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.
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
10th Jun 2021 5:34pm
10th Jun 2021 5:34pm
Gaykery
I've thought about it and
to be honest
I wouldn't mind
if bakers stopped selling me cakes
because I'm queer
then at least
I might slim down enough
to land a man
a man with muscles
both maximal and gluteal
and we'll eat a green salad
while laughing about
how our sodomy could have been stopped
if only we were sold brownies
to be honest
I wouldn't mind
if bakers stopped selling me cakes
because I'm queer
then at least
I might slim down enough
to land a man
a man with muscles
both maximal and gluteal
and we'll eat a green salad
while laughing about
how our sodomy could have been stopped
if only we were sold brownies
#LGBT
284 reads
3 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
10th Jun 2021 2:52pm
10th Jun 2021 2:52pm
The Followers of the Wad
a parody of cosmic horror
The terror was unaccountable, and I should know, I'm an accountant. When I came down to Essex, I didn't foresee the grim spectres that would assail me, not the least of which was a dishevelled chap in the Clacton McDonald's, screaming that he just wanted his chicken nuggets and didn't know anything about a needle in the toilet bowl. Poor mad soul, I thought, and offered to find him sanctuary at a local church or charity hostel. He spat at and called me a "right nonce," which I took to be a dialectic way of affirming gratitude. At that point, however, he...
The terror was unaccountable, and I should know, I'm an accountant. When I came down to Essex, I didn't foresee the grim spectres that would assail me, not the least of which was a dishevelled chap in the Clacton McDonald's, screaming that he just wanted his chicken nuggets and didn't know anything about a needle in the toilet bowl. Poor mad soul, I thought, and offered to find him sanctuary at a local church or charity hostel. He spat at and called me a "right nonce," which I took to be a dialectic way of affirming gratitude. At that point, however, he...
#evil
#parody
280 reads
6 Comments
ANGER POEM
Published
10th Jun 2021 00:47am
10th Jun 2021 00:47am
Elegy for a Christian Baker
Brandon Teena was a trans man
who in 1993
was raped and ripped apart.
But that’s just fine with me.
Matthew Shepard was a gay man
who in 1998
was pistol-whipped and tortured to death.
But I’m above such hate.
I heard his blood was cleansed by tears.
I heard they tied him to a fence.
I read that years
before, as a teenager on tour
in Morocco, he was beaten and raped.
His and Teena’s bodies
were the canvasses on which
the Christian way...
who in 1993
was raped and ripped apart.
But that’s just fine with me.
Matthew Shepard was a gay man
who in 1998
was pistol-whipped and tortured to death.
But I’m above such hate.
I heard his blood was cleansed by tears.
I heard they tied him to a fence.
I read that years
before, as a teenager on tour
in Morocco, he was beaten and raped.
His and Teena’s bodies
were the canvasses on which
the Christian way...
#LGBT
215 reads
4 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
8th Jun 2021 2:40pm
8th Jun 2021 2:40pm
Virtual Reality: A User Review
I liked it at first. We all did! That level of virtual reality had been a science fiction dream since those Amazing Stories magazines from the 1950s, that my granddad left me when he died. So when the dream turned real and was boxed and sold and brought home one day by my dad, we all clamoured for it. In the beginning it was like how older people describe dial-up internet, only one person at a time could use it, and there was always someone sealed up in that chamber experiencing god knows what. The morals police pushed for and got parental control options, but these were basic at best and...
#technology
214 reads
9 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
7th Jun 2021 9:57pm
7th Jun 2021 9:57pm
Vintage Red
I
John and Sara were having a party at their house in the middle of nowhere, or rather down a country lane distant enough from the nearest towns that you could look to the horizon and see no other signs of life. Apart from the wind turbines. ‘Face it’ said Abbie, the new arrival to their friend group that night, ‘you can’t live the good life in 2021. The world’s too small today.’
John smiled and refreshed her wine glass. ‘You’re right’ he said, ‘but we don’t have to hear the neighbours fucking, and that’s good enough for us.’ Abbie laughed and swilled the vintage red...
John and Sara were having a party at their house in the middle of nowhere, or rather down a country lane distant enough from the nearest towns that you could look to the horizon and see no other signs of life. Apart from the wind turbines. ‘Face it’ said Abbie, the new arrival to their friend group that night, ‘you can’t live the good life in 2021. The world’s too small today.’
John smiled and refreshed her wine glass. ‘You’re right’ he said, ‘but we don’t have to hear the neighbours fucking, and that’s good enough for us.’ Abbie laughed and swilled the vintage red...
#murder
252 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
7th Jun 2021 00:36am
7th Jun 2021 00:36am
Why I Hate Travelling in London
1
I think I’ve read too many crime novels
about people being shoved down escalators
and in front of trains
plus being clumsy and not having much
coordination means that I picture
myself crumpled at the bottom of
those escalators
or knocked down like the little girl
I saw almost delivered back to God
when a boy rushing to make his train
barrelled into her
thankfully I’m sturdier
than most little girls
2
tube trains are the worst
unsure on my feet
and crammed in like...
I think I’ve read too many crime novels
about people being shoved down escalators
and in front of trains
plus being clumsy and not having much
coordination means that I picture
myself crumpled at the bottom of
those escalators
or knocked down like the little girl
I saw almost delivered back to God
when a boy rushing to make his train
barrelled into her
thankfully I’m sturdier
than most little girls
2
tube trains are the worst
unsure on my feet
and crammed in like...
