Paul Tristram

Welsh Poetry

 

 

Suicide-Wings

 

She gasped, whilst opening the lid

of the large, oblong box,

on Christmas morning.

They were so beautiful…

virginal white, almost too pure,

the perfect blank canvas

for a bloodied, artistic ‘Goodbye’

She stroked the downy

small feathers of the inside, upper shoulder

and almost cried tears of joy.

With a sudden surge of energy

and dark excitement,

she tried them on

in front of the cracked, full length mirror,

her ‘Voices’ helping to fasten the clasps.

Magnificently, she stood there,

twitching hesitantly at first,

she arched and cast her self harmed arms aloft…

her new wings shuddered and spread open,

like Birth, First-Time Sex or Violence.

Giggling nervously, she picked up the instructions

which read ‘Use Once Before Discarding,

And Only Work In One Direction… Down’

 

 

Your Ambulance Is On The Way...Can You Hear Me?

Hang On In There

 

Just lay down still a minute,

they won’t be long,

I can hear the sirens.

You were out cold,

maybe four or five minutes.

Stop trying to move,

and for Christ Sake…

don’t go looking down at yourself,

there’s a good lad.

Let the Paramedics deal with it

when they get here.

Oh, I’m not Emergency Services,

I was just walked past

when it happened… Jesus.

They collared him once,

three geezers smoking

outside The Victory ran over.

But, with that ‘Thing’ in his hand,

well, he got away again,

hurt one of them bad he did…

sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,

not trained in any of this, see.

The Police are on him now… maniac,

they’ll get him soon enough,

don’t you worry on that score.

CCTV everywhere an’ all, like,

only problem is

they’ve all just come out of football

and the Town Centre’s full of ‘em.

Aye, that’s where he’s disappeared,

right into a crowd of hoodies.

Whoa, Whoa, he’s going again…

someone give me a hand here

before he swallows his bloody tongue.

Help, for Fuck Sake!

hold him down, legs n’all,

the shock is making him fit, proper.

 

 

The Airing Cupboard Floor

 

She was biting down hard upon her trembling left wrist

to stop from bursting into uncontrollable, screaming panic…

when the 4th and 5th shots rang out.

Kneeling down at the bottom of the airing cupboard

within a puddle of her own piss and fear,

her right hand clutched to her terrified chest in horror.

There was only one way out…

and unfortunately, that was in the exact direction

where all the noise and commotion was coming from.

She could probably make it over to the kitchen,

where the knives were, and back again without being seen,

if she didn’t faint or collapse in a fit of hysterics.

But, this was only a fleeting, futile thought and she knew it,

a silly mental placebo, a desperate reaching…

for she was as much equipped to brandish a weapon in self defence

as she was of flying to safety through the 14th floor window opposite.

So instead, she thought of her childhood days at the seaside,

and with these memories only slightly balming her erratic mind,

she waited for the inevitable approaching footsteps and prayed.

 

 

And The Bodies Helped Make The Barley Grow Stronger…

 

Each fresh corpse, he laid to rest, 3ft below topsoil…

added a ‘New Voice’ to The Choir

chorusing the young shoots upwards into the sky.

He would often sit, of an evening,

in the abandoned old tractor,

at the far left corner of the bottom field,

like a King upon the throne of a miserable kingdom.

Getting lost amongst the dark, musical voices

rising up from the steaming earth,

vocally shapeshifting, twisting and twirling

like a cloud of starlings waving before settling to roost.

Raising his murderous, Conductor hands, theatrically,

humming deep and low in an instinctual drawn-out lament.

He would drift and sway, trance-like, within this dreadful euphoria.

‘They are safe now, part of the land, and my adopted family,

nailed tight to the prospering swish of the barley’

The Full Moon frowns down, unflinchingly,

spotlighting the demented Killers face glowing bright,

but there is no one around except the foxes and barn owls

to witness the psychopathic lunacy ghost-farming the early night.

 

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