Paul Tristram

“Did you just ask me to take you back
with a declaration of undying love,
promising to never drink again,
and to change your insane ways?
Culminating with the absolute classic
(I cannot wait to tell my friends & family),
and I quote, ‘Even If You Say No,
I will Always Carry Around A Flame
For You Somewhere Deep In Cider Me’
Seriously? You’re… ludicrous,
get away from my front door step right now,
before I throw down something hard
& heavy upon that idiotic head of yours…
you’re winding me up, completely!
You’re lucky my brothers ain’t home…
or, after rolling ‘round in absolute hysterics,
you’d get the hiding of your life… Twat!”

… after spitting disgust into the eye of Convention.
With brain upon a different plane,
he ‘Followed The Lead’ nowhere.
Sitting upon a solitary rock
with defiant back to the herd animals…
scratching at his own ankle
made much more sense
than arguing the obvious merits of individualism.
‘Manicured Lawns’ are obscene’ he mused…
and ‘The Joneses’ an idiot-circle
where both energy and money are channelled
into a merry-go-round of petty pointlessness.
An honest-to-god unique thought
would cripple some folk
and frighten to death most others within their vicinity.
Pets, and Slaves, and Hurdles, and Stepping Stones…
the Rules were made up by people already in Power.
Blind pawns in another man’s game…
I use the word ‘No’ in its true meaning,
and refuse to dilute the Magic in my beautiful Soul,
jigsaw-piece fitting myself into a Machine
which has no room for personal meaning nor feeling.

Rinse and fucking repeat…
why do you keep doing this to yourself?
There is something important,
fundamental, broken inside of you,
but the doctors either can’t find it,
or simply do not understand.
AA only gets some of it right,
there’s more, it’s deeper…
spiritual, like a damn soul-sickness,
a pox, curse and cancer of the mind.
How long will they keep you in this time?
It won’t be more than necessary,
not like when you were in your prime,
and they enjoyed trying to torture you…
now you’re labelled ‘Chronic’
and more an annoyance than a challenge.
One more Styrofoam cup of lukewarm water,
and the SHAKES are shifting gear.
You spit upon your grubby fingers,
and use it to rub the dried blood
off your ghost-like face.
Not for appearance sake,
but, because when you are released,
you already know,
that your first steps of freedom
are taking you to one of two places…
the nearest barstool,
or, depending upon how many pennies
you have in ‘Property’ … shoplifting first.

editors note: It’s an acute flair-up, or a drawn out affliction. Either way, take your meds and move on. – mh clay

With the Dogs Of War hot upon my demented heels,
Fire and Brimstone raging through my veins.
“Two Wrongs Do Not Make A Right”
parroted Hope and Charity to Vengeance…
who stood slouching at the bar, cackling,
and waving a wanking-hand in their direction.
As I hammer down coffin nails
into the face of modern poetry…
Springtime Butterflies and Birds Of Peace
become carrion for the exiled Ravens
from the asylum watchtower to feast upon.
A psychiatrist scribbles a signature
under the patient’s case notes,
takes a mid-afternoon Prozac
and quietly unravels in-between appointments.
This is the REAL fucking world, sunshine…
where policemen don’t save people,
they beat them to death.
Sinking women make themselves widows.
People are not scared of spiders,
nightmares and bogeymen anymore,
but, of their very own friends and family.
Sadists sit protected behind bulletproof glass
at the far end of ever growing Welfare queues.
Soup-Runs are accused of encouraging rough sleepers…
and some bright spark invented The Homeless Spike.
Gun crime in Mainland Britain
is rising almost as fast as obesity…
‘I want a revolver and alcohol for Christmas, Santa,
it’s what every other kid in my school is having.’
I saw a middle-aged man, with no legs, in a wheelchair
at the Citizens Advice Bureau, crying like a baby,
because ATOS had just declared him fit for work
“You Can Get A Job Answering Phones”
This world isn’t just going down the pan,
it has been in the fucking thing for decades…
we’re all just stewing in the rot and stench.
‘God Is Dead’ claimed Nietzsche,
aye, and if the Devil existed he’d be unemployed too…
both of them are not needed in the mix.
It’s human fucking beings doing this to each other,
time and time again…
we’re the only animal on this planet
who robs, murders and destroys…
for many dark and twisted reasons
and not a single one of them is to simply just Survive.

