I am Wolf, Autumn Moon

Lycanthropy is no damn fun, I tell you wild and true.

Times, I hate to see that smog-oranged moon

rise, pregnant with insanity.

Untethered dogs, ashamed to their crippled canine souls

with what they’ve become, shit eaters

and enemies of the wild species,

come to kill the wolf

and its lingering, impossible smells of humankind.

“Kill the wolf kill the wolf, kill the wild wild wolf,”

yap hysterically into shredding teeth to death.

Don’t you know I hate the crazy legends of violence?

All I wanted to do was run for the wild mountains

cornered, fight to live, a time, a time,

live yet a little time, my own humankind still calling

live through this night till moonset.

Dead dogs strewn in streetlight

Moon rides white, high above electric wires

strung across the sky.

I taste putrid dog blood, spit splashes,

flesh and fur tangled in my teeth

when all I wanted to do was run

run for the wild mountain.

A long way behind me,

a long way behind, the bright city spins and toils

beneath the gravid moon

a long way behind me, a long way behind

I leave burning electric lights a long way behind me

and step into flowing, moonlit river.

I wash away dog blood, dog fur, dog fat, in river’s current.

Oh, to wash away impossibly lingering smells

that the wild species of the mountains don’t think of me as monster

would not think me monster.

I run beneath the moon

soft, silver, golden moonlight falls

through forest trees.

Forest soaks up gold and silver moonlight.

I run through moonlight on pine duff and grasses, soil and mosses,

scatter fallen leaves for celebration of wild autumn

in my mountains.

celebrations scatter around me.

wild dances. running wolf

smell of scattering leaves

wild smell of autumn grasses fall toward winter sleep

seeds expectant on soil

smell of soil and water and mosses

the earth, the earth, the pregnant earth.

Voices call me voices call me and insist and insist.

“You must think I’m crazy,

return? return? Not on my wild roving soul.”

But oh my Lord, the moon sets, and the sun rises,

And once more I’m just a wild poet

on a wild roving mountain,

naked as yon steller’s jay who screams at me,

“Where in the name of anything blue and holy did YOU come from?”

Me too, me too, my brave, brilliantly blue friend

I’m gonna keep wondering exactly that as I walk tender footed

shivering cold, self consciously naked

back toward where I don’t even want to go,

Singing, “Lycanthropy is no damn fun, I tell you wild and true

Times, I hate to see that smog-oranged moon

rise, pregnant with insanity.”