~Quodlibet (LXI-LIV)~

By WordWulf, 24th Apr 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/-5aa_70m/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Poetry

~ she had spiders nesting in her hair ~ wouldn’t come outside ~ some do-gooders in a white van came ~ they locked her up for not coming out ~ couldn’t find any more homeless people to harass with their egg salad and kool-aid ~ makes me laugh ~ when drunk guys spit on ‘em ~

~Peanut~
~LXI. Spiders ‘n Spaces~
~LXII. Lions in the Dark~
~LXIII. Teat~
~LXIV. Godless Humor~

~Peanut~

~Quodlibet~

She was telling me her daddy called her Peanut when she was a girl. A full grown woman now with a couple of kids of her own, she wondered where he came up with a pet name like Peanut. She chuckled a bit at the thought, down deep. By the time it reached her mouth it had become a sob. “I thought about it a lot of times,” she said, “But never thought to ask him directly.” It had begun to snow during the service. Lucky for us, the folks who arranged the ceremony had thought to put up a canopy. The family had gone to set out food and drinks for the wake. I promised to bring her along when she was ready.

The snow was heavier now. I suffered a moment of claustrophobia, imagined I was sitting in an ice house without windows or doors. I picked up a handful of dirt and dropped it into the hole. “There are about a thousand things I wish I’d have asked my folks,” I remarked. I took her home then, the lady named Peanut, left him to his final alone, my friend, the man who had called her so.

~LXI. Spiders ‘n Spaces~

“Two things I can’t stand
drunk people when I’m sober
and sober people when I’m drunk”
so speaks the whiskey man
triangular face lined with stubble
authoritative in his drunkenness
he was buried on a cold day, father
takes courage to touch the knob
then the whistle sirens outside
spider crawl your arm hairs
faces, faces, and open spaces
leave the groceries on the porch
agoraphobiac

~LXII. Lions in the Dark~

She is a kitten
lying across her mirrored bed
he kisses her belly
entices her to do the neat trick
so far they are safe from falling
having so soon previously done
languishing in the dust there
rolled over and found each other
tied tight words of night
electronic moonbeams
cyberspace, a place of nuns
waking cross neon borders
fornicating with madmen

~LXIII. Teat~

We took clothes from dead prisoners
so what; it was lonely in the camp
we feared a rage of lice
mean guns of the guard
swift toilets of transference
so rapt in the rags of the dead
we closed our eyes
to be captured by low sluts
and cruel mothers
nakedness, the needle; rapture
not tonight.
the mother dream

~LXIV. Godless Humor~

We is of the earth
green needles is our hair
we is wide of girth sequoia
eagles are our eye of nation
rivers, a rein of blood
those cosmic jugglers
gods who set us in motion
to prove their sense of
humor these ladies
invented man and his predicament
our waters is falling
but no one is laughing
this creature like
a drunk scorpion
takes aim
stabs itself dead in the head

~Tom (WordWulf) Sterner~
~Taking Daddy Home~
~It is About~
~Howling Dog Press/Omega~
~Quodlibet (LVII-LX)~

Meet the author

WordWulf
Tom Sterner lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado with wife Kathy. He has been published in numerous magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. His interne...(more)