
She’s blind but she don’t care

Her body is a prison
She bangs around inside there
until the walls go falling
to break the bonds of reason
Her blood becomes a river
She’ll ride it into freedom
The tears upon her pillow
are rain against the window

Her years are twenty-seven
She reaches out to hold them
They’re slipping through her fingers
sliding under shadow
The sun against her body
puts color in her rainbow
She turns away from sadness
flies across the shadow
She hears kisses
She rides the wild horses
She’s blind but she don’t care

She was born to suffer
and he was born to hold her
He’s the one who’s crying
She gets strong and stronger
God knows she hears his kisses
She rides the wild horses
He’s lost inside her rhythm
as they dive into the waters
She hears kisses
She rides the wild horses
She’s blind but she don’t care
No, she don’t care

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

Into Black

8/16/2018

Fugue

Pondering creativity, music, unsure whether it was the crowning glory of my youth or the toilet that swallowed it.

There are warts on their skin now, dragon nail breath, those fresh songs, a lifetime away. Momma used to come dance to my voice. First, she stopped dancing then she ceased to live or was it the other way around.

Those little girls, my daughters, who used to sing all my songs, have children of their own, husbands and careers. My sons make their own music

Stone damn markers in our lives, deaths of parents, assassinated politicians, elections and hurricanes, life experiences that bind us to a sense of purpose and expectations of ourselves and others. Canned laughter from the tv room makes about as much sense.

Other than duplicity, there is no actuality. Audiences expect to hear and see, experience a secondhand reality, what they are programmed to be comfortable with, hot and ready to do that thing everybody’s talkin’ about, whatever the hell it is. The room was empty when the pretenders left, possibly more desolate than before they arrived.

Beggars are the only liars that earn their keep.

Thank-you for the plays and requests. To those who have asked where to purchase our songs, we have uploaded a couple dozen them to https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/wordwulf
They are on sale there for .99 each. Welcome to all new subscribers. We appreciate the positive emails and spreading the word about what we do!

Tom, Tommy, Zedidiah, Kathy, WordWulf
[email protected]

Check out our songs and other endeavors at http://wordwulf.com.
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/wordwulf
http://facebook.com/wordwulfmusic
https://www.facebook.com/tomsterner2/
http://instagram.com/wordwulf
http://youtube.com/zoodious
http://wordwulf.or

Ode to Good Neighbors

8/1/2018

8-1-2018

She spoke with him about traveling with the Lawrence Welk band, dancing while her husband performed with them. Eighty-seven years old, she closes her eyes, falls into a graceful pirouette. He catches her and she goes into her apartment, a tear in her eye. Her husband is long gone dead, Mister Welk too.

Ode to Good Neighbors

The man bought his son a dog when the boy’s mother left. She was white, the dog, a Malamute Husky. An elderly neighbor lady complained that the dog cried when he went to work and his son went to school. So, he put newspapers thick on the floor in the bathroom, also the dog’s water dish and food. He closed her in there whenever he and his son were not at home.

The lady was pleased by the return to peace and quiet. She asked the man how he had solved the problem of the noisy dog. When he told her, she cried, “That is an awful thing to do to such a nice dog!”

He agreed to leave the dog out, to let it have the run of the apartment, if the nice lady would listen for it and report to him as to whether the animal had learned to be quiet. Sometime later the lady reported, “The dog doesn’t cry anymore.” The man wondered whether the dog had taught them both a lesson of sorts.

One morning he heard her groan, the lady, when she bent over to pick up her newspaper. Eighty-seven years old, her back hurt. The man smiled her a good morning and went to work. The very next morning, and every one after that for eight years, the man picked up her newspaper and stood it on end by her door. He did this even on weekends, especially on holidays. He had to begin his day a bit earlier but felt better about himself for the effort.

She saved newspapers for the boy so he and his dad could line the floors of the bathroom so the good and quiet dog could do her business there. The lady had never seen such a nice dog.

One Christmas morning the man heard his neighbor outside. She was yoo-hooing and waving at the people who brought the newspaper. “Come up here, I have a gift for you!” She handed twenty dollars to the surprised girl. “You and your family are so wonderful,” she chortled. “To climb those stairs every day and stand that newspaper up for an old lady.”

The man, who had planned to tell the lady one day that he and his boy set up her paper, bit back his words and smiled. He waved at the astonished newspaper girl. He felt good about himself and life in general. The lady, not knowing about his daily deed, made the doing of it feel more special. She was not indebted to him. Quite the opposite, he felt he owed her for affording him the opportunity to learn and teach his son such an important life lesson. The recipient of his daily gift, unaware, somehow made his good deed feel extra good. The smile on the newsgirl’s face was his to share as well, a bonus. When he and his son went camping he enlisted the help of other neighbors to set the newspaper up. They loved sharing his good secret and never told the lady. They were gang members and true to their word.

