Third day; I’m in good company here. Nine writers laying it out there 30 days in a row. Check it out! https://www.tupelopress.org/the-3030-project/
And my submission today:
Rider
As one with the roar of the machine
thundering through the city
tunnels of light
seeking, expecting
mystical, magical connections
secrets of midnight
Held by a separate wind
accepting, learning, earning its due
sharing its corners
full throttle blind
daring to challenge
limits, conditions, impossible odds
Primitive creature
spirit unbroken
aware, in the moment
dancing with devils
flying through faces of gods
lighthearted
free of the fear of death
http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©
I am in a “marathon” starting tomorrow, May 1st with nine other poets, writing a poem every day, and raising funds for Tupelo Press. We invite family, friends, and colleagues to sponsor us. Every donation is a vote for my poetry, and for poetry in general!
Running an actual marathon might be a bit easier than writing a poem every day, it turns out. You should try it, but in lieu of writing your own poems, you can read mine!
If you know me, you know I care about my work, and it is a big risk to put such fresh work on public display before I have a chance to edit, perfect it, and subject it to public opinion. I would like to hear from family, friends, and fellow writers. Please take a moment and check Tupelo and me out. Tupelo Press – Tom Sterner
Tupelo Press is a prestigious non-profit press. For seventeen years their mission has been to publish new voices. They are giving my work some exposure, and bringing me into a community of over 350 alumni helping each other publish our work.
Today you have a chance to help one of the few, and one of the best non-profit independent publishers we have. Help them survive and continue to put more poets into print. Here is what you are supporting:
There are so many ways you can support the press. A subscription to fabulous books of poetry, sent to your home, a one-time donation at any level. I hope you consider supporting me, and supporting this amazing press I am representing.
Best,
Tom
And my submission today:
Rider
As one with the roar of the machine
thundering through the city
tunnels of light
seeking, expecting
mystical, magical connections
secrets of midnight
Held by a separate wind
accepting, learning, earning its due
sharing its corners
full throttle blind
daring to challenge
limits, conditions, impossible odds
Primitive creature
spirit unbroken
aware, in the moment
dancing with devils
flying through faces of gods
lighthearted
free of the fear of death
http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©
I am in a “marathon” starting tomorrow, May 1st with nine other poets, writing a poem every day, and raising funds for Tupelo Press. We invite family, friends, and colleagues to sponsor us. Every donation is a vote for my poetry, and for poetry in general!
Running an actual marathon might be a bit easier than writing a poem every day, it turns out. You should try it, but in lieu of writing your own poems, you can read mine!
If you know me, you know I care about my work, and it is a big risk to put such fresh work on public display before I have a chance to edit, perfect it, and subject it to public opinion. I would like to hear from family, friends, and fellow writers. Please take a moment and check Tupelo and me out. Tupelo Press – Tom Sterner
Tupelo Press is a prestigious non-profit press. For seventeen years their mission has been to publish new voices. They are giving my work some exposure, and bringing me into a community of over 350 alumni helping each other publish our work.
Today you have a chance to help one of the few, and one of the best non-profit independent publishers we have. Help them survive and continue to put more poets into print. Here is what you are supporting:
- Independent literary publishers are mission-driven—they focus on publishing literature.
- Independent literary publishers provide access to the voices of entire communities.
- Independent literary publishers produce over 98% of poetry being published each year,
There are so many ways you can support the press. A subscription to fabulous books of poetry, sent to your home, a one-time donation at any level. I hope you consider supporting me, and supporting this amazing press I am representing.
Best,
Tom
I go down until I am surrounded by yellow music. There is nothing beneath me. My mother’s dead lips smile and say, “See, there is nothing less than we.” The earth is my camp breath, its worms and the heat of my bowels. Night sweat means nothing to those who do not sleep. It is a reminding stench, a pitiful outside offering.
Take me down to the circus to witness the misery of other animals, the empirical majesty and absolute dominion of man, where only the elephant is sadder than me. Lost in a sea of green money and fingertip fishes seeking greedy, sucky, moments of avarice, she has eleven open mouths, swallows the whole of me.
She promised to keep a frail lantern alight in the window, naming and claiming its message of Phaedra, calling itself home. Falling into a forest of a thousand guitars, whose root strings are tender, is the master of chord. He hangs himself from the nearest instrument, dies on the music of the wind.
“Meet me in your dreams,” she cries “next best thing to being there.” Shadow shapes whisper my name. I am blind in the periphery. In every dream, I die. A wounded animal, I smell the rot of my flesh, damn the maggots for eating parts of me left better to putrefy for a friendly chinook to scatter across the end land.
