Paul Tristram- A Poem

Lined Up

That’s the way it was
he’d pull on his boots and sit there
rolling up Old Holborn
with red Rizla papers,
six, seven or eight
that’s what he’d take
six, seven or eight.
We’d only be gone for an hour
and he only ever smoked two
one on the way there
one on the way back from there
but it was a comfort
being prepared.
He drowned
with four un-smoked cigarettes
in his pocket
and no one was prepared,
apart from his smoking habit
which died with him.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in Poetry Monthly, Issue 133, April 2007



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.