Odd, the dog barked and cried on weekends but not during the week. The lady twittered and swore to the fact. The man met a woman on the internet. He and the boy moved away to be with her. The lady upstairs, a neighbor for ten years, wished them well, hugged them and cried. She knew if he kept messin’ around on that internet some woman would grab him up. He was good ‘un.

After fighting cancer for two years, weakened and listless from chemotherapy, the lady finally gave in and moved to another city to live with her son and his family. The man came back to check on her but neighbors told him she had moved away. The building where they had lived was filthy and rundown. Had it been this way before, he wondered. Had he and his son lived in such a place? He saw a newspaper on the sidewalk, picked it up and climbed the stairs. He stood it up by the door, took a deep breath and walked away.

They taught themselves, these good neighbors, listened to that voice inside that makes all the difference between good and better, to be well and let the deed be done.

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

Letters from the Monastery: III: Visions from the Gallows Tree

7/25/2018

Nietzsche suggested we lift ourselves up on our own shoulders. He was imprisoned in a madhouse by his loving sister for the latter part of his life. 7-25-2018

Manson asked his girls to do something nice for Charley. They gave him their best. (7-25-2018)

Jim Morrison said it, lived it, and died it. No one here gets out alive. (7-25-2018)

Visions from the Gallows Tree (7-25-2018)

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
We study ourselves in others
have no idea we’ll become, a conglomerate
a reluctant synthesis of our surroundings
They are 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 is certain
he’ll have to find a ringer and find one soon

Concerned citizens drive their 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 goddamn mess?

There is no room in this room for me
It is full of ghosts and hobgoblins
A giant gold fish has swallowed my stars
There is a woman married to the sister of her protest mate
They intend to have non-emotional sex
to impregnate her so the ladies can be fathers
There is no room in this womb for me

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

Damnation

7/19/2018

7-19-2018

Flagstaff Mountain

7/14/2018

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I have ridden this ol’ Hawg through clouds, gods thundering, kicking my ass with thousands of drill bit raindrops. I twist the throttle, howl through to the other side, the edge and one step further, over the top.

Flagstaff Mountain

Today, while cleaning the garage, a strange and interesting event occurred. A dust devil, mini tornado, danced up the driveway and across the cement floor. It wandered a bit in its to and fro sway, then dashed forward where it spent itself on the phat black and chrome body of my ol’ Hawg.

Being a man of voice, whose mouth has learned to keep shut, the better to listen to nuances of phantom messages, I settled myself in the dust of my new friend. I contemplated kicking the ol’ Hawg to life, which deed was done before I knew it. Another specific and one-time event as she woke purring on the first stroke. Entranced, I backed ‘er out of the garage, pointed ‘er toward the street and let ‘er have ‘er head.

Rolling West, down Baseline Road, memory took a swipe at me. It dragged me back to the eighties, that same street and new boots, bearded brothers before me and roaring up from behind, the guitar man, Matthew, life-friend at my side. Up the mountain we rode, to the wedding of Phil Howell to his beautiful Asian, silken-haired lady and their wind faces under the pines. The preacher looked smart in his dark clothes, his words of troth accompanied by the music of creaking leather, the cooling metal of iron horses and darting birds, curious in their singsong quick-eyed way.

Past Table Mesa Boulevard, traffic and Boulder lights fading behind, the road smooths out, single lane, an easy climb through the foothills. For the seasoned Colorado rider, a certain preparedness takes place. Hairpin curves, jackknives await, cool, tree-shadowed paths and startling, sun-splashed views. Pistons and cam, heartbeat and blood, fuse in a shift, down shift, tap the brake and throttle forward fluid movement. Sunrise Amphitheater lies just ahead, around this blind curve or that, red stones surrounded and punctuated by sturdy pine and scrabble bush. I leave my war-worn Hawg, my dragon, on ‘er stand and follow a steep path down.

Memory quick-trips me back to the seventies and my brothers, before the prison in Canon City stole their hearts. We hauled our band gear up that ol’ mountain, carried amplifiers, guitars, drums, and generators down into the Sun Circle where we established ourselves on that side-o’-the-mountain open stage. I drank Seagram’s Seven, howled my lyrics and played my harmonica into the mountain air and white cloud sky. Boulder lay behind me, a sheer backdrop to a young man on the edge of time and certainly unaware of the audacity of his behavior. No permits, no appointments, just music and the poor-boy Sterner brothers, doin’ that thing they used to do. A group of Jewish People appeared later. Permit in hand, they advised us they had reserved this wondrous place for a very special wedding observance. We played a couple of our songs for ‘em while they performed a precise and circular tribal dance. They applauded our efforts and fed us, sent us back smiling to our West Denver homes.

