Monthly Archives: April 2021

Wulf and Edward

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A free adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon “Wulf and Eadwacer”

My tribe will take him as a threat

but also a victim they can vanquish.

We’re an unlikely, unlike pair.

Wulf walks his island, I walk mine,

one a trap, quicksand, a tarpit.

The fierce and fearful seek to follow him,

vowing violence to render him void.

We’re an unlikely, unlike pair.

He told me he would have to travel,

but it’s hard to bear the trauma it brings.

The rainy days wreck me, I need arms to wrap me.

I love you, I hate you, I need you, I love you.

Wulf, Wulf, Wulf, I want you—

so much so it makes me sick.

Too little fucking has fucked my heart.

Can you hear Ed? Can you hear, Edward? Can you, here, Eddie?

Wulf’s spirit, spirited off, elsewhere spent.

Our union dealt death by division;

what’s unfixed deftly, finally, split.

Copyright 2021

T. Allen Culpepper

Anxious Wind

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Scratching, scraping, rattling, relentless wind,

banging the storm door against the frame,

chafing against my anxiety, rubbing it

raw like rough denim abrading tender skin

after a sweaty summer hike, whipping

thoughts into fury with leaves and dust and pollen,

the definition of irritation,

restless, unsettled agitation.

Copyright 2021

T. Allen Culpepper

Monsters

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My monsters aren’t the scariest kind,

but their presence still unnerves me.

A big one shadows my shoulder

when I turn a corner; a fleet-footed

one nearly trips me up, then scurries off.

Sometimes I see only a darting pair of eyes

or feel something brush against my skin,

and one just ran across the street behind me.

I catch glimpses, but only glimpses, never

forming a clear enough impression to

make a sketch.  Some seem mostly

harmless, others more threatening;

I think the worst one hides under the bed,

but if so, I wouldn’t know for sure,

because I never look to see. I don’t let

my arm dangle, though, just in case.

Copyright 2021

T. Allen Culpepper