Steppenwolf

Tonight a man and a wolf
Padded warily home through the biting cold,

Icily split in two,
Storming in polar fragments.

Inside the confusing cage of their room
They starved like a ravenous beast in the dark,

Starved beside bowls slopped with false human tyranny.

Condescension and manipulation crudely filled these bowls

Strewn with human deceit, imposture, and cruelty.

The affront of this nightly fare consumed them.

Scattered across the floor of their psyche,

The ulterior design of this sordid hash

Bared like fangs, its moon-like gleam 

Pouring maliciously throughout the room.

Painfully, the man and wolf curled up on the floor,

Wasting away, crippled by this mendacity.

Agonized, they hungered for the end 

Of inhuman deception, hypocrisy, and power plays.

Excruciated, they hungered to be freed from this freezing cage.

Reluctantly, the man gnawed this wretched fare, crunched it hard,

And finally swallowed these putrid lies,

Lies he had grown so accustomed to, yet he stopped

When  the wolf refused to take a bite. 

"Man is still my captor?."
"Man is my master, still?"
"Man is still my tormentor?"

Squealed and yelped the man to the wolf within him,

The wolf let out but a long, low, vicious growl

And began to pace.

They lunged at the prey of their own shadow
Which eluded them outside the cage.
The man's brain, the wolf's heart

Together howling,

Their bloody muzzle smashing into

The obstinate bars of cold moonbeams,

The vague glow of unspoken truth that forged this cage.

The unattainable moon in the sky through the window

The mirror of their freedom. 

 
The man and wolf could no longer endure
The stars and fire that throbbed in their head,

No longer withstand smashing their skull against

The unyielding spokes of moonlight every night.

They wanted out. 

The man desperately sought for the agents 

Of his constraint and entrapment.

The wolf searched for his own agency, night after night,

Its instinct for freedom prevailing over all.