Paul Tristram

Five Welsh Poems

 

 

Intense Eyes

 

“My God… but you have intense eyes”

she gurgled.

I slackened my grip and blushed slightly

“Thanks, they’re from my Father’s side”.

Then, recollecting myself,

I pulled my snarl back into place

and once more

focused upon the task at hand.

 

 

 

The Floor Just Shuddered…

 

I swear… honestly, no bullshit!

I know I’m coiled up like a spring,

my anxiety’s strained

to the pitch of demented delirium.

The howling night time winds

are snapping tree branches of fear

against the broken glass of my mind

like Heathcliff’s windows.

But there is something in the walls… moving.

This is not quite what madness tastes like…

I am well acquainted with that dish…

it’s something more tangible.

I ran out into the street naked

this morning at 5am

frightening the milkman

backwards into a grappling hedge.

The paving slabs were alive

and snapping at my raging heels

(Every time I spun around they stopped?)

I couldn’t see them just feel them.

I’ve tightrope walked out ‘over the edge’

and I can’t scramble back

over the seesawing nightmares.

Nothing is real except Pain… look… see?

Everything is becoming visual echoes

and the shadows are hissing revolt

whilst clenching themselves in anticipation.

 

 

 

The Blues Of ‘Man Killing Himself With Forgetting Her’

Painted By Lenkiewicz

 

Plum-flesh,

bruised uncertainty,

and I swear

I can hear

and feel

the rumble

of artillery fire

ripping through

Winter Solstice

storm clouds.

There’s an almost

tangible depth

befitting mental vertigo.

Heavy as bass strings,

ocean bottom suicide

and a ‘No’

from someone

you’ve become

accustomed to

removing your mask

in safety for.

I’ve never witnessed

‘Swollen’

in a colour before.

A claustrophobic

yearning and despair,

rafter-shaking

in its brilliance.

The shades of

‘Moans’

imprisoned within

a wretched moment.

Yet, glowing

in its dark beauty

all the very more for it.

 

 

 

Memento Mori

 

The importance of The Pedestal

or The Soapbox

is not the stepping up

but the falling down.

Cuts and bruises heal quick enough

but embarrassment and shame

are lingering bed-companions.

You only get what’s needed

or deserved…

yet, you are in complete control.

You judge how long and thick

the rope that Karmic-Chance

will set you

publically and privately dangling from.

Learning your own Weaknesses

is far more important than your Strengths,

for the latter merely need feeding and augmenting.

You cannot remain level

if ambitious and creative…

you have to flux the in-between worlds

both mentally and spiritually.

Find a Rock and craft an Anchor,

unfocus the Ego when not in flight.

I keep an illustration

of a Memento Mori woodcut

-‘Skeleton’ by Alexander Mair-

hanging in my emotional closet.

Where, I sometimes sit and whittle

both compliments and insults

away from the faces

of both Victorious and Disastrous days.

 

 

 

The Gallows

 

I shall be awaiting your deliverance

upon that far misty, midnight shore.

After The Boatman has oared you away

from the violence

of your last earthly struggle

and the much-loved carcass

which you must leave behind.

Our Eyes and Experience

are all that cross with us…

our Hearts and Souls

are merely returning Home.

Six-sided boxes, gravestones

and cemetery plots

are simply ritualistic pomp and nonsense

for ‘The Grievers’ left behind.

Our Swansong

is just a chrysalistic intermission

before our Raven-Soul sets off in flight.

No longer trapped

inside a flesh and bone prison,

passion is at last free

to traverse with abandon,

the nocturnal pathways of the dead

and over yonder into The Summerlands.

I am glad my ‘Hanging Entrance’ is first,

I’ll be preparing an everlasting kiss.

As they pull the twisting, burning rope

that you are attached to sky-high up

into a New Life far beyond the Grave.

 

 

 

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight; this too may pass, yet. Buy his book ‘Scribblings Of A Madman’ (Lit Fest Press) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1943170096