A smile comes to me slowly, like Harry Chapin said, “It was a sad smile, just the same”. I light my second cigar of the day, feet planted on each side o’ the ol’ dragon, arms resting on her handlebar wings. A sparrow lands on my mirror, gives me a wink and flits away. I wonder its lineage, generations of mountain life past. Did its forbears hear the poor boys’ noise, witness a specific binding of troth. I swear the stones are the same, each pine needle and chittering chipmunk. Sons born since have carried my music into a new age. It is theirs now and far different somehow. I remain unchanged like the face of Flagstaff. Mountains know what I might only guess. Time is on their side.

Cigar butt clenched tightly ‘tween my teeth, I give the ol’ War Horse a couple o’ kicks. She coughs and sputters to life. I tickle the throttle, glory in her growl and roar. A dust devil dervish giggles from the path, rises and kisses me on the cheek; how, the mountain, she speaks.

Flagstaff Mountain was published by Colorado Vintage Poetry 2005

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

Confirmation of Darkness: Letters from the Monestary I

7/5/2018

Monkish, he is a monkey starving
in the limbs of a barren tree
watching the ape community thrive
on lush jungle flora
unwilling, unable to join them
surviving by consuming vermin
crawling through the skin of his brain

There’s 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
He scatters seeds on the ground
to get them off him

A continuum of negativity
has swallowed his universe
beginning with naked parents
and the poor rags of their death
His lady’s kisses have been taken
carried away in strongboxes
offered free to strangers

Struggling to find peace
running bare-skinned through snowfields
his 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 his being

If not for the glad-song of his children
he might swallow the carpet nails of life
sing a rasping, gushing blood-song
allow himself the strength and release of weakness
In their innocence, they sustain him
demand with the purity of their love
that he stand, diminished, care for them as much as he is able

She met him in a lightning storm
captured, ran away with his heart
Years grind our dearest dreams to dust
clouds that confuse and confound us
A poor lover, he struggles desperately
to recapture what were, perhaps, only thoughts
of a blind man who believed for a moment he could see

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

Subterranean Junket

6/22/2018

there’s a white woman in the room
shampoo
you can’t judge speed from a distance
come on down

there is no ending
but I do appreciate your rejection
beauty abounds on the face of youth
freefall

tiger loose in the woods
midnight fisherwoman
lines on water
waterline

she hid her spirit
sun-streaks on the garden
submission
will of masters

a tongue in the cave
tasteless commentary
witness wisdoms
damned to be thirsty

fellow witnesses
all hail
bride of satan
to wings aspire

shallow aurora
shadow of Eos
no time like now
something fishy swim

I don’t understand you
thank-you
your applause
might unearth me

respite of tyrants
from mouths of babes
epithet
lullaby

a mother to strangers
orphans of choice
voice of descent
six cubed down

decision to wear my motor
a free and separate passion
dizzying rain
dithery doo

unclear as stark light
a bug on the windscreen
this dream sequence
leggy bits of goo

the cueing of partners
frazzling thread bits
bananas on a plate
speaking of winter

four times a dollar
quarters of century
ill-spent years
praying for mother

who will hold us up
robbers upon closing
death is a whip
nine bells down

prisoners of light
moth conspiracy
war men fan the flames
sense of dignity

left and right crosses
requirements of requiem
asleep in the choir
voice deeper than stone

let us taste his beans
the door of opportunity
three winds in a vacuum
outside waiting, four more

we were passed by Dilbert
a tin-can tuna melt
tryin’ to live in the hills
a writer of camp songs

she has fish eyes
ducks swimming ‘cross the sky
each drawer wears a masque
alone in the room

life is crosstie walkin’
footsteps on the moon
sadder than spilt water
funnel of mercy

she listens to voices
owls asleep in the afternoon
for a slice of white bread
dreams of the kill

intent of counterpoint
duelists in the dawn
portrait silhouette
the baby is crying

a city on the move
weeping mountains
witless romantic
the emperor sighs

legends of god-speak
thin binding flesh
momma’s smoking a cigarette
laughter from the whiskey bar

we slept in a roadhouse
the moon is at seven
with some consideration
a sharing of wounds

