Featuring Gwil James Thomas

Pioneer Amphibian Haiku. 

Their fossil remains

Behind glass like a trophy 

won by some strange luck.

I Hate Poetry. 

Ridiculous 

sentimental bullshit - 

cheap jokes 

with senseless syntaxes -

vignette hybrids with 

ripped off riffs and spilt guts 

that get scribbled down and 

read aloud by deadbeats, 

liars and intellectuals alike - 

full of self promotion, 

delusions, excuses and 

at least one award 

that nobody’s ever heard of. 

They’ll slurp your entrails like 

Spaghetti for attention, 

break your heart for a good line -

but most of this is bravado to 

conceal the wounds of 

a delicate and dreamful soul.

So it’s probably best 

not to take a poet, 

or poem too 

seriously.

As it Settles. 

Her cute smile like 

a welcomed ceasefire, 

her mind razor sharp 

but embedded in fun,  

her skin soft and salty, 

nipples brown and perky, 

her happy memory 

lingering long after 

the sheets are washed, 

grinning back at me 

before it softly settles 

elsewhere in my mind 

and I’d like it 

to stay.

A Poem for a Bar in Bilbao, 

That Definitely Wasn’t a Casino. 

I drink a cheap glass of red wine 

with a warmed slice of 

Empanada de Atún

whilst outside the heavens have opened 

and are flooding the streets. 

Across the windowless bar 

my eyes follow some neon pink lights 

and I notice a hallway that’s lined 

with slot machines and ask the young 

latin woman behind the bar 

if I’m in a casino? 

To which she smiles 

and shakes her head - 

I down the rest of the wine,

take the final bite of my lunch 

and leave like a moth 

towards the artificial light.

Down the hallway two old men 

sit at slot machines and at the far end 

of  the hallway a large room is

being used as a geriatric gambling den, 

with a roulette wheel and a gang of 

elderly women and men sat around 

playing cards. 

I turn back to an unoccupied 

slot machine in the hallway 

put in six Euros -

lose four, 

get lucky 

win fifty 

and swiftly cash out.   

The old man to my right 

jealously glares at me like a drunk 

eyeing up the drinker that’s able to 

get blotto from a single beer - 

I’m a mere tourist to his addiction. 

I bundle the cash into my pockets, 

as the hombre to my right then

arduously reaches towards me 

with his long bony arms, 

as if he’s somehow been cheated. 

I smile and wander back to the bar

where the girl asks me if I’d 

like another drink? 

This time I shake my head. 

Outside the storm’s cleared and I decide 

that I’ll visit The Guggenheim 

with my winnings - 

they’ve got Picasso and Van Gogh there 

and that’s a far safer bet.

Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician originally from Bristol, England. He is a Best of The Net nominee whose written work can be found widely in print and also online. He’s worked as a chef, a labourer, an aeroplane cleaner, a dishwasher, a product demonstrator and a news article archivist. He is currently laying low somewhere in Northern Spain. His fourth poetry chapbook Writing Beer, Drinking Poetry (Concrete Meat Press) is available here: https://adrianmanning.wixsite.com/concretemeatpress/publications

Find more work by Gwil James Thomas on BM here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2020/05/featuring-gwil-james-thomas.html

New Release: John D. Robinson A Hash Smoking, Codeine Swallowing, Wine Drinking, Son of a Bitch (Alien Buddha Press, 2019) 105 pages

This is prolific UK writer John D. Robinson’s latest book, his second through Alien Buddha Press. There are 28 narrative poems in the collection. The poems cascade down the page in one stanza- usually in one sentence, with a sprinkling of semi-colons along the way. 

The poems are typically about and from the perspective of marginalised people who are living on the edge of a cliff- drug addicts, sex-slaves, the homeless, the mentally deranged, religious converts and the like. Robinson writes about their lives and his own in a wry, humorous and highly entertaining way. The language is always clear and authentic.

Some of the best poems include "There's Always More" a portrait poem about Julian in which Robinson telescopes his remarkable life in a couple of sentences, "A Curious Nasal Profile" about the two different stories the poet tells sometimes to random strangers who ask him about how he got "that nose", "Ned And The Kitty Cat Scratch" about Robinson's relationship with Ned who he met at a compulsory governmental work placement and "Hide And Seek" which previously appeared in Robinson's first published book When You Hear the Bell There's Nowhere to Hide (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2016). 

