Category: poem

Dog Star

Someone taped hair to a rocket,
It’s zinging through the room,
Shattering the speed of sound,

Blam!
Whoosh!
Scruffle!
Boom!

Exit stage left,
Enter stage right,
It’s a three stage rocket,
Scooting out of sight.

Air.
Floor.
Couch.
Door.

This object is in MOTION
And it’s filling ALL of space.

But whats that Houston?
A pointed nose.
Frozen.
There.
In place.

A tongue extends.
A scent portends
Across the lunar seas.

A rump touch down.
A whimper sounds.
Wet eyes projecting pleas…

And, yes. Control [sniff]

We can confirm [sniff sniff]

The moon IS made of cheese!

GULP!!!

Bryson Thomas
Sleep walk

Three-am

My city is a musky mistress
Brooding on bedsheets
Scrunched and creased
By fitful repose
Jazz dreams of halcyon past
Speed-read behind neon flecked lids
High kicks, carriages
Top-hats and typewriters
Replayed at twice-speed

This night she rests
Office towers, her laddered tights
Bright thigh-skin shining through
She shifts in her sleep when
Cop sirens wolf whistle
As they crawl her curbs

I walk softly
And savour her beauty.

Bryson Thomas
Dry

We called it farm
The desert called it visitor
Cracked dirt
Red as a split lip, torn
By screams of thirst
Coughing dust
Plough furrowed coffin dust
On desiccated crops
Of sheep bones
Divine oracle
Of Christmas parched
Clouds, just rumpled refugees
Dragging wisp-haired kin
In procession across the sky
Tearless in search
Of more hopeful places

Bryson Thomas
Little Sister

Four foot and eleven inches of grit
Wearing violent red shoes.
Hijacking life
From the seat of a gold Honda Civic
Indigo boa held hostage for the ride.
Brahms plays on oblivious
From speakers
On the dash.
Old 33’s on BBC
As the browbeaten car blows one-twenty.
There is no rush of course.
But, of course
There’s a rush from rushing
You should know –
Short legs move faster
To keep up.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
Ode to The Darkness

Sweet shadow
Embrace me this night
Warm, in the under-sheet spaces
With comfort
And lover’s embraces.

Sweet shadow
Enstage me this night
Odeon to sandpaper dreams
That polish my mind
In unconscious streams.

Sweet shadow
Unchain me this night
Hide me from governing eyes
Data collectors
And ravening spies

Sweet shadow
Becalm me this night
Your dark trunk a rest for my back
As I find meditation
And calm in your black

Sweet shadow
Enthral me tonight
With sticky-cheeked monsters with candy in bags
And firework wonders
With ziggings and zags

Sweet shadow
Inspire me this night
Murked well of ideas when others abate
I draw from you deep
And from thence create.

Sweet shadow
I revere you this night
For all you have hidden beyond reach of sight
You amplify life
In overcast rite.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
Mud Crab

Float and
Scrape,
Float and
Scrape,
The galvanized
Ghostly Boat
Is floating, scraping
Through
The tangled
Snare-root scaffold
Bracing mangroves
In digestive mire.

Draw
Release,
Draw
Release,
The mudflat
Draws and releases
Salty breaths
Twixt waves
Of tea-stained sea
That stretch and strive
To shade and hide
From ever-thirsting sun.

Come and
Quench,
Come and
Quench,
The comely, quenching
Leaves of
Mangrove trees
Sing siren song
Of waters fresh
Within the
Slurping snare
Embraced beneath.

Reach
And snatch,
Reach
And snatch,
War-worn fingers
With pig-hide skin
Reach and snatch
A papadam coloured
Carapace
As blue-purple
Pincers grasp
The air.

Bubble
And squeak,
Bubble
And squeak,
The cook pot
Bubbles and squeaks
The proof
That shin-swallowed legs
Are fast enough
As too-slow crab
Is too-quick gone…
A golden fleecing.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
Past Loves

They walk away
And yet, remain
With us imprisoned within,
And pain is our protection,
Loss, our consolation,
Sadness, our resource.

In our weakness,
We resent them
As we loved.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
The Place

The place, the place within our hearts exists
For life, for love, for truth, for tryst
Simplistic peace, artistic peace
Remote
At hand
A feeling
A land
Lavender meadows and sunshine through shadows
Sit with me, scream at me, run at me
Be with me.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
Pilate-Pen

War correspondent – Retired

Wash water, wash water
Wet these hands, these death-calling hands
Whose adrenalized fingers strangle-hold guilt.
Wend through the creases, the arthritic creases
Wherefrom a war-witness pen once
Wrote others’ fate in indigo blood, on a
Wide-ruled page

Wash water, wash water
Wash the recoiling hair, the worry-grey hair
Where the sweat-smelling helmet
Wore pressure marks into sweat-pricked skin
While all-seeking, all-killing missiles
Whistled, while they
Worked

Wash water, wash water
Whet this mouth, this mid-scream mouth, because
Whisky, with its throat burning
Ways cannot burn away the burning
Waft of burning flesh for all my
Wishing that it
Would

Wash water, wash water
Wash this body, this fear-rigoured body
Which still stands attention in soft chairs
Worlds away from the hunkering bunkering
War-writing weapon that once
Wore indirect tracks over un-made roads, just to
Write stories.

Wash water, wash water
Wash these streets.
Wash this earth.
Wash my mind.

Bryson Thomas

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Δ
Her – a work in progress

My love believes fairies tie bows in her lashes
So her eyes stay shut when she sleeps.
My love nudges her cheekbone to my clavicle
in bed
My love speaks English like she just borrowed it, mashing
Its gears with phrases like
Goodness grief, and My last nerve
And never uses just one word, when eight will serve
Instead

My love leaves at least two matches in the box
Because one is bereft by itself
My love cries when actors who are acting, hurt dogs who are acting
On TV
My love uses a pretend spyglass to find treasure in rock piles
Scissors to carve paper dolls from gossip magazines,
Underlines Hemmingway, Lawrence and Woolf
And feels more alive
By the sea.

My love stomps leaves in the Autumn
And talks to oldies on benches
My love collects lost feathers and finds love between others
Profound
My love is dismissive of meals without crunch
Salads you can’t eat with a fork and gossips
Sharing secrets about mutual friends who then
Taint you to others when you’re not
Around.

My love sits at the front of the class and the front
Of the bus so she can understand first
My love would feel dismay for the ages if a guest left the home with
Empty hands.
My love is concerned that her love’s not enough and the person
She loves will find love somewhere else, but
Her love is exquisite and essential to life for this one
Who loves her more than she
Understands.

Bryson Thomas

Category: poem

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply