Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl (Jack Thomas)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I've written about religious, historical, and philosophical subjects, because I find systems of belief and existentialism interesting. But I've also written a lot about stuff like The Jerry Springer Show, slasher films, and junk food.
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
11th Sep 2021 10:31pm
11th Sep 2021 10:31pm
Where I Was
I was in a school assembly when I heard.
Sat cross-legged on the floor,
near the back-left doors because
the older kids always sat at
the rear of the assembly hall. We were
a sea of green in our school uniforms.
A girl started crying and had
to be let out. Her uncle may or
may not have been in one of the towers.
That’s my only memory of September,
2001, the month when our
millennium truly began.
Sat cross-legged on the floor,
near the back-left doors because
the older kids always sat at
the rear of the assembly hall. We were
a sea of green in our school uniforms.
A girl started crying and had
to be let out. Her uncle may or
may not have been in one of the towers.
That’s my only memory of September,
2001, the month when our
millennium truly began.
#tragedy
231 reads
3 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
10th Sep 2021 2:46pm
10th Sep 2021 2:46pm
Quote from the Vulgar Bible
And why beholdest thou
the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye?
Seizeth that lofty beam
and stick it up thine arse.
Then when thine arse is naught but mote,
thou mayest judge at last.
Matty, 6:9
the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye?
Seizeth that lofty beam
and stick it up thine arse.
Then when thine arse is naught but mote,
thou mayest judge at last.
Matty, 6:9
#spiritual
220 reads
3 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
10th Sep 2021 00:34am
10th Sep 2021 00:34am
Non for Me, Thanks
Don’t do much non-fiction reading,
besides the occasional history book.
I tend to prefer stories that aren’t real.
They’re more fun and have better endings.
besides the occasional history book.
I tend to prefer stories that aren’t real.
They’re more fun and have better endings.
#books
227 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
9th Sep 2021 3:05pm
9th Sep 2021 3:05pm
hate
it’s just love
with more aggressive sex
or so my bishop said
with more aggressive sex
or so my bishop said
#hate
215 reads
2 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
9th Sep 2021 1:43am
9th Sep 2021 1:43am
Mister Dewer
adapted liberally from English myth
Across the Moor each night
he rides, his pack of hounds -
with glittered teeth
and slavering mounds
of jaw, ugly muscle pumping -
in cold obedience.
Like a coated toff meaning
to satisfy an uncouth need,
he whips his mare and bleeds
a brittle instrument of sound.
A pitted shinbone from
a satchel sewn
with stolen infant flesh.
The moon, by clouds of witness held
like a spoiled toff’s lady
wrapped in taffeta, looks on with haughty
eye. The priests will call...
Across the Moor each night
he rides, his pack of hounds -
with glittered teeth
and slavering mounds
of jaw, ugly muscle pumping -
in cold obedience.
Like a coated toff meaning
to satisfy an uncouth need,
he whips his mare and bleeds
a brittle instrument of sound.
A pitted shinbone from
a satchel sewn
with stolen infant flesh.
The moon, by clouds of witness held
like a spoiled toff’s lady
wrapped in taffeta, looks on with haughty
eye. The priests will call...
#evil
#scary
#mythology #tradition
#mythology #tradition
232 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
8th Sep 2021 4:01am
8th Sep 2021 4:01am
A Taste for Violence
Sometimes, I’m still
nine years old and stood
in the hallway with
my eldest brother,
as our other brother’s
knocked about upstairs.
My eyes are wet.
My eldest brother smirks
in that manner of his,
an attitude he’ll always take to life.
You could make it stop, he says.
Dad likes you best.
I’m thirty now. And living on my own,
for once, I’ve slowly reached
a place of understanding that
I don’t like fights, or even raised voices.
When I was five or so years old
I got lost at a holiday camp.
I’d...
nine years old and stood
in the hallway with
my eldest brother,
as our other brother’s
knocked about upstairs.
My eyes are wet.
My eldest brother smirks
in that manner of his,
an attitude he’ll always take to life.
You could make it stop, he says.
Dad likes you best.
I’m thirty now. And living on my own,
for once, I’ve slowly reached
a place of understanding that
I don’t like fights, or even raised voices.
When I was five or so years old
I got lost at a holiday camp.
I’d...
#childhood
#violence
#reading #fear
#reading #fear
253 reads
3 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
7th Sep 2021 9:06pm
7th Sep 2021 9:06pm
Stories My Dad Tells Me
1
I like to tell my dad’s stories.
They’re much more amusing than mine,
given that he sailed in
the 1970s,
a Naval engineer.
He served with Prince Andrew.
Who was as thick as Corgi dung
to a point where you couldn’t
hold a conversation.
The instructor would threaten
to kick his head in
if he didn’t pay attention
and learn.
One night in the bar
a drunken sailor
walked up to the Prince and slurred:
‘ow you pull so many birds?!
An officer grabbed the man
and threw him out wholly, ...
I like to tell my dad’s stories.
They’re much more amusing than mine,
given that he sailed in
the 1970s,
a Naval engineer.
He served with Prince Andrew.
Who was as thick as Corgi dung
to a point where you couldn’t
hold a conversation.
The instructor would threaten
to kick his head in
if he didn’t pay attention
and learn.
One night in the bar
a drunken sailor
walked up to the Prince and slurred:
‘ow you pull so many birds?!
An officer grabbed the man
and threw him out wholly, ...
#love
#family
#memories #historical
#memories #historical
228 reads
3 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
6th Sep 2021 2:29pm
6th Sep 2021 2:29pm
Finger Painting
for P
We finger painted all afternoon.
