Steve Tomasko

CONTACT:
Email: stevetomasko2@gmail.com
Website: jeanietomasko.com

BIO:
Steve Tomasko doesn’t fish as much, walk in the woods enough, or write as often as he should. At some point, Steve’s background in biology collided (hybridized?) with his long-time love of words, which is why nature and science often inhabit his poems. His first chapbook, “and no spiders were harmed” was published by Red Bird Chapbooks in 2015 and won first place in the WFOP Chapbook Contest in 2016. Find out more about Steve’s poetry (along with his wife, Jeanie’s poetry) at jeanietomasko.com.

PUBLICATIONS:
“and no spiders were harmed,” Red Bird Chapbooks, 2015. Buy from the publisher (http://www.redbirdchapbooks.com/) or contact Steve through his email.

Poetry

A Eulogy, of sorts

As Daniel rode home, he leaned his head back and looked at the sky.
For all he knew the snowflakes were stars, and he smiled.  

—Percival Everett, from the story, Stonefly, in “Half an Inch of Water.”

I’ve had a hard time smiling at snowflakes these days. What, with the lack of them
            this Wisconsin winter, which isn’t much of a winter these past few years
(despite people’s grumbling about the “cold” which isn’t anywhere near as cold
            as it should be and I remember winters past when my uncle would take me
and my cousin fishing on Lake Winnebago; we’d ride the old Chevy four maybe five
            miles out on the ice; ice road limned with people’s old Christmas trees, look
for other cars and Uncle Jim would drill holes in the 2-foot-thick ice, set tip ups baited
            with minnows, turn the car on occasionally to keep us warm while we waited for a bite
(Uncle Jim wanting walleye, us kids excited at any wriggling thing
            at the end of that line)).

And yes, I’m feeling a tad old codger-y these days. I had a bout a couple weeks back,
            a couple weeks long, of feeling cynical for the future. A dark bear against a dark sky.
The world falling away from me.      I did climb out of the pit, though I’m not sure how.
            Didn’t make it quite all the way to ecstatic, still, took our dog
for a walk the other night. The air, a cold, dry crisp—the bite of a fresh apple.
            The stars could have been snowflakes for all the dog knew.

—Won first place in the 2021 Hal Prize

On Contemplating a Funeral Service for My Hair Cells

Hearing is an amazing process, and it’s all thanks
to the 15,000 or so tiny hair cells inside our cochlea.

—National Institutes of Health

They reside in the Organ of Corti,
which sounds like a lovely place—
an Italian wine region tucked
into the valleys of the Dolomite Mountains,
or, perhaps a small isle in the Aegean Sea, which,
maybe, would be a good place
to hold the ceremony—the one for my lost
hair cells that used to so autonomously shimmy
and dance with the waves of sound—wind and waterfall,
strum of guitar, cadence of cricket, and your voice,
in my ear.
Even a whisper use to tickle my tiny ear bones—
malleus, incus, stapes—who would pass it
along to those hairs in the snail-like cochlea,
and rustle a sweet susurrus along the coast
of the wine-dark Aegean Sea.