WOLFMAN SHAMBLES
(Part 1)
Only a cantankerous craving for shadows that were
could ever make me see the past as prologue.
Now, when it seems that all things are living on in
an afterlife of their own sense and sensibility,
with myself and others as the mere,
and most baffled, onlookers...
-
The wolfman from the land of the dead, he is walking
with a crooked stick past warehouses of thrift and
efficiency. That Kingdom, he rules. Everything suffices,
beneath his neck, to break the supplications of rank and
order - a very old and ancient reptilian brain still
running on at full, fevered speed.
-
Past the streets of fire - 17th and 19th and 23rd and
all the rest, he passes with his mental poise, lucid as
a fury and hammered and cocked, like a gun ready
to fire. Looking back, not once but never, he misses
all behind him - walking straight on with bleeding fangs,
to the cemetery pass-gate where the gatekeeper awaits.
Tokens and coins for the dead? Nothing like that is needed.
He can barge right through.
-
Sometimes, it gets confusing. What is this? A tenth
life, a twentieth, or is this a mere rerun of once?
What death-defying terms does an immortal need to use?
And who can her him anyway? His candles are lit
by Death, which keeps the flame always burning and
the waxen shaft always ready. He picks off women as if
they were candy; 'liquor is quicker, but candy's dandy.'
He'd heard that said on night at Hendrick's, where some
men were drinking ale. The women within were hungry
and ripe; the men soon tuned pale. He bought them
Death for dessert, as the place emptied out.
-
'I wander through these chartered streets, near where
the chartered Thames doth flow...' He remembers stealing
lines like these to mere impress the deadly mortals.
They fall for anything, if you give them enough.
-
Only a cantankerous jealous gent, only a
cranky stranger, only a craggy, ancient,
man keeps light in the face of danger.
(Part 1)
Only a cantankerous craving for shadows that were
could ever make me see the past as prologue.
Now, when it seems that all things are living on in
an afterlife of their own sense and sensibility,
with myself and others as the mere,
and most baffled, onlookers...
-
The wolfman from the land of the dead, he is walking
with a crooked stick past warehouses of thrift and
efficiency. That Kingdom, he rules. Everything suffices,
beneath his neck, to break the supplications of rank and
order - a very old and ancient reptilian brain still
running on at full, fevered speed.
-
Past the streets of fire - 17th and 19th and 23rd and
all the rest, he passes with his mental poise, lucid as
a fury and hammered and cocked, like a gun ready
to fire. Looking back, not once but never, he misses
all behind him - walking straight on with bleeding fangs,
to the cemetery pass-gate where the gatekeeper awaits.
Tokens and coins for the dead? Nothing like that is needed.
He can barge right through.
-
Sometimes, it gets confusing. What is this? A tenth
life, a twentieth, or is this a mere rerun of once?
What death-defying terms does an immortal need to use?
And who can her him anyway? His candles are lit
by Death, which keeps the flame always burning and
the waxen shaft always ready. He picks off women as if
they were candy; 'liquor is quicker, but candy's dandy.'
He'd heard that said on night at Hendrick's, where some
men were drinking ale. The women within were hungry
and ripe; the men soon tuned pale. He bought them
Death for dessert, as the place emptied out.
-
'I wander through these chartered streets, near where
the chartered Thames doth flow...' He remembers stealing
lines like these to mere impress the deadly mortals.
They fall for anything, if you give them enough.
-
Only a cantankerous jealous gent, only a
cranky stranger, only a craggy, ancient,
man keeps light in the face of danger.
WOLFMAN SHAMBLES
(Part 2)
'Wash my hands of this blood.'
The man was bent over the curb,
madly swishing his fingers through
a puddle. 'I am tired and weary of these
blunders and all this filthy toil; yet
there is nowhere else to go.
This ancient life is ancient,
and it wears me thin. My
heart is the heart
of a dog.'
WOLFMAN SHAMBLES
(Part 3)
Accolades for the assembled dead? They pass in
rows, feet up, layer after layer of bones and dust.
It makes no sense to me what we call it - where have
we gotten these terms? Any afterlife of ill-repute,
some Heaven of Hell of mis-use, makes light of
the situation. Everything is endless, and it all just
goes on. As I watch him some more, I notice his limp -
he walks past the music store, scarcely looking up.
in the big windows, assorted violins, cellos, guitars
and a lute hang from wire and strings - the kids from
the Academy of Music nearby, they must buy these things.
I wonder if he even understands what music is?
Stopping for a moment, he bristles at a noise,
and, rummaging through a pocket, comes up
with a light. Something to pierce his darkness?
