Category: Uncategorized

Tempest

Rain beads your rosary down the window pane,
But what is the prayer?
Perhaps to regain a flicker of warmth –
It’s no longer there.
Swept away, perhaps, in your maelstrom of being,
Like a whip to the wind.
Emotions illusive, like shadows at night,
The cherub has sinned.

For there. See how the water swamps the urn.
Attack from inside.
Your flickering, life-giving embers drenched,
The grievance is wide.
Your pain is closer than marrow to bone,
And your shield’s just a wreath.
This is a scream in the storm,
For the person beneath.

Bryson Thomas
Thanks Giving

Daily writing prompt
Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?
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On Thanksgiving, we have turkey,
In the middle of the table.
And all the family comes together,
Even Grandma, while she’s able.
My sister brings her partner,
My brother brings his dog,
My father stokes the fireplace,
With a special hardwood log,
The kids go running rampant,
While Grandpa picks his nose,
My nephew finds a magazine,
And asks his mommy where it goes,
An Uncle spills his Heineken,
On newish cargo shorts,
Still holds the bottle upright,
While sharing shallow thoughts
There’s pumpkin on the table
And every kind of meat
And all the buttered veggies
You’d ever want to eat
For afters, there is apple pie
And my mother’s favourite cake
And the remnants of that croquembouche
My sister tried to make
An Auntie makes some devilled eggs
All peppered red with spice
But the richest dish that we all make?
Well, that’s just making nice.

Bryson Thomas
Straight Faced

It’s always somewhere.
The little tattoo, tucked under a dog-collar.
The mantis, praying for prey.
The crease in the vestments.
A speck in the font.
The crack in the marble wall of
Human institutions.
Just wide enough
For thousands to fall through.
Just deep enough
To keep their cries from kinder ears.
Just small enough
To be papered over,
In courts
Inquiries
High commissions
Low places.

Stick a wedge in it!
Flip the tables!
Tear it all down and
Reclaim the lost!
Christ on a cross,
We’ve nothing to lose!

We’re already crushed.

Bryson Thomas
3.14

Daily writing prompt
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
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If there’s a figure to be
Beyond, simply, I
Skerrickless doubt,
It would be Pi.
Constantly useful
In eons gone by
And with inscrutable time
Before I die.

Bryson Thomas
Warm bed

Under the covers,
A sable universe,
Holds me
In subtle suspension,
Caught in a forever fall,
A vertiginous breath,
Beyond gravity,
Between feelings,
Expectations,
Pugnacious obligations.
Stars peer through stitch holes in the duvet,
Blinking in bemusement
At my arrested slide.
Still,
My mind,
Beyond such dark matters,
Finds peace
In the chaos.

Bryson Thomas
Instinct

It abides.
Swimming ‘neath the skin,
A wrinkle in the cassock,
A creeping urge to sin.
Saliva on a wicked tongue,
A flicker in the light,
A collar button come undone,
Soft sniggers in the night.
Some name it drive,
Some cast it cheat,
Some call it wanderlust,
But all, at times, will hear its voice,
In that much,
You can trust.

Bryson Thomas
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

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