Thomas is a small press Bristol poet who has previously published several chapbooks, including his latest ‘What We Do, They Will Never Understand- a split chap with scumbag press guru Martin Appleby (@twokeycustoms) and a second collection of poems The P45 Power Ballad(@yellowkingpress).
Thomas’ poetry is typically free verse confessional, highly accessible and remarkably free of literary bullshit.
The chap is A5 in size, saddle stitched on recycled paper and handmade by the publisher in Yorkshire, UK. The layout and graphics which accompany the poems add to the pleasure of your read. The chap is limited to 30 numbered copies.
Some of the poems in this small chap have previously appeared in publications such as As it Ought To Be Magazine, Expat Press and in Back Patio Press.
The common theme of the chap is that of change. The persona of the poems, presumably Thomas, often narrates everyday situations which prompt him to make important personal observations and realisations.
In the poem ‘Return of an Ex’, Thomas, comes across an ex girlfriend in a grocery store and humorously reminisces about their youthful relationship. He realises they both have shed their previous selves and he is “glad that the boy I once was had long since gone”:
Return of an Ex.
It’d been years since she’d even crossed my mind
and then suddenly she’d appeared in front of me,
in the frozen foods section of Lidl -
we caught up and she told me about
her husband and her son and I told her about
the cities that I’d lived in over the years.
It was clear that the girl I’d once known had gone,
but as she talked some memories came back to me -
like the time that I picked her up in my old banger,
after I’d spontaneously spray painted
the word KILL across the bonnet
and how to my surprise she’d found it hilarious,
or the way that the radiator by her bed
would shudder when we’d have sex,
or how I learnt to play songs on the guitar
by bands that I’d hated and she’d adored,
or of the evening that she’d left me and the pain
that I’d dragged out trying to get over her
and how one day that had just disappeared,
like our youth and there was something wonderful,
horrible and fucking stupid about it all.
Eventually, we said so long again and I paid
for my shopping and wandered back to my car,
where I stopped and glanced at the clean bonnet -
glad that the boy I once was had long since gone,
even if I was going to buy a can of spray paint
on my ride home.
(poems in this post are published with the permission of the writer)
In the poem ‘Change?’ he meets a girl at a bar through some friends. The following afternoon he opens a window and senses hope amongst his brokenness:
Change?
She’d arrived as unannounced,
as love and disaster -
a beautiful Welsh, Italian girl,
a friend of some friends.
From the cow eyed glances
at the bar when no one was watching,
to the extended touches nobody noticed -
I knew the script well enough and once
the drugs and alcohol drowned out
any inhibitions, we’d left to our
poor excuses.
The script flipped back at my flat
and instead of passing out all fucked up,
or jumping one another’s bones,
we’d talked and she told me about
a pain inside that was hard to explain
and despite her youth, career and looks,
against all of my lack of,
I knew then that she was broken
in the same way that I was -
yet, to laughter and sunrise,
we’d shelved suicide,
before her lips met mine
and we’d stripped, whilst a fresh day
had unfolded outside.
Alone, the following afternoon,
amongst my room’s familiar decor
and its fluttering moths,
I’d opened the windows to the bipolar weather -
I wasn’t even sure if I’d see her again,
but something in me longed for change
and for the first time in a long time,
I felt the truest smile fall onto my face -
realising, that I’d finally felt
something.
These are deeply personal, well crafted poems. As Thomas describes in these poems, change may be traumatic but it is also an inevitable and regenerative part of life.
Buy the chap here: https://clairobscurzine.bigcartel.com/product/love-is-a-burning-church-cleansed-by-welcomed-rain-by-gwil-james-thomas
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