Werewolf's Breath

Sometimes I need a break from this reality,
you know,
a short excursion over psychotic falls,
and down a maniacal river
where neither care nor worry swim.

I want to just stare through fields of pastel light
which beam down through redwoods
creating columns of shadows that tempt me
to touch their ephemeral solidity.
I would let the iridescent reflections
in oily water
carry me to a beautiful shore
rather than our desolate future.
Crumbling infrastructure
would become the ruins of Atlantis
rather than signs of our own indiscretions.

I long to feel the strength of
my hand balled up into a fist,
not because it was inspired by another
corrupt politician,
nor clenched as a reaction to another threat to
my body, or way of life,
but because it feels good to be in the body
feeling muscles work,
skin yielding to bones moving
and fists pounding into the forgiving earth
as a testament to being animal man,
not animals for slaughter.

It is a return to my bestial self I crave,
who breathes free
because he knows no cage,
who says nothing,
for nothing matters,
save for hunger and thirst.
pure, ravenous and whole.

And on this night of the Harvest Moon
when walking in the forest at night is as easy
as during midday noon
I don’t want to see a streetlight
or an ambulance
or a police car.

People want to say
that we are the pinnacle of our day
but what it is that I believe
that explains why so many of us grieve
is that we have not come as much
as we have gone
too far.

Breathe in the evening air.
Don’t move,
or think,
or want,
just stare
and should the beast inside you
move you
to mourn the fate of those around you,
I think you might come to see
that which is obvious to me
that city lights are not so bright
as much as they are foul
which is why
tonight
I howl.