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Best Poems Written by Jaymee Thomas

Below are the all-time best Jaymee Thomas poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Four Cafes

High above the quiet, darkened streets of January, the night wind begins to whisper secrets through my apartment window casements. Far below me lie four cafes, all in sync as they awaken from daytime hibernation to begin an evening ritual of turning on lights, welcoming thirsty patrons, discouraging lost polar bears, trying to survive.

Light bulbs hang in lazy swags, dripping evenly from the edge of each identical awning. Predictably, their glow travels as fast as the light itself creating a sudden and uninvited interruption of the Arctic desert landscape.  

Sitting apart on their respective corners below, the cafes squeeze into a single pane near the bottom of my window. Leaning closer, I blow a hot and intoxicated breath onto the glass in defiance or retaliation, an attempt at immolation perhaps. Instead, my unused air lies wasted across the cafes on the other side of the window, in an irregular oval of futility. 

I use a balled-up fist to wipe away the misty scene before it has a chance to evaporate and leave me alone, a desperate and inevitable disappearing act in the face of my curated isolation.

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In Praise of Washing Dishes

With hands immersed in suds and water warm,
I stand before the sink, humbled vassal,
To plates and dishes, grease and grime the norm,
My task to cleanse this polychromed passel.

Each cup I cradle with a gentle pinch,
Their curves and corners, every angle blessed,
Rinse them speckless, my soapy palm a winch,
A chore completed, my service at rest.

For though this labor at face is mundane,
It's in the simple things we find our grace,
And so I wash each dish with grateful strain,
And let their gleaming surfaces erase

The chaos and the clutter of the day,
A small but satisfying task, I say.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

No Rubber Ducks Today

Today there are no rubber ducks, no flawless hues, 
To hide behind, as we once did.

This day is dark, and gray and dreary,
Air thick with the scent of decay and mold,
Dull light filters in through the window,
Casting a somber tone across everything.

Even the freesia suds have gone bad,
The water in the tub is murky, opaque and grim,
Waves unseparated as the day that holds them.

When we were good kids, peering out,
From behind our good mother, 
We got good glimpses, sucked on butterscotch chips,
The new neighbor, the smell of fresh sunflowers; it was fun.

But the old neighbor, who finally stopped coming around,
He was not good,
Over steeped dandelion tea, a benign-sounding thing,
Bitter and dry, sometimes salty; it was not fun. 
As gray as this day, as this water, when I knew him, 
He knew me, too.

I sink deeper into the swirling, whirling, and I think of things,
Dirty-water cyclone, the brightness of our childhood,
Harder to recall, I still remember the rubber ducks though.

Splashing them about, their cheerful colors and silly grins,
We knew joy, 
But that bright spot is fading, and soon it too will disappear, 
Down the drain, with this gray water and my leftover filth.

Mixing it all together,
In the stillness of the moment, I am struck,
The heavy inevitability of happiness; the transience of loss.

As bad as this day, that man, with his dreary gray hues,
I hang my head back and give a loud, guttural laugh at it now,
The memory of those yellow, plastic birds.

Especially since today there are no rubber ducks, no flawless hues,
To hide behind, as we once did.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Exponential Growth

I. 

Fold, crease, unfold, sheets
of paper thin as possibility,
a crisp white plea to gravity.
Forty-five times, a cosmic origami
building bridges from table to the moon.
The mind dreams, unfurls
dimensions from the flatness,
each fold a petition of ascension.

But reality, that quiet artisan,
intervenes. Seven, eight,
perhaps nine folds—
the paper resists,
its fibers tightening,
a rebellion against a lunar destiny.
The geometry of dreams
collapses into the physics of limitation,
a negotiation between ambition and restraint.

II.

Sated with the hunger of excess,
we feast at counters where gluttony
is a ritual, a rhapsody of indulgence.
Plates piled high, offerings to the insatiable 
gods of appetite, mouths moving 
in a tempo of ingestion.

Like a paper's rebellion against too much
folding, the body, too, whispers its limits.
Sometimes in tears, sometimes in laughter,
but always in inevitability, the stomach's 
silent protest, a wall that even the voracious 
cannot breach. Eruption looms, a volcanic 
protest, or else the creeping weight, its own
gravity pulling the body to a corporeal moon.

III.

From paper to body, from the moon
to the food, all are tethered by the finite, 
implacable laws governing a universe
of possibility. 

Fold and unfold, feast and decline,
the trajectory of excess tempered by
the ever-present specter of consequence.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Cosmic Winks and DIY Inks

In the workshop of my waking hours,
I am the maker of my own day,
Crafting moments with a DIY attitude,
Twisting fate's threads with hands unbound.

At 6 AM, I pick up my tools,
Coffee grounds and ambition,
Mixing the elixir of caffeinated dreams,
Stirring in the alchemy of determination.

The clock ticks, a relentless metronome,
11:11 winks, an angelic muse,
As if the universe has a sense of humor,
A cosmic jest in numerical ruse.

"Make a wish," they say with a smirk,
As if dreams were granted in seconds,
But I'll forge my own destiny, thank you,
With sweat and grit, not ethereal reckonings.