raccoons crossing the yard
the wife and I drank tea
her personal favorite
what children don’t know

the clamor of legion
awaiting window
wooden never bored
phat pulpit dancers

he was eight parts wisdom
the rest must come before
a howling of madmen
presumptuous creed

there are more white cars
China is down under
kangaroos are not
whiskey men philosophers

the angel risks
imagination
shoestring around her throat
progression of aims

don’t hold me up
sharpen your whistle
lay down your weapons
anticipate this

the little man is unbelted
we got laws to prove you
three times protector
bullet in the brain

ain’t no wax dummy
there are porcelain lips
who sing the heart song
we are too sick to beg

she would rather walk
paddle canoe, oar else
come fathom the morrow
we is in too deep

time out for prayers
they’re digging trenches
television snowstorm
resolute madness

an eye on the storm
shuffling gait
twisted scenario
truth

teasing the pickpocket
no crowd control
so help us god money
fresh folding

when praying is preying
man beneath the robe
don’t climb into the box
willing prisoner

we police ourselves
1-800-to snitch
you ain’t no bargain basement
small wonder price we pay

nestled on a hill
hugged in a closet
children are glad houses
ante up everyone wins

traffic is a phat truck
a snail crawls our brain
either no leftovers
or that’s all there is

a treatise on selling out
snowmen in the dark
stick figures and angels
homesick at home

a juried selection
prisoners executed at dawn
the art of living
and of living art

an eager applicant
bottom line aficionados
three monkeys for lunch
acute indigestion

mother spoon nipple
simple garden rape
pure of poison
deadliest sin

don’t make those faces
injurious by design
listen to the song of your loins
a children’s choir

a lavender sunrise
midnight promises
house of whispers
where lovers reside

nothing is perfect
errant drift of cloud life
change is on the wind
a likening to sorrow

something’s eating his brain
doubt and melancholy no
not what might have been
what must have been yes

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© 2018 artwork, music and words
conceived by and property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Bound to

6/16/2018

Bound to (6-16-2018)

Bound to

After over fifty years, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, engaged in an endeavor I entered into by choice and choice alone, suffice to say, fatherhood is not an undertaking that can be carried out to anywhere near perfection. It is a lifelong event, a conviction, thousands of prayers, to stand by and defend, come what may. Siring is not fathering, nowhere near fathering.

Making the choice to be a father five times in a row are decisions I have not spent a single moment regretting. Over the years, sometimes all in the same day, I believed I was the worst, most mediocre, and best father to have ever existed.

I owe thanks to that boy, over fifty years ago, for the tough decision he made, glad to be the man who, through a helluva life, stood by that decision and lived to tell the stories. I have known and cared for these five people the all of their lives, my children.

Thousands of masks wore my face. Underneath them all was the face of who I truly am, a father’s son, a father.

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© 2018 artwork, music and words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Points of Reference

5/30/2018

Points of Reference

scents
nursing homes
abortion clinics
life
just before death
sounds
sick folks groaning
babies crying
old folks laughing
baby belly giggles
life before
soon after
kisses
on the face
in the casket
in the cradle
in the
in the
in between
touch
an open wound
a sore back
baby’s foot
momma’s hands
suffering
deep felt
shallow
for others
self
eyes to see
close and dream
generations
passage
rebirth
notions of difference
indifference
confusion
on the ground
while flying
too near the moon
greetings
salutations
hello
goodbye
spoken
intuited
each an invitation
a blank space
for the other to fill
tasting
momma’s fear
daddy’s rage
hunger
an appetite
for garbage
so gifted
so given
so what
to do next
and why
a wandering cloud
counterpoint
dewdrop
pendulum
strangers in passing
strangers in fact
spit in the hand
chopping wood
embracing
violent interludes
blood on the carpet
in the hair
everywhere
you look, she’s
satisfied
surefooted
determined
lost
a country
a woman
loose reference
shoe strings
tripping easy
LSD
falling hard
LSD
baby in the room
disturbing
if wailing
calming
if cooing
changing papa’s diaper
sad and misbegotten
pinpricks
aloe vera
she bet a nickel
on sunrise
he raised her a dime
so they did it twice
despairing
at parades
birthing rooms
scared shitless
of clown faces
fear of the toilet
teetering on the edge
relieved
to leave the least
part of yourself
behind
the young man
and his guitar
alone in the wee hours
he realizes
he can play himself to sleep
epiphany
to be his father
a dear friend
said hinge philosophy
dead presidents
live chickens
guess who’s coming
and to dinner
the highway between wars
strewn with bodies and lies
a man in a robe
blesses them
picks their pockets
shudders at the ooze
gathers their spirits
into a censer
incites a zephyr
to carry their last kisses
to the world
away from the cloud
in ignorance, he stands
with those of his ilk
thieves whom weep

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© 2018 artwork, music and words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Those Without Graves

5/27/2018

On the ride to work each day
I watch the soldiers' cemetery pass.
Everything appears equal there,
stone tablets standing at attention,
grass trimmed by wiry brown-skinned men.
I see a lady bend down;
she kneels,
sets a cup full of wild flowers before stone.

