Wolfmangler - Dwelling in a Dead Raven for the Glory of Crucified Wolves

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 March 21 2008 at 02:45:18 AM

The return. This time Wolfmangler comes bearing a trio of basses, electric and acoustic, flute, bassoon, trombone, drum and vocals. Hunting music: Stalking tones and crouching bass therein. A drum beats the strong hearts fighting freeze sequestered to the tree stand. Flute steadies in the crunching of twigs and limbs and leaves wet and sloppy stuck together in a confusion of browns and yellows and searing reds loose and slick like a bloody stool smeared over a hearty spine of emerald moss. Bolts are drawn and released; the elk is dropped and heaves, his breath broken and deep; clouds of it breaking from his nostrils in farts of ghost white. The fat black blade draws into its warm cavity and pulls free—a medusa head of flaccid intestines; the stench of viscera caught in the hunter’s nose like claws. Hands covered in a river run of sticky hot blood. A victorious voice growls and cackles over lowing bass, careful footsteps that return to camp for fire and warm wine. Fires soar in unrepentant winds, crisp orange sparks that dance in the night. Once extinguished the only protection from the ice—bodies foully tangled within the cones of stretched skin tents, their loins soaked in thick sour smut. Early morning brings the star winds and shared ritual; the bones of elk and boar ground down to talc and worn as a tunic. A grey white dress like birdshit hardened in the steady Winter sun. “I live in the back of the woods, you see; a woman and the kids and the dogs and me.”

[Stewart Voegtlin]