Paul Tristram- Two Poems

It’s Just Like People

I used to watch my grandfather

take the silver wrapping

out of a No 6 cigarette packet,

concentrate and try to separate

the tracing paper from the silver.

(he needed only the silver

to make an Elvin goblet

for my baby sister.)

It would often rip

and he would crumple the lot up

in his big, magic fist

and cast it to the ashtray,

muttering to himself

“It’s just like people,

you’re rarely gonna win!”

Published in Pulsar, Edition 45, March 2006

 Midnight Can Be A Very Dangerous Place

 

When there is no door

to lock behind you.

No shadow is safe

except your own.

And the skies bombard

everything

in a soaking symphony

of “I TOLD YOU SO!”

The gutter’s full and

flowing.

The lane’s wallpapered

in murder

and you kiss the memory

of your last meal

which tastes of nothing

but humble pie.

And still they come

from every insane corner.

The furious, the frightened,

the lost, the confused.

stampeding towards you,

sensing the weakness

and momentarily forgetting

their own plight

while revelling

in someone else’s

destruction.

Published in Poetry Monthly, Issue 120, March 2006

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches 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.