Paul Tristram

Poetry

 

 

A Murderous Hue

 

The stench of death and decay

stills the homesickness somewhat.

It is so very nice to be handcuff free

and in CONTROL once again.

A lullaby of gentle whimpering and sobbing

from the corner behind me

as I splash warm urine

onto my wickedly alive face

and try to compose myself for a moment or two.

The middle ground between Acts I & II

is quite a philosophical time I find.

If I could only play a piano of finger bones

(But I just never found the time to learn!)

or paint a glorious watercolour of mucus and semen

(Alas, I am only artistic in a violent way!)

what a Masterpiece I could give to the World.

The Hieronymus Bosch shadings

of this particular pastel afternoon

are deeply thought provoking

and fascinating in their force and friction.

You can indeed make a drum out of any old thing,

as I have proved time and time again

but I digress…

and the Schizophrenic Prompter

is starting to whisper ‘Action’ loudly once more.

 

 

 

The Buccaneer’s Pistol Shot

 

Took off the top half of her ring finger.

Yet, it was his kiss

which in fact

bore through her heart.

Eventual loss of interest

and rejection

which poisoned, damaged and corrupted

everything and anything

good and wholesome inside of her.

(Like throwing battery acid in the face of love!)

That disillusionment is a cancer,

making murderers

out of normally lamb-like folk.

She watched and she waited,

as patient and condemning as the Law.

She worked undercover and underhanded,

she would not rest, smile meaningfully

nor sleep deeply only fitfully again.

Until she had witnessed 

and applauded, heartily

him swinging frantically

whilst dying slowly

with beautiful neck choking, in that noose.

 

 

 

The Minions Of Madness

 

She roared an obscene scream,

a Landslide in her heart,

Earthquake within her soul,

Holocaust inside her head.

Shuddered and shook floor-ward,

immediately started crab-walking,

snapping fingers whilst scuttling

towards the dormitory doors.

The Night Staff  swooped

and sedated within seconds.

Dragging her backwards

up the squeaking corridor,

to a nice, quiet, private room,

furnished with restraining bed.

The Doctor checked his charts,

frowned in curiosity

and penned notes within her file.

‘The Minions of Madness

have come to visit Lucy

4 days early this month.

I have no doubt

that she will have started

menstruating by the morning.

The attacks are getting stronger

with each monthly cycle.

The medication temporarily calms

but does not cure or clean out

whatever is eating away inside of her!”

 

 

 

The Night Of A Thousand Screams

 

It happened on the 4th of February in the year of our Lord 1842.

He had already ‘Confessed’ loudly, three times to his torturer

but the man in the dirty mask had pretended not to hear him.

The First occasion was when his finger and toe nails were ripped out.

The Second was when his actual fingers and toes were chopped off

and flung to the three mangy mastiffs upon the gruesome floor

(Who’s job it was to lap up the blood and generally clean up

whatever mess and gristly things landed there during business hours!)

The Third was just before his nipples, ears, nose, eyes and tongue

were removed and something ruptured terribly somewhere deep inside,

‘Stinging hardly does the term justice’ he kept repeating in his mind

trying to focus upon something not horrible but failing with every try.

When he was turned upright and his left foot placed into the copper boot

soldered to the floor he prayed for death and mercy, not from his jailers

but from God up above and clenched his ruined soul into a ball

as the molten lead was poured in and his consciousness left for elsewhere.

 

 

 

The Murder Stones

 

At the base of the Altar,

in a shadowy pile,

waited The Murder Stones.

Made up of heavy dull pebbles,

sharp sections of granite and flint

and jagged saw-like pieces

of quartz and crystal.

Each gave off a sickly aura

when approached,

a darkening of the mind

whenever touched.

A violent silent laughing

throbbed away continuously

drawing you forward

like a storm tossed ship

to a cruel false lighthouse.

They like to tempt and tease,

flashing polaroid pictures

of disliked people

in a cancerous chain

throughout your thought pattern.

A calling, a venture,

a taste of the sickly knowledge

of how easy a skull spills its secrets.

 

 

 

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. Bienvenue au Danse, Paul.