Sleep is the kingdom of the healthy, where the strong go to rest and the weak to escape. There are madnesses between sleep where we pariahs, alleys roam. In a pasture of lowing, moon-swept, pastoral and fine, we are the hunter’s lust to slay with fang and claw, all that lives then starve on a body of prey.
The pretty boys were singing downtown, making heat for long-legged girls, flinging epithets at old-man beggars and high roller winos. Midnight don’t mean nothin’ to strangers. I got one foot in Jesus, the other in the ditch. Spirituality is a ringworm, makes you itch, digs down underneath flesh, to feast on bone marrow.
C’mon, take me out walkin’ until my feet are underwater, eyes full of sand. I’ll look down and wonder, all gritty, where the hell did they go. The man on the radio says ha-ha, talks to girls about their titties and why don’t they join a swinger’s club, do it in front of their old men, breaks for a commercial about shaking babies.
Life makes about as much sense as two nickels rubbed together, don’t make a dime. You put it all up front and when it falls down, you walk away and wonder, was it something you said or maybe you didn’t. I knew a man named Jimi. He got hot pissed when they took away one of his m’s, set fire to his instrument, banged his head on the floor. Ah hell, it’s all in the letters.
I loathe rooms with four walls, double doors and window mirrors. They see everything you do, look back, contemptuous, to remind you of everything you don’t. Yesterday there was something in my soup. I believe it loved me. The prayer I said over it was beautiful. You are woman, you are my hope, my dream then I killed and ate the damned thing.
There may be enough pills in this bottle to still the phantoms behind my eyes that I might cop a few hours of death, leave this drifting shadow place in favor of the delight of ebon fantasies. Be kind to me, you damned night. Allow me acceptance, her invitation and, with the blessing of Phaedra, whose death by her own hand
is the sleep death, the revenge of sons.
Blessings of Phaedra was published 2008 in The Hudson View and nominated for The Pushcart Prize
http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©
Take me down to the circus to witness the misery of other animals, the empirical majesty and absolute dominion of man, where only the elephant is sadder than me. Lost in a sea of green money and fingertip fishes seeking greedy, sucky, moments of avarice, she has eleven open mouths, swallows the whole of me.
She promised to keep a frail lantern alight in the window, naming and claiming its message of Phaedra, calling itself home. Falling into a forest of a thousand guitars, whose root strings are tender, is the master of chord. He hangs himself from the nearest instrument, dies on the music of the wind.
“Meet me in your dreams,” she cries “next best thing to being there.” Shadow shapes whisper my name. I am blind in the periphery. In every dream, I die. A wounded animal, I smell the rot of my flesh, damn the maggots for eating parts of me left better to putrefy for a friendly chinook to scatter across the end land.
Sleep is the kingdom of the healthy, where the strong go to rest and the weak to escape. There are madnesses between sleep where we pariahs, alleys roam. In a pasture of lowing, moon-swept, pastoral and fine, we are the hunter’s lust to slay with fang and claw, all that lives then starve on a body of prey.
The pretty boys were singing downtown, making heat for long-legged girls, flinging epithets at old-man beggars and high roller winos. Midnight don’t mean nothin’ to strangers. I got one foot in Jesus, the other in the ditch. Spirituality is a ringworm, makes you itch, digs down underneath flesh, to feast on bone marrow.
C’mon, take me out walkin’ until my feet are underwater, eyes full of sand. I’ll look down and wonder, all gritty, where the hell did they go. The man on the radio says ha-ha, talks to girls about their titties and why don’t they join a swinger’s club, do it in front of their old men, breaks for a commercial about shaking babies.
Life makes about as much sense as two nickels rubbed together, don’t make a dime. You put it all up front and when it falls down, you walk away and wonder, was it something you said or maybe you didn’t. I knew a man named Jimi. He got hot pissed when they took away one of his m’s, set fire to his instrument, banged his head on the floor. Ah hell, it’s all in the letters.
I loathe rooms with four walls, double doors and window mirrors. They see everything you do, look back, contemptuous, to remind you of everything you don’t. Yesterday there was something in my soup. I believe it loved me. The prayer I said over it was beautiful. You are woman, you are my hope, my dream then I killed and ate the damned thing.
There may be enough pills in this bottle to still the phantoms behind my eyes that I might cop a few hours of death, leave this drifting shadow place in favor of the delight of ebon fantasies. Be kind to me, you damned night. Allow me acceptance, her invitation and, with the blessing of Phaedra, whose death by her own hand
is the sleep death, the revenge of sons.
Blessings of Phaedra was published 2008 in The Hudson View and nominated for The Pushcart Prize
http://wordwulf.com
Inquiries: [email protected]
© 2018 artwork, music & words
conceived by & property of
Tom (WordWulf) Sterner 2018 ©
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