19.04.2020.
Through
a lightly
smudged
windowpane -
a Japanese
Magnolia Tree.
Its blossom
twisting
in the wind -
as my eyes
follow
the trails,
until
I become
the
blossom -
slowly
drifting
up
into
the
lilac dusk.
There are Some Poems.
That can only be written
feverishly on the spot,
with everything fucking dropped -
catching the poem off guard
before it can resist,
or be overworked -
as you break in through the backdoor
blasting it in the cranium
with the sawn off shotgun -
raiding it for every
word and syllable you can find
and leaving before the blood
can drip back down
from the ceiling -
never once looking back.
Catalonian Bread
You turned off the TV
You turned off the TV
that was broadcasting
bad news in Spanish,
before olive oil dripped
from my toast slice
and landed perfectly
by my crotch,
like some suggestive stain
on my freshly washed
pale jeans -
as I then looked up to see
you eating with elegance
and intimidating beauty.
‘It’s fucking delicious,’
I said, taking another bite
of the lunch you’d prepared -
‘Please, it’s only toast,
tomato, garlic and olive oil,’
you replied
‘It’s way more than that,’
I added,
which sounded stupid
the second that it left
my mouth -
but you just smiled at me
across that table -
still leaving me feeling
like I was at a royal banquet,
even if I’d only ever be
a fleeting king.
The First Job I Ever Had.
Working full time as a dishwasher
in a cafe that had once been a public toilet
with a stressed, but fair Turkish boss,
a barista that always joked that if he’d
won the lottery he’d buy the cafe
and turn it back into a public toilet,
a chef that’d blast Cannibal Corpse
whilst angrily pressing paninis,
a waitress that I never quite knew -
but whose kind face I still remember
and on Saturdays, an old ex crook
named Pot Wash Paul who’d help me dish
as he’d become the bard of the dish pit -
telling me his burglary stories,
followed by his prison stories and
that all this world ever came down to
was crooks and victims and at some point
we all had to choose between the two -
before they fired him for talking too much
and I’d always wonder how I’d look back
at my time in that greasy kitchen years on,
but in truth I remember little -
other than it wasn’t the best job,
nor the worst,
but it was the first of many that I’d take,
moonlighting for the love
of this strange art.
Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician, whose written work can be found widely in print and also online. His sixth poetry chapbook Cocoon Transitions can be found here https://analogsubmission.com/
Find more work by Gwil James Thomas on BM here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2019/09/featuring-gwil-james-thomas.html
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