Introducing
Gwil James Thomas

 

02. 01. 2025.

 

A sensational tangerine sun rises 

over the shanty town in Castle Park.

 

A haggard looking man stops a bus, 

just to step onboard 

and spit at the bus driver - 

before he walks off 

sputtering gibberish to himself.

 

Snapped police-tape limply flaps 

in the wind from a lamppost - 

like an already distant reminder 

of last month’s festive madness. 

 

The cold pavements are a montage 

of broken glass, half eaten kebabs, 

piss and empty drug packets.

 

Welcome to a new season 

of survival in the city.

 

A new year, a new me?

 

That joke is getting 

thinner than my hairline.

 

I clock into work, I clock out of work 

and I limp home in the dark -

firmly locking the door behind me.

 

Hear that?

 

Yes, absolutely nothing, beautiful isn’t it?

 

I crack my knuckles and contemplate.

 

I will try again with this year with tomorrow -

or whenever and wherever it is 

that our tomorrows haphazardly arrive.

 

 

 

 

 

Running With The Wild Heart. 

 

She fucked like humanity 

was on the brink of extinction, 

spat words into the air 

with cobra like venom, 

knew sadness 

as a hellhound on her trail 

that could never quite reach her,  

let her love take flight 

like an albatross 

sailing high on compassion, 

before she 

disappeared - 

like a fox 

through woodlands upon hearing

gunshots.

 

 

 

 

January ’25 Haiku.

 

Los Angeles burns

London is a frozen ATM

Bristol still stagnant.

 

 

 

 

The Rock of Gibraltar.

 

The merciless midday sun

beat down on the tall and tenacious rock,

as monkeys leapt onto our shoulders -

hit a pensioner and eventually

fought over a child’s Monster Munch.

 

Across The Straight of Gibraltar,  

I watched the waves furiously lap

against the coast of Tangier and Africa.

 

Well that was that and at that I took

the cable-car as it shuddered all the way

down the rock, before I reached a high street

and sat down with a pint in the shade –

across the road a man chain smoked

outside the bookies, a drunken couple argued,

whilst Union Jacks waved in the wind –

all of it feeling so familiar and yet out of place,

like the way dreams blend time places and people.

 

Building a hunger, I stared at the supermarket’s

shelves of ready meals and dry sandwiches

and considered that I’d head back to Spain -

already salivating for fresh gazpacho,

tortilla de patatas and calamari -

or anything besides British foreign muck.

 

 

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