Impulse to Action

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Monday, July 7, 2025

Chapbook Mockup

Larry Wolf, Louisville Poems Chapbook (2025)

Louisville Poems, 1994 - 1996, originally posted to thepoint.net, now on this blog and a 1-of-1 chapbook.

[Index of Poems]

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Too Much

Don’t be too adorable, it gets your cheek pinched

Don’t be so sensitive, you cry baby

Don’t be too smart, kids will throw rocks at you

Don’t have a flashy bike, someone will take it at knife point

Don’t fight for your stuff, you’ll only get hurt

Don’t pin a towel around your neck as a cape, who do you think you are? Superman?

Don’t be too Bronx, people will make fun of how you speak

Don’t use big words, people will think you’re trying to impress and don’t know what you’re talking about

Don’t be teacher’s pet, you suck up!

Don’t hum while you’re working, if you do, be on key

Don’t be fat, kids in Europe are starving

Don’t be too Jewish, millions were exterminated

You don’t even know how to be Jewish, not like cousin Marty, he goes to yeshiva

Don’t be an ugly American, you klutz

Don’t be too powerful, leaders get stabbed in the back

Don’t be so accommodating, they’re taking advantage of you

Don’t be too gay, Jim is awfully effeminate

Don’t be too flirty, your lingering look will get you punched in the face

Let that be a lesson to you.

-- Larry Wolf, 2 July 2025

[Index of Poems]

Monday, June 30, 2025

Devil’s Rope, Laramie, 1998

October

A chill breeze comes off the Rockies

My ruddy wires cast shadows from the warrior moon

A quiet night

A truck pulls up

You and two others stagger out

They tower over you

Push you

Threaten you

Growl

FAGGOT

ON YOUR KNEES

Your face at their crotches

You plead

They pull out their

Gun

Raise it

Bash the butt

Into your head

your head

You crumple

They drag you, toss you

Onto me

I sag, hold your unconscious weight

Doors slam

Engine starts

Tires spin up dirt

They’re gone

We’re alone

Your arms thrown backwards over me

My taut wire cuts into your armpits

barbs tear your shirt and skin

Your head hangs listless

Your breath

Rough

Ragged

Irregular

Shivering

Shaking

Convulsing

Your spasms pulse through me

Then

Still

Limp

Seeping blood

Cold night

I can offer

No help

No warmth

Only presence

In the faintest dawn

A passing runner, pauses, wonders

Is that a scarecrow?

Sees it is a boy

Goes for help

Sirens

Police

Flashing lights

Ambulance

Useless

We’re entangled

I quiver as you're lifted

Carried away

Clinging to life

Bits of your clothes

flesh

blood

On me, left behind

Cars arrive

Candles

A vigil

Days and nights

A stream of mourners

River of mourners

Flood of mourners

Months pass

Still they come

We spent a night together

Your last night out

Out

Under the vast sky you loved so much

Matthew Shepard

-- Larry Wolf, 30 June 2025

[Index of Poems]

Larry Wolf, Held (Zine Photo 2025/Fence Photo 2010)

An earlier version of this poem was read at Maine Media Workshops on June 27, 2025, at the conclusion of The Photographic Poem with Richard Blanco.

The above photo is of my zine Rough Raw Reclaimed (2021). The text, on the inside of the zine, reads:

Tear Streaked Cheeks

On a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming, a man was beaten and left to die on a cold October night, 1998. Matthew Shepard became the poster child of gay hate crimes. There were candlelight vigils – organized all too quickly and too well. We should not be so good at this public mourning and outcry. Enough is enough.

The trial. The protestors chanting hell for the homosexual. The angelic counter-protests. His parents. Their compassion. Their determination. The plays, art, chorale works and politics that followed.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act became law in 2009. Two brutal deaths in 1998, one homophobic, one racist. A decade. Another decade. Much still to do.

An Earlier View from the Fence

Jeff Sheng's MFA Thesis Exhibition included a large forty foot wide by six foot high digitally constructed panoramic photographic installation, titled "Where Matthew Lay Dying: Laramie, Wyoming," originally shot and taken from the spot and vantage point where the hate crime/murder victim Matthew Shepard was found on a fence post outside Laramie, Wyoming.

[Wikipedia Entry for Jeff Sheng]