Poetry: Selections From Gwil James Thomas
Ambition.
I stare at the slits of light
projecting through
the shadow of the blinds.
Outside the city smoulders -
I have no idea where
my ambition’s gone,
I haven’t written in weeks
and couldn’t care -
cold water runs down my
spine like a filleting knife
linked up to a car battery.
The world asks us
to leave a mark -
sometimes just surviving it
long enough,
can become its own art.
Socialising.
Something
like
going
out
for
a hearty
meal -
great
on occasions,
but
doing it
every day?
I’d rather
vomit
alone at
home.
Futures.
Ants crawl across
the burning concrete patio slab,
carrying food between
pincers.
The future is tomorrow’s problem -
I’ve always been
an uncaring twig carried in a river
-
but somewhere out there
exists a future that’s waiting for
me
to arrive around every next
corner,
as if it’s only teasing me
and other times it is as if it’ll
haunt
me for not catching it earlier
on.
I go back to the ants
preparing for winter in summer
-
the future always arrives
quicker than any of us expect.
Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept
musician. He lives in his home town of Bristol, England but has also lived in
London, Brighton and Spain. His latest chapbook Towards The Orange Horizon
(a split with the poet John Dorsey) is forthcoming from Kertecz Press. His
poetry has been published numerous times over the years in places such as Vipers
Tongue, Tangerine Press, River Dog Zine and Paper & Ink, amongst
others. He is part English, part Welsh and part wolf. IG: @gwiljamesthomas