It was lovely, innocent,
our fingers like daubs
on an artist’s palette.
Joy like that
cannot be brought back.
Tell his parents I’m sorry,
but now they’ll never see, at least,
their boy grow up and ugly
in that way
that all boys do, one day.
His innocence will never be
enlightened by society,
and made to flee
the watches of the day,
as wrought in masculinity.
He’ll never sit beside
a woman on a train
and stroke her inner thigh.
He’ll never...
We finger painted all afternoon.
It was lovely, innocent,
our fingers like daubs
on an artist’s palette.
Joy like that
cannot be brought back.
Tell his parents I’m sorry,
but now they’ll never see, at least,
their boy grow up and ugly
in that way
that all boys do, one day.
His innocence will never be
enlightened by society,
and made to flee
the watches of the day,
as wrought in masculinity.
He’ll never sit beside
a woman on a train
and stroke her inner thigh.
He’ll never...
#childhood
#murder
#violence #masculinity
#violence #masculinity
231 reads
4 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
5th Sep 2021 10:57pm
5th Sep 2021 10:57pm
Burke and Blades in: The Palaeolithic Problem
I
The country house of Lady Helen Winthrop was a modest affair, if your idea of a modest affair is six months in Paris with more damned whores and sodomites than you can shake the Old Testament at. Not a corner was spared some souvenir picked up by Lord Winthrop at some exotic period, including an early contraceptive device used by Cleopatra, which Lady Helen insisted be covered with a sheet. Detectives Burke and Blades, newly reassigned to the Linear Violations division of Scotland Yard, were visiting Winthrop Manor about one of the Lord’s recent adventures. The gentleman’s...
The country house of Lady Helen Winthrop was a modest affair, if your idea of a modest affair is six months in Paris with more damned whores and sodomites than you can shake the Old Testament at. Not a corner was spared some souvenir picked up by Lord Winthrop at some exotic period, including an early contraceptive device used by Cleopatra, which Lady Helen insisted be covered with a sheet. Detectives Burke and Blades, newly reassigned to the Linear Violations division of Scotland Yard, were visiting Winthrop Manor about one of the Lord’s recent adventures. The gentleman’s...
#funny
#ShortStory
#historical #scifi
#historical #scifi
259 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
1st Sep 2021 11:35pm
1st Sep 2021 11:35pm
little things found in secondhand books
a photograph of a young Jack Russell
with a scruffy black head
and white body,
looking like a plucked chicken.
a birthday message,
handwritten, dated two weeks
before it reached my hands.
(the recipient must not have liked
Southern Gothic short stories.)
a postcard of a Van Gogh scene
(“Wheatfield, with Cypresses”).
that one i keep on my nightstand,
backlit by my reading lamp.
i think about the hands
that placed these little gifts
between the pages of the books.
a woman’s hands,
wrinkled,...
with a scruffy black head
and white body,
looking like a plucked chicken.
a birthday message,
handwritten, dated two weeks
before it reached my hands.
(the recipient must not have liked
Southern Gothic short stories.)
a postcard of a Van Gogh scene
(“Wheatfield, with Cypresses”).
that one i keep on my nightstand,
backlit by my reading lamp.
i think about the hands
that placed these little gifts
between the pages of the books.
a woman’s hands,
wrinkled,...
#books
282 reads
3 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
1st Sep 2021 3:31am
1st Sep 2021 3:31am
The Case of the Match-Point Poisoner
for dartford, who was kind enough to say that he enjoyed my first Homer Featherstonhaugh adventure, The Case of the Calamitous Currency
a detective story
‘It was certainly the case that made my name’ said Homer Featherstonhaugh (pronounced Fan-shaw), modestly, in response to his friend’s effusive praise of his work on the case of The Match-Point Poisoner. He puffed his cigar before a roaring fire in a drawing room at Vikram’s, a gentleman’s club. It was six years after the Great War. Dr Theodore Devlin refilled his pipe. He didn’t care for cigars, but took a moment...
a detective story
‘It was certainly the case that made my name’ said Homer Featherstonhaugh (pronounced Fan-shaw), modestly, in response to his friend’s effusive praise of his work on the case of The Match-Point Poisoner. He puffed his cigar before a roaring fire in a drawing room at Vikram’s, a gentleman’s club. It was six years after the Great War. Dr Theodore Devlin refilled his pipe. He didn’t care for cigars, but took a moment...
#murder
#ShortStory
#mystery #historical
#mystery #historical
235 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
31st Aug 2021 2:40pm
31st Aug 2021 2:40pm
Theatre of Blood
a film review in verse
An Oscar winner starring in
a horror film sounds like a sin.
But great actors have brought to bear
a lot of charm to monsters’ lairs.
It’s just a shame that Vincent Price
wasn’t treated very nice.
He deserved the Oscar more
than many men who’ve swept the board.
It must have seemed a mercy, then,
to let him speak the Bard’s blank ten.
Iambic rhythms pouring from
the gullet of this strutting tom.
A chilling festival of shock
made glory by the son of schlock,
the film...
An Oscar winner starring in
a horror film sounds like a sin.
But great actors have brought to bear
a lot of charm to monsters’ lairs.
It’s just a shame that Vincent Price
wasn’t treated very nice.
He deserved the Oscar more
than many men who’ve swept the board.
It must have seemed a mercy, then,
to let him speak the Bard’s blank ten.
Iambic rhythms pouring from
the gullet of this strutting tom.
A chilling festival of shock
made glory by the son of schlock,
the film...
#PopCulture
285 reads
7 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl (Jack Thomas)