I feel a hitch in my breath to watch.

Flags ever in evidence,
the here and now of this place
and this day, each grave adorned
with a tiny standard, its solemn face.
A warm day, end of May
I roll to a stop, set my kickstand down,
senses immediately assaulted
by a most deep and haunting sound.

My legs walk away from the Harley standing.

I stood open witness, his one-man parade,
tartan kilt, regal attire,
pipes slung over his shoulder,
moaning, set the morning afire.
The perfect precision of his gait,
distance practiced, known too well.
Here marched the spirits of these soldiers
to ring their lives with his mournful bell.

My heart was flushed with guilt in its watching.

His lady, with a single flower,
came to gather up her man,
his pipes with their mournful singing.
She took his arm with her hand.
I went to the stone of her choosing
where Ian the first was lain,
then to the end of the piper's walk,
the sky shed a tear of rain.

These eyes confused in their seeing.

A newer stone whose name the same,
here lies Ian the third.
I followed the voice of the piper,
loneliest sound ever heard.
And there was Ian the Junior,
standing aside with his wife,
a fair compliment of mourners
bidding farewell to a life.

What greed mine curiosity shown.

The pipes trailed away in their singing,
a reverend mumbled words to the sky
that Lord, they are brave in their going,
these lads to their sweet by and by.
A final note owned the moment
to soar with its spirit way up high.
The crack of twenty-one rifles,
exclamation marks against the sky.

What mortal undone was I.

Ian the second passed by me,
his proud pipes bellowed once more.
His wife let fall of her flower
on top of that last mortal door.
And he paced from Ian to Ian,
this man no one could save,
whose soldier's sin was still to be living
with father and son in their graves.

And the rain hid my face from his eyes.

Those without Graves was published by International Veterans Poetry Archives 2004

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© 2018 artwork, music and words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Tupelo Press – Tom Sterner

4/30/2018

Third day; I’m in good company here. Nine writers laying it out there 30 days in a row. Check it out! https://www.tupelopress.org/the-3030-project/

And my submission today:

Rider

As one with the roar of the machine
thundering through the city
tunnels of light
seeking, expecting
mystical, magical connections
secrets of midnight

Held by a separate wind
accepting, learning, earning its due
sharing its corners
full throttle blind
daring to challenge
limits, conditions, impossible odds

Primitive creature
spirit unbroken
aware, in the moment
dancing with devils
flying through faces of gods
lighthearted
free of the fear of death

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© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

I am in a “marathon” starting tomorrow, May 1st with nine other poets, writing a poem every day, and raising funds for Tupelo Press. We invite family, friends, and colleagues to sponsor us. Every donation is a vote for my poetry, and for poetry in general!

Running an actual marathon might be a bit easier than writing a poem every day, it turns out. You should try it, but in lieu of writing your own poems, you can read mine!

If you know me, you know I care about my work, and it is a big risk to put such fresh work on public display before I have a chance to edit, perfect it, and subject it to public opinion. I would like to hear from family, friends, and fellow writers. Please take a moment and check Tupelo and me out. Tupelo Press – Tom Sterner

Tupelo Press is a prestigious non-profit press. For seventeen years their mission has been to publish new voices. They are giving my work some exposure, and bringing me into a community of over 350 alumni helping each other publish our work.

Today you have a chance to help one of the few, and one of the best non-profit independent publishers we have. Help them survive and continue to put more poets into print. Here is what you are supporting:

Independent literary publishers are mission-driven—they focus on publishing literature.
Independent literary publishers provide access to the voices of entire communities.
Independent literary publishers produce over 98% of poetry being published each year,

and the majority of literature in translation and works of fiction by emerging writers.

There are so many ways you can support the press. A subscription to fabulous books of poetry, sent to your home, a one-time donation at any level. I hope you consider supporting me, and supporting this amazing press I am representing.

Best,
Tom

I go down until I am surrounded by yellow music. There is nothing beneath me. My mother’s dead lips smile and say, “See, there is nothing less than we.” The earth is my camp breath, its worms and the heat of my bowels. Night sweat means nothing to those who do not sleep. It is a reminding stench, a pitiful outside offering.