If you are unfamiliar with Robinson's work the poem should make your head spin:

Hide And Seek

Plain but pretty and several

years younger than I, it was

never going to be anything

more than a fleeting

experience; we had met,

drunk, in a seedy night-

club, danced and drank

and embraced and kissed

and returned to her studio

flat and talked all

through the night and

met again the following

evening, took a few

drinks and again returned

to her studio flat, only this

time there wasn't a great

deal of talking;

we quickly began to

undress one another and

as I slipped off her bra

my eyes were transfixed

upon her nipples;

"Anything wrong?" she

asked playfully, smiling.

"Oh no, beautifully" I 

replied having never seen

inverted nipples before,

and I moved in to kiss

and caress her breasts;

I was no Valentino or

casanova but nipples had

never been a problem so

far and I licked and sucked

and loved with a great deal

of effort and passion

but the nipples

remained hidden and I

felt at a loss;

"It's only when I come

that makes my nipples pop out"

she told me, laughing, as she gently

pushed my face away from

her breasts;

"Oh" I said not knowing

what else to say.

"You better try elsewhere"

she said;

I did as she suggested

and a few minutes later

these beautiful little

nipples suddenly popped

free as she gave a final

cry of pleasure and then all

too quickly the nipples

disappeared, shrunk back

down into their fleshy

burrows;

'now you see me

now you don't,'

and I wanted to see the

nipples again but she

wanted to drink wine and

smoke some grass and

listen to some music

and that's what happened

and perhaps just a few days

later she left me

stranded in a 3am dark and

strange countryside following

some outrageous and erratic

and wild drunken behaviour

within the vehicle that was

moving at speed through

dark dangerous narrow lanes;

she stopped

the car and ordered me out;

I did so and she sped off

and I was expecting her to

turn around after a few

minutes but she didn't,

I saw the red tail-lights

fade into blackness and

vanish and I never saw

her again;

'now you see me

now you don't.'

(posted with the poet's permission)

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1073081400?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

New Release: Henry G. Stanton The Man Who Turned Stuff Off (Holy & intoxicated Publications, 2019) 22 pages

The painter and publisher, Henry Stanton, has recently released a chapbook The Man Who Turned Stuff Off through UK's small press publisher Holy & intoxicated Press.

The chap consists of 18 free verse poems. In it you'll find love poems, prose poems, word puzzles, nature poems, poems about dreaming & premonitions of death, metaphysical explorations into the origins of life and meta-poetic reflections on the creative process. 

Here are a couple examples of Stanton's work:

The Juniper Tunnel

To cast your small self into this long world of soft flat needles.
To pull your wings in tight and dive a perfect feather missile through 

the beckoning verdure.
To bank sharp left and plunge for eternity into a flutter of greens blues highlight 

and shading.

This once shadow hovering over a vast forest of delusion; 

this little flyer this bird this poet.
There amongst gone turn around now
turn around.

The apprehension of a vibrating word.

It’s so simple swivel wherever we look only this
only this

that one green tree growing in pure blue air.

How to Steal from Rich People

Intoxicate yourself with purpose
and leave drunken from
their huge and brilliant puny house at night.
Leave it behind.
Abandon
all sparkling fluids the musical insane laughter shimmering gowns 

that clinging.
Back there
behind in the spinning room what remains of who you were. 

Follow the path to the retreating beach.

Look the moon in its brilliant eye my god!
It buries itself in the ocean depths and remembers.
Remember who you are
what remains what memory the swirling foam
drowning
give it all away
sink to that love rise to that terror
and repeat again
a fleeting life in dreams.

The following is Stanton's painting "Ocean of Responsibility Sea of Task" which appears on the chapbook's front cover (click on to enlarge):

Buy a signed and limited numbered copy of the book here: https://therawartreview.com/books-for-sale/

Featuring Henry Stanton

Tree

On this day

you are one and the same that poet

who won’t change his life

and thinks he can change another’s

who grinds away at the trunk of a massive oak

with his puny insinuating saw.

Then this is the great passive monster of compassion

one and the same

who gives oxygen and safe perch and respite from brutal light

who caresses your fragile being back to the sanctity of great height

and cools you

who you are

sleeping there

in among a verdant crown of soft wands nested

that flutter against your face.

On that day the oak will at last give its life 

and fall over flat

to fling you away.

