The Refined Savage Poetry Review

Poems by Jim Thompson 

Cavern of Words

I began to write
A poem on the back of
Charles Bukowski’s face.
The whole thing was
Inside out.
Blue jays and mourning
Doves were all around me
As my ink was absorbed into
The paper.
Paper airplanes rose
Up out of the grass
Like lightning bugs,
As I marched on into
A cavernous hole
Full of unused words.
Some of the words
Were unrecognizable to me.
It didn’t matter, though.
What mattered was,
I was deep beneath
The ground with my
Pick and shovel.
What mattered was,
I could see a
Yellow canary riding
The thick dying breath
Of Bukowski.
I could see a golden wing
Fluttering against a wall
Of pure black coal.
I watched in amazement
As the wall split open
To reveal a multitude
Of shiny white diamonds,
Empty cans of shoe polish,
And a conductor’s hat
From a train, that was still
Scheduled to arrive.

Finding Things

From underneath the Victorian porch,
I found a blue and white colored marble,
A five of hearts card, a small three inch tall
White porcelain baby without arms, and
One page of sheet music titled, “Ode To
The Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought”.
All of the items together made an interesting
Collage. The little white baby was icy white.
And to be missing its arms only made it
More removed from the present. The five
Of hearts card had a picture of a whiskey
Glass on the back of it. The sheet music
Text was by William Shakespeare.
The blue and white marble brought
It all together.
How many sessions did it take for
The sweet silent thoughts to appear?
How long ago were there lovers sitting
On this porch?
If I was a betting man, I would have to
Go with the five of hearts card.
I feel like in a game of paper, rock, and
Scissors, the five of hearts would somehow
Prevail, even though the armless baby,
Would give me cause for concern.

Her Moist Center

She always said that the ends were the means
And the means were the ends.
I never really understood what she meant by that,
But I liked it.
She was a special species.
She was an unidentified hybrid.
She was a rock hound and a mouse trainer, all rolled into one.
Her spirit was wild with fruit and thorns.
Once, she told me that when it was hot, she had noticed that her nipples
Became bright pink, and her breasts became rather pale.
I sighed after hearing this.
It made me want to lick my lips.
It made me remember the quiet translucency of her subtle breasts.
It made me remember when my cock was between them.
It made me want to push my lips and mouth through the phone
So I could kiss and suck them.
It made me imagine my tongue slipping in deep, way past her rib cage;
Way past her pearl white bones; all the way to her moist center;
All the way to her most secret shelf;
All the way to the place, that makes
Her tremble and shake.