There is waiting tragedy birthed
in the tenderest of kisses.
Some folk love war and vice versa.
STOP signs make my amble turn to rush.
Fidgeting works the same, physically,
in both ‘Fight’ or ‘Flee’ scenarios.
She ripped down the drapes
one sunny Winter’s afternoon
and screamed hysterically
“I’m Suffocating!”
no one even stopped to ponder.
They don’t seek to destroy uncultivated land…
you can use this to your advantage.
‘Obnoxious’ is a Label not a Trait…
if you insist upon gaining the attention
of someone who doesn’t give a fuck for you…
then I see only one arsehole there.
Don’t juggle anything you won’t miss,
catch, or which cannot be replaced.
She’s cold again… it’ll keep her safe awhile.
He dipped the till, got caught, then complained?
I have only one ‘Hangover’ left to cash in this week,
and I am yet to disturb or ruin anything.
‘Time’ isn’t money, it’s a loss,
each second ticking away
and drifting behind you into memory…
make ‘em count, and matter… or don’t.
I was ‘Born To Raise Hell’
but lost my footing along the way,
and ended up for awhile on a chain gang,
scribbling down sonnets and spells,
instead of smashing my raging fists
into the face of each new day.

He sat upon a Victoria Gardens bench
feeding origami pigeons
crumbs of broken solitude.
Someone was flying a kite nearby
with Mona Lisa’s face
hovering sarcastically upon it…
‘Very Disconcerting And Unnecessary’
were his thoughts upon the matter.
Glancing right, down the primrosed path…
he saw a Wise Man, evading capture,
by chameleoning in
with the Council magnolia crowd
and keeping his Secrets safe
from blossoming and butterflying
out into the open Magnificently
in front of the ever vigilant, vulture eyes.
With a clapping of hands,
the paper birds took flight,
forming an almost perfect heart shaped cloud
of A4 ruled and margined,
2 hole punched, wing feathers…
adorable in its fire hazard abstractness.
He sighed, as was his wont,
and decided firmly
that the rewards of ‘People Watching’
simply do not outweigh the negatives.
Removing his hat and shoes,
he gave them, insistently, to a passing Beggar.
Then silently sauntered off
in the opposite direction
that everyone else
seemed to be blindly and unconsciously going in.

Juggling scissors, wearing her best dress.
‘Red’ is not just a colour but an attitude.
Your daisy chain smile
is merely a collection of misprints
stuck to the entrance of a hollow rock.
She loved his veins, they never lied once…
whilst the rest was made up of smoke and shadows.
It’s raining again, of course it is…
for your hooded eyes are cast longingly elsewhere.
This ‘Blood Sport’ spills
and is ruining such delicate emotions.
Sandpaper smooth, as always…
the Bite is almost soothing
after the insane fury of the Bark.
There’s such depth to your anger,
you could pothole it and get lost forever…
whilst your love remains without a proper pulse,
Stepmother mirror gazing,
and as flat and clinical as a hospital sheet piss-stain.

He’s not been a-roving yonder
over hill and dale…
but, watching from the shadows,
‘neath the outside windowsill
of your awareness.
Sneak-thievery of dandelion wishes,
emotional daydreams and the like.
Syphoning every morsel of information…
ready to ‘Future’
spellbind, gobsmack and amaze.
With a false clairvoyancy
so apparently tangible in its spectacularness…
it is only matched on scale
by its intricate deceit.
The reality is an illusion, completely…
you will only be ‘Thinking’
that you have in fact called the tune…
which he is busy weaving, as we speak,
Into an inevitable crown of thorns
and public crucifixion, just for you.

School was a difficult maze and prison
to manoeuvre and struggle through.
It was curious to see others
working towards future plans,
set goals and structured inclinations.
Even the girls with no business ambition,
knew exactly how many babies they wanted,
already had the names picked out
and decided which Council Estate
they would like to have their homes upon.
Meanwhile, she only knew for sure
what books were next upon her reading list.
That Reality TV Shows were almost painful.
Her parents were ‘Black And White’
whilst she was ‘Colourful’
and would never actually understand her.
Solitude, vibrates and liberates.
Boys are silly and clumsy
but, in a different way from herself.
‘Chalk And Cheese’ is the best phrase
that was ever invented.
That everyone only focused upon the obvious.
No one thought about the soundless,
ethereal arc of a barn owl’s flight-landing
or found petrichor, old parchment paper
and dying bonfire smoke romantic.
That everybody has eyes but never uses them
to see the Magic which lies in between things.

If you unleash anger and frustration
without any set purpose or target
they will fuse together in self-hatred.
Add four or five sleep deprived nights
to the mix and any moderation gauge
has flown right out of the window.
Leaving behind a snarling rock face
to repeatedly climb time and time again.
The mind becomes an inescapable enemy,
it’s like being chained to an LSD
crazed wolverine with an hard-on
for cranium carnage and self destruction.
Those inward pathways are a delicate
set of tightropes to traverse
and you’re banger car racing around them.
Drugs and alcohol smile their wicked lies
and the Devil’s in the small details
and the small details are all you’re left with.
Millions and millions of the fucking things
to dissect, analyse, inspect and reshuffle
until it’s either Meltdown or Explosion?