Take me down to the circus to witness the misery of other animals, the empirical majesty and absolute dominion of man, where only the elephant is sadder than me. Lost in a sea of green money and fingertip fishes seeking greedy, sucky, moments of avarice, she has eleven open mouths, swallows the whole of me.

She promised to keep a frail lantern alight in the window, naming and claiming its message of Phaedra, calling itself home. Falling into a forest of a thousand guitars, whose root strings are tender, is the master of chord. He hangs himself from the nearest instrument, dies on the music of the wind.

“Meet me in your dreams,” she cries “next best thing to being there.” Shadow shapes whisper my name. I am blind in the periphery. In every dream, I die. A wounded animal, I smell the rot of my flesh, damn the maggots for eating parts of me left better to putrefy for a friendly chinook to scatter across the end land.

Sleep is the kingdom of the healthy, where the strong go to rest and the weak to escape. There are madnesses between sleep where we pariahs, alleys roam. In a pasture of lowing, moon-swept, pastoral and fine, we are the hunter’s lust to slay with fang and claw, all that lives then starve on a body of prey.

The pretty boys were singing downtown, making heat for long-legged girls, flinging epithets at old-man beggars and high roller winos. Midnight don’t mean nothin’ to strangers. I got one foot in Jesus, the other in the ditch. Spirituality is a ringworm, makes you itch, digs down underneath flesh, to feast on bone marrow.

C’mon, take me out walkin’ until my feet are underwater, eyes full of sand. I’ll look down and wonder, all gritty, where the hell did they go. The man on the radio says ha-ha, talks to girls about their titties and why don’t they join a swinger’s club, do it in front of their old men, breaks for a commercial about shaking babies.

Life makes about as much sense as two nickels rubbed together, don’t make a dime. You put it all up front and when it falls down, you walk away and wonder, was it something you said or maybe you didn’t. I knew a man named Jimi. He got hot pissed when they took away one of his m’s, set fire to his instrument, banged his head on the floor. Ah hell, it’s all in the letters.

I loathe rooms with four walls, double doors and window mirrors. They see everything you do, look back, contemptuous, to remind you of everything you don’t. Yesterday there was something in my soup. I believe it loved me. The prayer I said over it was beautiful. You are woman, you are my hope, my dream then I killed and ate the damned thing.

There may be enough pills in this bottle to still the phantoms behind my eyes that I might cop a few hours of death, leave this drifting shadow place in favor of the delight of ebon fantasies. Be kind to me, you damned night. Allow me acceptance, her invitation and, with the blessing of Phaedra, whose death by her own hand
is the sleep death, the revenge of sons.

Blessings of Phaedra was published 2008 in The Hudson View and nominated for The Pushcart Prize

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© 2018 artwork, music & words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Situated Western/Saving Grace

4/3/2018

I’m real. I’m human, but I’m not an ordinary man, no, no, no.
~Jim Morrison~

Does the hell-bound howl at you?
~Nietzsche~

You haven't got long before you are all going to kill yourselves.
~Charles Manson~

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her.
~Poe~

Jesus is the bomb; do you see him?
~WordWulf~

Situated Western/Saving Grace

Western didn’t wake up this morning. We stayed up drinking last night, him and me. I’ve begun to wonder if the Saturday morning head is worth the Friday night slaking of a thirst stacked up, day to day, during the week. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I’ve had enough.

Western was funny last night though. He had me laughing my ass off one minute and crying the next. He tells the funniest damned stories then starts talking about his wife and kids. No matter what he’s thinking or doing, his family is always a background conversation running through his mind. At least that’s how he explained it to me.

Man was I pissed when they told me I was going to be stuck on this outpost with that crazy old man. He’s forty-two for Christ’s sake! I didn’t sign up in this man’s army to babysit some guy with two fingers missing and a head full of rain.

Now I know better. I’m just a dumb-assed kid. The old man covered my ass, even saved it a couple of times the past month or so here in no man’s land. Last night, after we finished off the booze, Western hugged me, told me I was his saving grace, hanging out with me was like spending time with one of his own sons. He dug a promise out of me that, if anything happened to him over here, I’d go to his family and tell them everything was okay with him. His boys are around my age and he’s glad they’re not here. I don’t know what made him think I could explain any of this shit to them, crazy old man.

That’s a hug I’ll never forget. Western knew things and didn’t mind sharing once he tested your mettle and found you worthy of his teaching. I guess that was his gift. Knowing I don’t know enough just might see me through this thing. I’m just a dumb-assed kid.