Then this is the day when you unbecome a poet

and are consumed by dumb work 

and fashion your ludicrous poems scratched on paper

back into that one and the same and only and original

massive burgeoning expansive growing bursting lush and vastly alive

Tree

The Man Who Turned Stuff Off

It is happening while I lie in my bed.  Conscious but selfless I suppose.  This is when the dark figure of the man appears – though, he is a deep dark blue not black, dark in the way of blue inner-space, or of the ocean zone just before unfathomable blackness, or the deep blue just past the edge on the way to infinite space.  First, he turns off all my small lights: the light of my Smartphone screen, the display screen on my CPAP machine, the luminous, sinister red numerals of my clock radio, the bizarre purple opioid-induced novae.  Second, he extinguishes my artwork as it stands, in situ, here it is and then it is gone as it should to irrelevancy.   And next, he puts out my ideas, flashes of them, meteors broken apart, the incandescent scrum and scree of them scattered across and among thoughts and task lists and white boards and in the minds of my loved ones and followers.  Now, he revokes my memories, the constellation of  incidents, these brilliant epiphanies I presumed would compose the luminary body I had thought to become.  And, now he puts out all that is left and leaves me in utter darkness.  All has been put out.  Now what?  Where are you dark man?  Where is the light in this?

I should be writing a poem

but the old dog needs his day at the groomers 

and the far-off owl eyes

and the why are you leaving me here radio dish

follows me as I walk out the door.

I should be writing a poem

but we need sunbutter prunes 2 green bananas

and the woman just there sobbing and squeezing mangos

looks up and fixes her sorrow on my stopped-here demeanor

where I stand

all of that reprimand and demand 

well what do you want from me?

I should be writing a poem

why is it like this

why haven’t you done something

what can you do 

what IS there to be done?

your keening 

our lamentation.

I should be writing a poem

as contained in this sloppy bucket of words

are worlds in a universe which is a massive bubble of meaning

wherein there is no terrible loss and sorrow 

and no god damn artwork

and there is a place where 

nobody needs to eat up somebody else.

Spira Mirabilis

I shall arise the same though changed

the din of the restaurant these stainless-steel chairs scraping the concrete floor 

and the waitress’ tiny short but somehow elegant fingers

leaving in her air an expressive wake

spiral eddies that I can actually see.  

In the air.  

Somehow in the air.

I am going to execute my mother.   

Child

I admit it 

I don’t understand you

the way you try to place me separate on this earth

separate from all of them

from you

to journey to some spot and disappear.

The way we eat one another

starting with these kids

they screech

kicking on the ground 

and the blood rushes from their throats 

flows into us 

down your maw

so you can become yourself

and stay alive.

The way we will settle deep into our own ravenous sleep 

not yours

deeper than we do in dirt

the way we will find below 

and float 

down a river of gurgling dream.

I will swim toward another liquid pain.

I will root into you and grow.

To not be lost in constant waters:

To not be buried in crumbling earth.

I will find you.

I will find you I promise.

And we will yet become alive.

Henry G. Stanton

Painter · Writer · Editor · Publisher

443.472.3877

henry.stanton@brightportfal.com

www.brightportfal.com

BIO:

Henry Stanton's fiction, poetry and paintings appear in 2River, The A3 Review, Alien Buddha Press, Avatar, The Baltimore City Paper, The Baltimore Sun Magazine, Chicago Record, High Shelf Press, Kestrel, North of Oxford, Outlaw Poetry,  The Paragon Press, PCC Inscape, Pindeldyboz, Ramingo!, Rusty Truck, Salt & Syntax, SmokeLong Quarterly, Under The Bleachers, The William and Mary Review, Word Riot, The Write Launch and Yellow Mama, among other publications.  His book of Short Stories, "River of Sleep and Dreams" is due to be published by Alien Buddha Press in 2019.  His book of poems "The Man Who Turned Stuff Off" is being published by Holy & Intoxicated Press in June 2019

                              

His poetry was selected for the A3 Review Poetry Prize  and was shortlisted for the Eyewear 9th Fortnight Prize for Poetry.  His fiction received an Honorable Mention acceptance for the Salt & Syntax Fiction Contest and was selected as a finalist for the Pen 2 Paper Annual Writing Contest.

A selection of Henry Stanton's paintings are currently on show at the Berlin Library by the Worcester Counting Arts Council and can be viewed at the following website www.brightportfal.com.  A selection of Henry Stanton’s published fiction and poetry can be located for reading in the library at www.brightportfal.com.

Henry Stanton is Publisher of Uncollected Press and the Founding & Managing Editor of The Raw Art Review - www.therawartreview.com