Paul Tristram- Two Poems

Creative Backstabbing

They sit all along the public bar
other peoples business on their lips.
They discuss, preach and lecture
in between lewdness and beer sips.
Backwards in their clairvoyancy
they later predict all past wrongs.
While ignoring their stagnant lives
and singing their drunken songs.
Slyly they reassure each other
that they know better than the rest.
They shake hands, nod and wink
for only they know what’s best.
But they stop conversing about you
whenever you walk into the place.
A smile replaces the arrogance
that was dripping from each face.
They change just like chameleons
right into the colour of your mood.
Ask questions with fake concern
your confidence becomes their food.
Leave them there on their barstools
leave them there to feed else where.
there will always be fresh victims
blindly walking into their lair.

© Paul Tristram 2007

Published in Lookout, Issue No 32, Winter 2007

Cool, Calm And Pathetic

Bound to senseless rituals
created before my birth.
Satellite dish amnesia
the Jones’s judge my worth.
Cool, calm and pathetic
I wear my clothes with care.
Don’t speak of individuality
No, I would not even dare.
A street of fashion victims,
a close of designer label clothes.
We all look the same
but some have a browner nose.
Kevin from across the street
is a hero to us all.
He goes to shop in London
and to Paris for his smalls.
My three-piece suite is epic,
bathroom blends with the sky.
Kitchen immaculate but pretty,
conservatory a marvel to the eye.
With wine list under arm
I entertain from dining room bar.
Later I’ll sleep in the garage
having sex with my wonderful car.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in Lookout, Issue No 25, Spring 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.