The Werewolf Sonnets

Gray shadows sleep between the aethered clouds,
Like corpses laid before the spinning stars.
They don the mists like bright, gray-silver shrouds,
While distant burns the wrath of angry Mars.
The moments pass as masked doth burn the moon;
Her heathen light knows not the grace of day.
Within the clouds She sleeps: that Devil’s womb,
Until, at last, Her flame breaks clean away.
My fists are clenched; a madness grips my heart,
That, beating, races with the pulse of Night.
Bulging sinews tear this flesh apart,
As the goddess, Luna, burns so bright.
I know Her fire’s torment all too well,
A fire that delights the damned in Hell.

My temple throbs with drums of pounding pain,
As moonbeams bathe the burning, dew-stained ground.
The thirst for blood, it floods this tortured brain;
That hungry howl vents its awful sound.
The fur of wolves: it coats sleek, muscled arms;
It bristles on the sinews of furred thighs.
The fleeing deer, they scatter in alarms.
That howling voice calls loud with angry cries.
And still those silver beams so softly burn,
So tranquilly they curse red, rended flesh.
My blood-mad veins and stomach start to churn.
The moonlight’s curse brings torment, sweet, afresh.
O Luna, wash this mortal frame anew,
With the light past tortured forbears knew.

Facial muscles twitch with rending pain,
The jutting jaw, it gapes with sharpened fangs.
Clothes are torn as moonbeams burn again,
Beaming from the sky where Luna hangs.
Hands are claws; feet grow swift and strong.
My navel burns with instinct’s angry birth.
That Devil’s Light brings dreams of blood along,
For blood and moonlight know their Wolfen worth.
I mouth a curse against the heathen night,
A curse that shrieks and bays with angry howls,
The Devil knows the moonlight’s dark delight,
As, ravenous, she bares her hungry jowls.
If I could speak, I think I’d vent my screams,
And bare my soul with all its werewolf dreams.

Transformed, I tear the rags from off my frame.
Mane and backbone bristle; eyes, they burn,
The fiery moonbeams start to pale and wane,
As distant stars and planets slowly turn.
Legs and arms: they softly tread the ground;
Eyes: they pierce the shadows, pierce the shade.
Death knows where prey and hunted shall be found,
Although the deadly moonbeams start to fade.
I leap across the earth and tread the stones.
Foam is at my lips and coats my chin.
The very Earth, She bares Her hungry bones.
The Night: She bares the altar of Her sin.
This deadly wolf begins its lonely prowl.
Anon, I hear a distant, baying howl.

I prick my ears up at the fading sound.
Another howl carries on the wind.
Other Wolfen howls, then, resound.
A madness echoes from the driving din.
I catch their scent, the scent of brethren heat,
A heat that burns like moonlight, fierce and cold,
A thing that runs on bloodstained, Wolfen feet,
A curse that man and beast know ere they’re old.
A terror walks the vault of templed Night,
A horror, old, like Gods that built the Earth,
A madness that doth walk the mountains’ height,
A nightmare, crouching low, with evil mirth.
My brethren, hear me, I will come to thee,
My angry soul shall, then, be, finally, free.

Over hills and rocks that seem to flee,
So swiftly by like shadows on the moon,
I hasten onwards towards the gleaming sea,
Where I shall join my Wolfen brethren soon.
The stars sleep gently there upon the crags,
And burn with dark delight so like my soul.
There, bloodthirsty Luna slowly drags,
Her silver mantle like a hunted foal.
A glimmer lights the beacon of this gaze.
Paws are swift; claws like sharpened blades.
A howl like the Wolfen’s voice that bays,
Within the shadows; in the starlit shades.
Yon brethren’s scent is on the rushing breeze,
Alive with lust; alive with Death’s disease.

I came upon a sudden, flowing creek,
Where bays of greeting echoed on the air.
And, there, I found what werewolves truly seek,
The brotherhood of Wolfen that we share.
I cast my doubts and cares upon the wind,
And, forth, I fared, with brethren at my side.
Somewhere, an earthen Blood God crouched and grinned,
As, thence, the prey and hunted swiftly died.
My fur was stained with sweat and dripping blood;
A howl cursed the rippling, moon-struck air,
Paws were specked and coated, thick with mud;
Bloodstains streaked sweat-stained, tousled hair.
Blood flowed thick, Her savor, sweet, like wine,
And, deep, I drank Her essence, so divine.

We came upon a farmhouse in the dale,
And ambushed them like sheep in gated fields.
Blood flowed thick like raindrops in a gale,
Its wine flowed thick in boundless, endless yields
We burst into their home before they woke,
Before the dogs could sound off their alarms,
And, then, before the deadly moonbeams broke,
We slaughtered them despite their prayers and charms.
The curse of blood was now upon our heads,
And followed us upon our bloody trail.
Murder has its many cursed debts,
And will, anon, soon out its bloody tale.
Our bloody debt was made before the moon,
A debt we’d pay before its setting soon.

A sound of shouting, hoofbeats, cursed the air;
As neighbors came and, roused, swiftly pursued,
And, like a roused and angry, grizzly bear,
They followed in an angry, raging brood.
In flight, we held our speed and seemed to gain,
And hold a lead, while yet a lead could hold.
Death became our only hoary bane,
And chilled our track with His ravenous cold.
They started shouting as they swiftly neared,
My brethren fell like sheaves of ripened wheat.
Death was what I truly, strongly, feared,
And Death, my heart, would not so soon defeat.
When morning found me soon, far off, away,
Home, I fled, transformed, at break of day.