No celestial arithmetic can guide these hands,
Turning the wrench of daily toil,
In the cacophony of self-made symphonies,
I dance with chaos, a rebel in the coil.

Lunchtime, a respite from the assembly line,
Sandwiches wrapped in brown paper,
I nibble on the crumbs of inspiration,
Savoring the taste of self-made capers.

The afternoon sun spills its golden ink,
I dip my pen into the daylight,
Scrawling plans on the parchment of possibility,
Mapping out a future, bold and bright.

5 PM, the whistle blows, a release,
Yet the DIY Day is far from done,
For in the studio of the evening,
I sculpt my leisure, a masterpiece begun.

Dinner is a feast of flavors and reflection,
A banquet of self-appreciation,
11:11 appears again, a cosmic wink,
Mocking the notion of divine intervention.

"Make a wish," it whispers with a smirk,
But I've outgrown such whimsical fancy,
For in the sweat of creation and the grind of will,
I find my muse, not in numbers but in the dance of circumstance.

So, here's to the makers of their own destiny,
The dreamers who wrested the real from fantasy,
In the DIY symphony of moments and minutes,
We find our purpose, our own sweet serendipity.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

A Sincere Distrust of Figs

In every apple, an atom resides; 
in every Adam, an apple abides. 

So it goes and goes, apples 
toppling off tables in rhythmic waves, 

falling through slits, convincing themselves 
they are particles instead.

Whether in a pie or the depths 
of your eye, it remains a life 
enlaced with apples.

Even saws wield charmed abilities  
to see both down and up, felling 

trees born from swallowed seeds 
of time, nestled deeply, inside apples.

Apple begets apple, begets knowing, 
tasting apples sideways and blindfolded, 

shielding your naked red delicious 
from no other than yourself—
	though some claim it was the figs.

Apples in motion deceive, looking 
at you like two when you blink; 

it's wise to check the number of shadows 
before expressing a sly look or disagreeing 
with reality, mattering up the gravity of it all.

Too much energy and not enough ease 
for Adams and atoms in a closed system 

cloaked in apples, lifting their skin 
revealing only what you inquire of them.

The method of questioning determines 
the taste of the pith—whether it dances 

towards you with the hip of a granny smith 
or slides a groove, creating gravy stew. 
	
It depends on you and how you pose 
	the question to the apple.

Slicing knives are apples too, as are hands 
	that grip the handle and the cradle 

of air, in the up-and-down jitterbugging  
of the relentless rhythm of the dropping blade—

all still atoms, as we've covered, which might have been figs.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Tongue-Tied Dispatches

 In the realm of self-interest, a curious soul,
Could not adhere stamps, sans wit owning a role.
 His tongue, like a rover in arid terrain,
Lingered on whimsy, a scoffing refrain.

 Precision eluded, in blindfolded dance,
Tongue franking an effort, missing each chance.
 The stamp, a library of lore unbespoke,
His tongue still meandered, lost in each stroke.

 Like giraffes when they strain ~ reaching treetops,
His sealing endeavor was a clumsy hopscotch.
 The stamp lay there mocking, a coaxed witticism,
Tongue still missed the mark, a terrible tourism!

 Metaphors clung, but not on the letter,
A longing unfilled, his tongue never got wetter.
 The envelope sighed, craved wit's lifting brew,
Yet his tongue frolicked, having wandered no clue.

 He licked and he slurped, as though miming delight,
A grand postal crime, a federal plight!
 Metaphors piled up, unsent missives distressed,
His sense of himself was a bewildering behest.

 In the spirit of levity, a story confided,
A stamp unadhered, a metaphor provided.
 When engaging with mail, overcome by caprice of,
Just leave the attempt and go buy self-adhesive.

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

preserving the herd

     crack of winter ice
  hoofsteps halt hearing the warn
     river takes a breath

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Seedy Affairs


I  
am  
a seed  
in the ground  
waiting for the sun  
to warm me and to wake me up  
I feel gentle taps of pluie soaking through the soil  
nourishing me  
I start to  
grow and  
change

I  
break  
the surface  
see the light
stretch my tiny leaves  
Je suis a sprout, a sapling  
I face the vent and storm  
they make me strong  
I reach for  
the sky  
green

I  
bear  
fruits et fleurs  
give and share  
I am an arbor, a home  
I shelter birds and beasts
I breathe their air  
they breathe me back  
we are one
I live  
long

I  
fade  
mes feuilles tombent  
colors change  
I am un feu, a blaze  
I light up la forêt  
I feel le froid  
creeping in  
I rest  
die  
brown

I  
am  
a seed  
in the ground  
waiting for the sun

Details | Jaymee Thomas Poem

Imagination Waits

Plain brick walls
Wait for clinking cans of spray paint
To color in streetwise notions
Beyond the naked eye

Quiet strings of violins
Wait for hands to draw across bows
Or play pizzicato melodies
Beyond the well-trained ear

Blank pages
Wait for clever pens
To write stories and verses
Beyond the bare mind

Sparks of star light
Wait for a ready lifeforce
To ignite a hellmouth fire 
Beyond the ordinary self