#funny
391 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
5th Jun 2021 11:30pm
5th Jun 2021 11:30pm
Queerness
I
A friend of mine told me about
a friend of hers
who’d come to question her sexuality
while married to a man.
He pressured her into things
like group sex,
lapping at the faucet of
her sexual confusion,
little more than a dog
who doesn’t understand
where the water comes from
and doesn’t care to.
There was a happy ending.
She fell in love with a woman
and they spent their retirements together,
long into an age when infirmity
ruled out sex. Because that, said my friend, ...
A friend of mine told me about
a friend of hers
who’d come to question her sexuality
while married to a man.
He pressured her into things
like group sex,
lapping at the faucet of
her sexual confusion,
little more than a dog
who doesn’t understand
where the water comes from
and doesn’t care to.
There was a happy ending.
She fell in love with a woman
and they spent their retirements together,
long into an age when infirmity
ruled out sex. Because that, said my friend, ...
#LGBT
312 reads
6 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
3rd Jun 2021 10:21pm
3rd Jun 2021 10:21pm
Pornoviolence
[In Cold Blood by Truman Capote] is neither a who-done-it nor a will-they-be-caught, since the answers to both questions are known from the outset... Instead, the book's suspense is based largely on a totally new idea in detective stories: the promise of gory details, and the withholding of them until the end." - Tom Wolfe, "Pornoviolence"
1
Two boys sit in a cinema
watching a film
about a family of killer rednecks.
Dad's holding court in a motel room
as a woman tied to a radiator
pleads through her gag for mercy.
Dad's...
1
Two boys sit in a cinema
watching a film
about a family of killer rednecks.
Dad's holding court in a motel room
as a woman tied to a radiator
pleads through her gag for mercy.
Dad's...
#violence
313 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
3rd Jun 2021 2:49pm
3rd Jun 2021 2:49pm
Dark Cathedral
Pride Month, June 2021
I
I dreamt that I was being held
rather than holding
and that was the source of my shame
I dreamt that I was conquered
as opposed to conquering
and that was the mud on my name
II
the transparent
and brittle heart
of my soul or whatever it is
that makes a person whole
was flooded with light in my dreams
a diamond cathedral’s
thrones and altarpiece
lit up like the space revealed
when heaven’s door opens
while hovering in outer dark
but I...
I
I dreamt that I was being held
rather than holding
and that was the source of my shame
I dreamt that I was conquered
as opposed to conquering
and that was the mud on my name
II
the transparent
and brittle heart
of my soul or whatever it is
that makes a person whole
was flooded with light in my dreams
a diamond cathedral’s
thrones and altarpiece
lit up like the space revealed
when heaven’s door opens
while hovering in outer dark
but I...
#LGBT
294 reads
1 Comment
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
2nd Jun 2021 9:54pm
2nd Jun 2021 9:54pm
Capote’s Pride
You were short
and scarved, just like a woman living in
a large apartment, west
of Central Park. The cover for
my Penguin Classics copy of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
depicted you in your armchair,
a shawl around your legs,
a portrait painting of a maiden aunt.
Quite apart from being odd
you were a genius.
Your gift with words
would have made you
a star in ivy’s firmament,
a league with men and women who
supplied the world’s canon,
had you lived a hundred years prior
and therefore never graced
a TV...
and scarved, just like a woman living in
a large apartment, west
of Central Park. The cover for
my Penguin Classics copy of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
depicted you in your armchair,
a shawl around your legs,
a portrait painting of a maiden aunt.
Quite apart from being odd
you were a genius.
Your gift with words
would have made you
a star in ivy’s firmament,
a league with men and women who
supplied the world’s canon,
had you lived a hundred years prior
and therefore never graced
a TV...
#LGBT
238 reads
0 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
2nd Jun 2021 2:08am
2nd Jun 2021 2:08am
He will not rise again
Winter, 1170
Boys descended London hills
on skates made of shinbones. The lee
was thronged with boats depositing,
and merchants undertaking
what business was left, by chills
temporal sweeping through Time’s alleyways.
The Mays and Aprils not yet come to greet
his holiness, the Archbishop,
since his return from France
some twenty and four days ago,
the low-born clerk was harrowed from his prayers
by four knights of the royal arms.
Swords were drawn and Thomas Becket’s blood
and brains...
Boys descended London hills
on skates made of shinbones. The lee
was thronged with boats depositing,
and merchants undertaking
what business was left, by chills
temporal sweeping through Time’s alleyways.
The Mays and Aprils not yet come to greet
his holiness, the Archbishop,
since his return from France
some twenty and four days ago,
the low-born clerk was harrowed from his prayers
by four knights of the royal arms.
Swords were drawn and Thomas Becket’s blood
and brains...
#religion
#faith
#rebirth
#mythology
#philosophical
255 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
29th May 2021 11:29pm
29th May 2021 11:29pm
outside the bell tower
tender only to death
we dance in the moonlit streets
and I am so many things at once
criminal and kind
godfearing and atheist
chaste and homosexual
that in death is a box
to which I can consign
all of my confusions
as we dance in the moonlit streets
outside the silent bell tower
we dance in the moonlit streets
and I am so many things at once
criminal and kind
godfearing and atheist
chaste and homosexual
that in death is a box
to which I can consign
all of my confusions
as we dance in the moonlit streets
outside the silent bell tower
#confusion
#despair
256 reads
4 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl (Jack Thomas)
