Poems by Gwil James Thomas

The Longest Pause. 

‘You ever think about

the time that 

we almost got married?’

she says down the phone. 

Each day that I wake up, 

I think.

‘That was years ago, 

I reply,’ as the longest pause 

falls down upon us 

like the thickest 

blanket of snow.

After the call, 

I brush my teeth 

and slip into bed,

to a silence so strong

that it could call 

her name.

---

Called in Sick Haiku. 

In the bath singing 

you’re not the boss of me now –

I schedule a nap.

---

No Last Laugh in Circus City.   

I spot him as I cut through crack alley – 

he is pissing against a doorway.

A gangly man in a clown suit, 

clutching a can of cider. 

It is hard not to stare as he notices 

me midstream and looks over his shoulder, 

with a face so furious 

that his eyes almost look pupil-less 

and wanting to capture the moment, 

I admittedly reach for my phone –

but his expression tells me 

that he’ll eat my alive 

if our bad days collide any further. 

I walk on into the evening and the rest 

of my life, with no last laugh –  

knowing that nobody will believe what  

I’ve just seen whilst I was still 

sober.

---

19. 03. 2025.

In the woods –

the blue skies and warming air

prod and poke 

between the dark and cold 

shadows 

of skeletal silver birch trees. 

Winter is losing its grip. 

Spring is eager to break through,

as if it were soon to gush out 

like a fresh exit wound 

onto everyone’s tops.

I kick up the withered leaves 

feeling somewhat out of season –

as butterflies traverse 

a crossroads of paths, 

with no devil, or Robert Johnson. 

Today it is hard not to relate 

even to a cliched sense of hope. 

---

Current Set of Wheels.  

It had always 

been the same – 

whether it was 

poker, pool,  

flirting, or gardening, 

I got good 

at something 

and then 

the wheels fell off.

Until I finally found 

something  

so subjective that it  

didn’t matter whether 

you finished it without 

any wheels at all.  

And from then on

I happily clocked the miles,

as a poet on 

the small press 

highway.

Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician from Bristol, England. He lives in his home town of Bristol, England but has also lived in London, Brighton and Spain. He is the author of seventeen chapbooks of published poetry and three full collections. He is part English, part Welsh and part wolf. IG: @gwiljamesthomas.