another world (by Steve Thomas)

Steve Thomas at Cleveland’s Literary Cafe [photo by JC]

another world 

it’s not a singular situation
that confuses fatigues
embellishes
life

no

it’s how time stretched
and deepened
increased our weight
to send us into a moment
that enhanced touch

that still vibrates us awake
at 2am to wonder

where are those soft
petals the soothing scent
a song only she sings,

thankful for her thorns
that set blood free
offering proof it wasn’t all a dream.

-*-

(c) 2014 Steve Thomas, used with permission

Steve came into this world early, just after midnight, and has wandered toward dawn all this time, just now learning it sure is pretty in the morning, glad to know there’s daylight just ahead over the ridge.

when all hell breaks loose (by Steve Thomas)

Steve Thomas at Cleveland’s Literary Cafe [photo by JC]

when all hell breaks loose

I have always loved the word fuck
the many meanings, the fury
the fierce connection
in almost any situation
to another person.

when I was young it was my favorite response
almost always seemed appropriate.

I’m an old man now
and most of you would
be unable to picture
me as a skinny kid

saying
fuck you mutherfucker, repeatedly to the vice president
of a company I worked six and seven
days a week for.

the miracle of that event was I kept my job.

yeah.

at the time I hoped to mature
and be able to speak
to my emotional state
with adroit articulation.

But that’s not what happened,

what happened, what I found
after years of traveling down
my road, and it is my road,

was an ocean of fuck
beneath a rising moon.

-*-

(c) 2014 Steve Thomas, used with permission

Steve came into this world early, just after midnight, and has wandered toward dawn all this time, just now learning it sure is pretty in the morning, glad to know there’s daylight just ahead over the ridge.

Book Store (by Steve Thomas)

Steve Thomas at Cleveland’s Literary Cafe, 10 July 2008
[photo by Jesus Crisis]

Book Store

As I crossed
the threshold
I found a land

where monuments came to life
and ghosts sang, danced, told stories,

a doctor’s journal,
complained of corrupt roads
that slowed the transport of medicine
from Case to Oberlin in 1906

there were shouts from
d. a. levy news print
about Nixon Nazis in 1969
 
and Whiskey Island journals
poured words from throats
of the 80’s and beyond,

through those doors
musicians strummed a beat
while poets filled a cavern
with a chorus now buried out of reach.

-*-

(c) 2009 Steve Thomas, used by permission

Steve is a retired professional bowler, supporter of the SCAN Hunger Center in Berea, Ohio,
and active in the Cleveland poetry scene.  His work has been published in a variety of places,
including the Split Whiskey Bag-O-Zines, The Mill, DeepCleveland.com and The City Poetry 19.

Befriend Steve on MySpace at www.myspace.com/achievethrunity

Blue (by Steve Thomas)

Steve Thomas at Cleveland’s Literary Cafe, 10 July 2008
[photo by Jesus Crisis]

Blue

Breathing petrol filled air
fume soaked clothes turn
wrenches tightening dawn
until dusk is locked down tight.

Limping into night, back crooked
bones calloused by what has
blown away, blown through
cracked windows leaving dust
stricken machines as muscles twitch
to the rhythmic wave of build…build
searching for another shore.

Each grease cracked knuckle suffers, sleeplessly
grasping turning, gasping yearning,
still hearing whistles spewing heart beats
into an ash filled sky.




-*-

(c) 2008 Steve Thomas, used by permission

Steve’s work has appeared in a variety of places, including the Split Whiskey
Bag-O-Zines, The Mill, DeepCleveland.com and The City Poetry 19.

See Steve Thomas on Thursday 13 November 2008 (9:30 p.m.) at Cleveland’s
famous Literary Cafe, where he and Rachelle Gallant are the featured poets.