Hello, I am G.M.H. Thompson. I have been published in a number of different publications that few people have read or even heard of. I have a chapbook out entitled Yard Sale at the Devil’s Petting Zoo that perhaps 30 people have leafed through. I was nominated for a Pushcart once, but didn’t win it.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. When I was eight, I moved with my family to St. Louis, Missouri. I then received my Bachelor’s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I learned little. Then I learned how to play guitar in empty rooms in St. Louis. I currently teach English in Hà Nội, but come August, I will be teaching in Beijing, if all goes right.

I enjoy the poetry of Shakespeare, Eliot, Pound, Plath, Tennyson, & many, many others. I also enjoy music, especially rock ‘n’ roll. I myself play music and have written a number of songs and albums that no one has listened to. Yet I enjoy playing music live, and have traveled to a few different countries to do so, even playing a few sets in small bars in Tokyo.

A Certain Demon My Brother-In-Law Refuses to Name,
      Stating That He Doesn’t Want to Give It Free Advertising

My brother-in-law's a university professor
& he once came across a text of demonology
written by a medieval Catholic priest & exorcist
in which a demon who lives in mirrors is catalogued,

& my brother-in-law started worshipping this demon
& sacrificing to it for favours which were granted
in terrifying ways— he was feuding with his parents
so a storm came & ripped off the entire roof of their house,

& by chance he stayed in a famously occult hotel
& the bell-hop & desk clerk gave him perverse knowing looks
& he saw three ghost forms in the mirror above his bed

& all throughout his innards, it felt like needles stabbing,
& he thought he might be dying, yet through the waves of pain
he saw Christ's face, whom he prayed to & was instantly saved.

Jeff Bezos Dreams of Golden Elephants

I was scheduled to work neath that warehouse's high bays four days a week,
but I always picked up overtime on Saturday & Sunday,
clocking in at 6:30 p.m. & punching out at five a.m.,
three three-and-a-half hour shifts plus an hour's commute each day

wrestling sixty pound boxes from loading zones to their assigned pallet
& then wrapping full pallets up & loading them onto the trucks,

& our managers treated us as if we were in kindergarten,
except for that cool weekend manager who'd let me drive a forklift
because I consistently had a top-three workrate on the dock,
but soon he quit to be a manager at a Coke-Cola plant,

& some nights, I would get less than three hours of sleep,
& one night as I was driving home, I fell asleep behind the wheel
& woke up covered in blood & stumbled out onto the concrete
& the Ford's snout was three feet deep in a light pole, totaled beyond doubt.

                Thoughts About Dreams

I had a dream last night about my dead grandfather
& I always used to have a dream about high school
where there was a mix-up & I had to go back again,
like something they would make a bad sitcom about,

sometimes in the middle of the day, I remember dreams
that happened years & years ago, like a flash of lightning;

some people think every dream is divine revelation,
but I don't know about that;— I think some maybe might be,
& I've heard it's possible to choose what you do in dreams,
& certain texts write that you can visit distant galaxies;

there are those who claim a war is being waged in dreams,
& I saw God once in a dream & he looked like Gandalf,
& I asked him why he wasn't real
& he said it's because he's imaginary.