A small flash-point, like a policeman carries?
Where does he get such things?
-
Then it dawns on me - if he is Evil, then he is
so allied with Evil, and can have all its things.
He is one with the rational, the law-keepers,
those of rules and regulations - so why not?
Whatever he wants he can get. From them, and
all their sources, there is no difference to be had.
Particles of doubt never cross his mind. Unlike me,
he steers willingly, and with glee, into his personal abyss.
I watch as he walks away; looking once sideways, as
if to be searching for a gate - something for escape.
-
His other nefarious realms, I'd dare not visit.
Death is death, with no Life in it.
WOLFMAN SHAMBLES
(Part 4)
A man, a man who is sparring with religion leaves
so many things behind : the warbling of birds,
the scarlet of tanagers, the yellowing of milk
and the crumbling of fences and gates that sag.
It's a willing stretch, I guess, for them to leave
the Earthly Kingdom in search of their vetch.
They might as well have no hands, no heart,
no arms to clutch with, no eyes to see.
A Heavenly Kingdom leaves little to be.
WOLFMAN SHAMBLES
(Part 5)
'I murder with lust,
the neck is but a foil.'
He spoke that to the man
of darkness, into whose realm
he'd entered - half present, and
half-not. They'd joined their heads
together in the semi-dark, coiled in a corner,
between the two rambling spires of some
de-accessioned church where angels could
no longer aspire. Shaking hands, at first, they'd
really looked like two devils making change.
-
'When I was twenty-three, a million ago it seems,
I caught my foot between two boulders and twisted
the ankle raw - and it's never really recovered. This
limp, however, deceives my being - I'm truthfully now
quite well.' ('And truthfully, now, from Hell', I thought
to myself, wanting to laugh). I can frolic like a kid,
I can run the meadow like fucking Pan, if I wanted to.
Instead - you know - I love these dark corners and
dank streets, where these unassuming humans seldom
peek. When I grab them, then, they're doubly surprised.
It never fails to get a rise. And, by God, the girls are lovely.'
(Part 5)
'I murder with lust,
the neck is but a foil.'
He spoke that to the man
of darkness, into whose realm
he'd entered - half present, and
half-not. They'd joined their heads
together in the semi-dark, coiled in a corner,
between the two rambling spires of some
de-accessioned church where angels could
no longer aspire. Shaking hands, at first, they'd
really looked like two devils making change.
-
'When I was twenty-three, a million ago it seems,
I caught my foot between two boulders and twisted
the ankle raw - and it's never really recovered. This
limp, however, deceives my being - I'm truthfully now
quite well.' ('And truthfully, now, from Hell', I thought
to myself, wanting to laugh). I can frolic like a kid,
I can run the meadow like fucking Pan, if I wanted to.
Instead - you know - I love these dark corners and
dank streets, where these unassuming humans seldom
peek. When I grab them, then, they're doubly surprised.
It never fails to get a rise. And, by God, the girls are lovely.'
-
'Vampire, wolfman, werewolf, mystic, along with
magician, wizard, seer, sage, shaman - they all
go on, their stupid, Earthly words Earth-trod difference
made where nothing's left. Or is. Or was. And I shall
use such words, assembled and without reference against
them on any hilltop I can find; for you do not believe me,
that I have walked the past as present and the present as
then - was finished remembered over - into the future
both before and well after it was. These stupid pygmies
fear me far. To them I represent all things.'
-
'I well remember Empedocles, that fool, who jumped
into a volcano to first understand Death, that oh so wond'rous experience of which he sought to partake : 'Great Empedocles, that ardent soul, leapt into Etna and was roasted whole.' That he believed his illusions of what was said, he was so full of delusions that he wound up Dead!'
-
'I well remember Empedocles, that fool, who jumped
into a volcano to first understand Death, that oh so wond'rous experience of which he sought to partake : 'Great Empedocles, that ardent soul, leapt into Etna and was roasted whole.' That he believed his illusions of what was said, he was so full of delusions that he wound up Dead!'
-
'Busy improvising new selves, this wonkish brain of
theirs as well endears them all of Death : they know
they must die, but now they can think about it too.
Figure it. Examine it. Walk around it. Dwell with it,
but not in - not then until it is too late (they are, after
all, mine in the end) and they fall with their tundrel'd
tumbling steps, collapsing into the shapes of their
lives and dreams - it's ALL what it seems, all
fools and vagrants nonetheless ('all the
world's a stage'), and all that crap.
world's a stage'), and all that crap.
...(end of parts 1 through 5)...
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