Some desert dog, shootin’ his ass off son-of-a-bitch, got a lucky round off last night. He’ll never know he put a hole in a man better than himself, better than any of us, a hole just big enough for that man’s life to leak away into the filthy sand of this bunker while I was sleeping off the whiskey night. I’m gonna make it. I can do this. I’ll hug his sons and weep with them. I need to do that. I hate this war that taught me how to love a man I didn’t even like then took him away from me.

Guess I’m just a dumb-assed kid. Western didn’t wake up this morning.

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© 2018 artwork, music & words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

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

Letters from the Monastery: II Tempered by the Woman Without

3/21/2018

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

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© 2018 graphic artwork music and words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Alms for the Digger

3/8/2018

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.

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© 2018 artwork, music & words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

Swan Song

2/26/2018

Her hair is a web come falling
tiny knot spiders withering down
She remembers dancing the Charleston
big bands when music was music
Her hands, graceful birds fluttering at her sides
she turns slowly, eyes half closed, drifts off into space
searching for the face of her lover
gone, half a century gone

She lifts a tissue to her lips
protection against the poison city
No more men in her life, she declares
having outlived husbands one and two
Children are pulling clumps of grass from the yard
“Stop that!” she admonishes in her frail voice
It reaches them and they blink at her, wide-eyed
One small tongue wags at her; others soon follow

She takes a halting step down the stair
points and shakes a trembling finger at them
Sitting on the top step, I prepare to catch her
Her bones pop and she plops down next to me
“They’re not supposed to be here,” she groans
“This was to be an ‘adults only’ building.”
Yet the past fourteen of her eighty-seven years
have been spent here witnessing the passing of children

She is quick approaching adult death
fearful and awestruck, alarmingly aware, stunned
Last year, after the chemo, the radiation
her voice died and she ceased to sing
I enjoyed her songs, the lady next door
She was wont to sing in the morning and the afternoon
her voice a god thing
sweet echoes of a life lived good and true

I seldom understood the words of her songs
The meaning was clear as the pealing of bells
the sound of her voice, full extension of her being
a lifted appendage of emotion
Sometimes when I came home from work
I lingered on the balcony porch
eager to hear a single note, a mumbled syllable
the crooning sound of the lady’s voice
a bridge between time past and worlds unborn

Lately she has been quiet, a requisite sorrow upon her
simple, absolute, more powerful than her song
I find myself a place, kneel and say a prayer
‘Take this burden from her heart; fill her spirit with joy
Lend it full voice in the end as before
shadows set to dance when the sun disappears
they are one become independently wrought
created then torn from the face of god’

Yes songs, they are the language of years
hummingbirds, voices of new children, the lark
violence of boom cars and madmen honking
slick women children writhing the coming tide
Will their aged faces remember the words
bodies turn and eyes half close
reminisce the quick step pirouette of dead husbands
fathers lost and a brace of children

She tries to stand and I help her
too fast, her bones creak and complain
The sun breaks down on dying root
clumps of grass pale in the afternoon
Faces of children fathom, so does she
the dawn of first summers and winter glow
I offer her a trade, a wink for a tear
She hums a moment; her lips smile down

She adjusts her wig, dignity reestablished
I witness a vanity of ages
The children laugh, create metal warp sounds
slapping and twisting the sign: ‘KEEP OFF THE GRASS’
I am keenly aware in the moment, the sameness of grace
hers and the children’s faces
They are beautiful and must each the other learn
where death walks, life dances afraid

Swan Song was published by Skyline Literary Magazine 2002

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© 2018 artwork, music & words
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Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©

And the Stone Man Said

2/20/2018

“WordWulf, your work reminds me of shards,
those things you find in the kiln,
beautiful fragments when the whole thing has blown.”

And the Stone Man Said

Serve me up dirty
filthy and ill-used
I am the cartoon
at the end of dawn

A mother’s prayer
quick lips of sorrow
kissed
echo of the new night

God help us
we are slain
by moments of anger
it hurts finally
hurts no more

Echoes of woe
cry the new city
built upon pastures
flowers of doom

Don’t cry me down
ye awful lament
scarlet promises
sea of new blood

Following empty
you are what lies next
stone heart
eye of moon

Fingernail traces
eyelashes
weeping
a lone figure
intolerant shadow

Maybe she’s wicked
lips apart magick
Her tongue of flame
passion divides

Old soldiers
and new lovers
pretendering peace
a fortune of skin

We are the pale
standing outside you
a misting of star-shine
penumbra undone

Don’t you dare wake me
with mute invitation
Where dragons have flown
my heart is gone

