Paul Tristram- Three Poems

The Widow’s Scar

Throbbed and ached on occasion
like a snake of memory
from her once married bedroom life,
which for years now
she had wrestled nemesistically
and unsuccessfully into forgetfulness.
It fascinated the thoughtful
mercurial depths of the long
Edwardian standing mirror.
Played carefully and roughly
with greying, disillusioned fingertips.
Silently hissed out its longing and agonies
when plunged and choked in bathwater.
This Widow’s Scar,
the eye socket and teeth of her soul,
devoured Christenings, Weddings,
shadows of yesterday and rosary beads
spitting them back out as curses
and dried up chicken bone knuckles.

© Paul Tristram 2014

I Know The Feeling But I Still Don’t Have The Answer

You can have my sympathy
it is not very much in the long run,
dry your eyes upon it,
scrunch it up and throw it away.
It will ache until it does not.
It will be this way until it is not.
It will keep hurting until it stops.
And you will feel this way
until it has finished.
Time has both everything
and absolutely nothing to do with it.
There is a natural rhythm
that needs to be sung, mourned
and followed
until the splitting, parting
and walking away
from the dark, painful chrysalis
which you have just been reborn from.

© Paul Tristram 2014

Note To Self

Remember the gentle, rippling calm
of this tranquil, uncluttered hour.
Stress-free, serene and beautiful
like the smile from a young at heart.
A mind so clear and emotionally
untainted that you could paint
ducks and humpbacked bridges upon it.
Carry this around with you through
the daily senseless battles, invasions,
and frustrations of the real world.
Use it as a mental energy drink,
a patch upon your souring mood,
a talisman of light guiding you through.
Make it always a point of return,
the future homeward bound road.
A place to un-baggage and unclutter
all of that nonsense before with a smile
slipping back in through that blissful door.

© Paul Tristram 2014



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.