Nothing can stop us wolves from howlin

Nothing can stop us wolves from howling.

Not the passive aggressive middle aged office hags, dragging themselves through uninspiring marriages, bemoaning their drugged up offspring who should be smarter than they are.

Not the starry eyed hipsters who cower in soft lighted rooms, posing in their underwear, influencing nothing more than their inflated ego

Not time and space, the fabrics thereof, red traffic lights and stuffed train carriages, rusty chains and wet shoes.

Not nightmares and bills, the shrieks of fairies, fascists and homophobes, bitches and trolls, the pandemonium of adjacent lives.

Nothing can stop us wolves from howling.

We dance like wolves, through crowds of sheep and mice with hungry  eyes and envious lips.

We fuck like wolves, our cocks hard and unrelenting just by the scent of each other.

We love like wolves, healing old wounds and roaming like a pack, even if apart.

We live like wolves, if only in our dreams and future plans, where the world is ours

Nothing can stop us wolves from howling.

Akatombo

Desperation is a terrifying beast when it creeps into your life. Its stench, claws and foul breath can, even from a distance, paralyze you with fear. My uncle has been battling with this monster for some time now; a fight none of us was even aware of. He’s a retired loving grandfather, still a very active karateka and the first to come help out when someone in the family is moving or has some renovation project. When I was completely broke he would invite me over for dinner and made sure I was alright. Last week he sat down in a dark room, far away from anyone he knew and downed a boatload of pills. He had lost to desperation. It was a kata he couldn’t finish. 

But there was still a spark which made him call his daughter who immediately called an ambulance. He did not want that help. He fought, trashed, lashed out. It was as if the beast was all that was still left. He was finally strapped to a bed in a psychiatric hospital, after fighting the nurses and the police. A lifelong commitment to martial arts makes for a rather difficult patient. When I told my brother all this, we looked at each other in fear. This is our blood. This is one of our role models. This beast might rear its ugly head in our lives too.  My uncle, my father and my niece are now going on a walking trip to Spain together; to heal, reflect, support and gain strength. Strength to, maybe, kill that ugly beast once and for all.

I wish I was joining them. I remember he named his karate club Akatombo and as a kid I was told it was the Japanese word for dragonfly. I just found out it’s also a children’s song from 1927, with lyrics from a poem by Rofu Miki. It’s hugely popular in Japan and that’s where he most likely got the name from.

Little red dragonfly
Resting, waiting
On the end of a bamboo pole

This poem better not be on some memorial card soon uncle, you’re a lot stronger and wiser than you think.

Sensei ni rei.

Alpha, Theta, Gamma

Today they are a leader, healer and caretaker. Today they are wolves chasing a wild river through the forest. Tomorrow that might change. The river might turn into a lake or a small creek while the forest twists and turns into something else entirely. Even the wolves change shape as if their metamorphosis is as easy and natural as ice melting in the sun.

Their world is a dreamscape. They live in the time out of time, the everywhen. Once they were, or will be, satyrs with cocks as thick as tree trunks and legs as strong roots going deep through the earth. Then they are monkeys flying through a giant honeycomb grid sucking on the sweet nectar of beings we will call, for lack of a better word, gods. They might as well be giant bees. They are also gusts of wind, following the intoxicating notes of a song.

Sometimes, when the world settles in darkness, they melt into each other. Their strong, hard bodies become soft and malleable and their minds float peacefully through the everywhen. When they wake up they are a Rarotonga peppermint angelfish, a Wallachian ram and a Tanzanian red clawed scorpion. They hold court high up in the stars to discuss the prints they left behind on each other. Scientist might call these petrosomatoglyphs of the soul, like hands imprinted on their individual cores.

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” the phantomape says.

 Is it the petrosomatoglyph part?

 “No that’s quite clever. But it reads live Ovid had a trip with some aboriginals and woke up without pants the next day.”

Well, that’s the only way I can describe it, little tarsier.

 “Then you must be in deep. From the house you destroyed for me, through the harlequin fields you finally reached the wild forest.”

Are you pretending to be a wise mentor through my journey to manhood?

 “Might as well. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

Upādāna. Wait, did you just quote Yoda?

 “He was a wise muppet.”