Our cloak becomes
a withering wall
Beneath the veil
a hermit resides

She is cooking fish
to feed her man slave
a bit of wine
to hurry him down

He places an ear
on the pit of her navel
A child passes through
the face of a dime
It ain’t Hitler
It’s Ike

Hurry on singers
watchers impatient
They only came to hear
the end of your song

and so it is father
whose breast is without us
whose heart is within us
whose belt is upon us

and mother stirs the soup
chicken noodle it is
no chicken
no noodle
soup nonetheless

A caravan gathers
round an open-mouthed child
He points to their camels
strange alien hump

An hour of madness
must I possess
a vision of angels
heart of the beast

Last night I saw you
bare assed naked
Bombs made your cities
and titties dissolve

Who were you then
with your crack in the sky
Who are you now
laying spread before me

There are brave new voices
islands of silence
where cave people dwell
residue of shame

I want a new blanket
to cover my faces
to shield me from the
I want the wind in my home

Old man bite your tongue
Your gun lies dead in your hand
Cover yourself
You are disgusting to the new children

A grave in the city
where geese go to graze
a feast of bones
and hollow moments

Pigeon shit in the sand
the mortar of giants
brave deeds spoken
crumbling walls

Visions of paper
pitiful wisdom
the shaman in flames
who laughs the fool

Bruised sky of my face
bitter sweet of mine heart
Divide the peace of me
make arrows and napalm

And the Stone Man Said was published in the anthology
Storm Cycle by Kind of a Hurricane Press in 2015

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

Nothing Equal

2/15/2018

Nothing Equal
Did you see the boys standing on the foreign soil of their homes shouting vindictive and threatening with stones as tanks rolled and ground their bodies, halftrack, a line of ladies, mothers in black, three coffins end-to-end, nothing equal to what is taken away.

I used to talk to dancers about gooseflesh and the stage, dollars on the table and meat by the nipple pound. I knew what they knew, my naked words, those whiskey rooms, America, nothing equal to what is taken away.

A brace of ravens, black cloud, rotor chop of metal birds, slick monster annoyance, ignorant radar screen blip-blip and come to save the day by slaughtering the innocent, nothing equal to what is taken away.

Too many dirges, the red man, whose blood favors my own, impaled on a spindle, totem to all things European cum American, an unholy spell cast on the East, thirst for her ebon/gold, oil/blood, nothing equal to what is taken away.

He stands weeping a father’s tears for the son who may never return. Pride of uniform, loyalty to flag, these swallowed in the fear and reality of the moment. What step this child makes whose hands, a father’s reach to grasp, nothing equal to what is taken away.

“Daddy, why do they make war on us?” but Daddy’s lips are dead. When the box is closed and lowered down, his daughter’s kisses are buried with him and any reason for sanity. Her young heart breaks, it just damn breaks. She wails against the digger, nothing equal to what is taken away.

Constantly at work, insatiable, conquerors. Is it Reptilian DNA, evil incarnate? The cold, icy blood of master conquerors marks the centuries and their willing slaves do a goose-step, a-one and a-two, over the bodies, metal clashing against metal, some way lifted, expanded by the line of dead, nothing equal to what is taken away.

Children, seek a forest where better creatures prowl and guard their lairs. You must learn to hide away, to at once remember and when the heat of those memories is too dark to bear, go inside. Learn to forget, learn to forget, nothing is equal what is taken away.

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

An American Valentine

2/14/2018

An American Valentine
His eyes are closed and a tear runs down his cheek. It gathers in the filth on his face, makes soft mud there. His rifle leans against his left shoulder, butt to the ground, its bayonet gleaming hard and steel through the liquid red of new blood running down to stain the gray cloak of his uniform.

His eyes open and he looks down upon the body of his just-slain enemy. Blue material absorbs and hides the blood much better, he thinks, laughs hysterically. He reaches inside the shirt of the dead soldier. Searching, sobbing, and there he finds a large red paper heart adorned with real lace and fine, spun glass. His weeping is absolute now. He falls to his knees, eyes to the sky, beseeching god.

He reaches inside his vest, discovers his own mortal wound. In each of his hands now he holds a large paper heart, white lace, fine spun glass and blood fresh of battle. He sees the inscription on each, identical: “My dearest Johnny.” He bends down low, cries out in pain, looks into the dead eyes of his vanquished enemy, face to face, moaning, live lips to dead lips. Death’s embrace; he cries, dies.

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

An American Valentine was published by The turbulent Soul Within 2004

UA-15153748-2