literophanes.com

So I’m still a book purist. I still enjoy reading the pages bound by hardcover. I suppose I’ll progress someday to magazines.  – Literophanes

Krampus Wilsnickel was not a full man.
Though he was close of man’s mind, he was far of man’s body.
Shaven and dressed, he oft succeeded in deception.
But a hoof for right foot concealed under pant, two horns concealed by matted hat, and serpentine tongue behind pursed lips were reasons that,

Krampus Wilsnickel’s life was unfulfilled.

Over time Krampus lost his purpose.
For centuries a dreaded demon feared and reviled,
He was now superfluous as creature, as archetype.
Outdone by man’s maleficence onto fellow man, by a time on which only money and things ran, and by children – a selfish and crass clan.

As monster, Krampus lost his purpose.

As he strolled down his street, while snowballed in face,
And barked at by dogs, he thought as he licked the snow from his brow,
How he no longer cared about bad children.
He gave up his heavy chains he once liked to clank, and the birch switch he once used to flank, and the basket in which he snatched away childish skank.

Krampus longed for new meaning.

One Christmas Eve did Saint Nicholas call,
In a video streamed round the world,
Asking Krampus to return to correct a wayward people.
Burdened by demanding childrens’ assaults, subjected to unsatisfied parents faults, and with tarnished reputation at all-time aults,

Saint Nicholas was so disheartened with what people had become.

Krampus dissolved the plea in his schnapps at the corner tavern.
How painfully alone he was on this Eve.
Even as he greeted others with cheer, he was shunned.
Krampus was still caricature to Saint Nick, a monster in the eyes of any stranger’s glicke, rebuked by each child, each little prick.

Krampus kept drinking, knowing he could never be one of the people.

Stumbling home in the dark, he encountered a disheveled and destitute man,
Sitting on the sidewalk in front of the richest bank in town.
Merry Christmas sir, the man said to Krampus.
Thank you kind sir, as he hoped not to mar, to the man who pointed to a door of another bar, across the boulevard though not very far.

Krampus gave the shivering man his jacket then crossed the boulevard.

Inside to his delight, Krampus saw monsters of every sort,
Laughing, drinking, dancing, tricking,
That you’d think them not obsolete monsters but people.
The rotund snow man singing in prose, the three ghosts in past, present, and future pose, and yes even the reindeer de-lighting with infamous nose.

Here was a place where Krampus was welcome.

Through the Eve while the town caroled,
Past the midnight while no creature stirred,
Through the silent night when snow jingled as it fell
Krampus felt close-to-human among the creatures, who cared not about anyone’s features, who faithfully acted as if they their own odd preachers.

They caroled to each other’s uniqueness.

They understood that this was their time to fraternize,
To find something common in their uncommonness,
To embrace the appeal in their perceived ugliness.
Together they sang turning songs sacred to profane, hurling insults into the stream of the main, cursing the ridicule they carried by name.

Soon the others restored Krampus’ faith.

For when the bar closed and the monster crowd dispersed,
And Krampus was alone with horizon and sky,
To matter in the eyes of all others was no longer a concern.
In spite of knowing his monstrous condition, and that he could never achieve a human disposition, he let go of the waywardness of the world’s mission.

Krampus simply preferred to live his unfulfilled life on the margins of Christmas.