Never Mind Sweetheart…We’ll Always Have The Melyn!
Those teenage Winter years hanging around
streetlights in graffiti covered backstreets.
Hours spent hiding from raindrops the size
of jawbreakers in Neath train station waiting rooms,
the 2 Victoria Gardens vandalized bus shelters,
the Laundromat on Windsor Road or over on
Stockhams Corner and the 3 Gang Subway Tunnels.
Sniffing glue, PR spray, Tipp-Ex thinners and gas
in long ago abandoned World War II Gun shelters.
Jumping the train to Swansea by hiding in the toilets,
hanging around the Quadrant and getting into fights.
Shoplifting Punk vinyl lp records from Woolworths,
shaving tramlines into crew-cuts and sucking
initials artistically into hot Melyn girls necks.
Munging school and selling your dinner tickets’
camping up The Melyn Woods with your mates,
picking magic mushrooms and drinking Natch
and Diamond White cider by the canal and River.
Invading Talk Of The Abbey disco and chatting up
Cimla and other Valley girls on the Gardens Walls,
the night time Gnoll, the Boot Boys and the glory,
the unforgettable Welsh rough and tumble of it all.
© Paul Tristram 2014
The Swine…That Fucker’s Mine!
The violence exploded behind me
I grabbed a barstool and spun around.
The chaos was being contained
between 2 couples, the men, both big
built lads were slugging it out lively,
the punches sounding like the flat
side of a shovel hitting bulls hide.
The women, each a whirlwind of claws,
screeching, spitting and hair-dragging
were alternately scaling their fella’s backs,
sometimes for protection, other times
to gain a higher vantage launch-pad.
I put the barstool down and asked
someone close by what had kicked it off.
“Simple, they don’t know each other
but they’re using the same wall table
to stand their drinks upon and of course
eventually the vessels get mixed up!”
“Oh right, so they take their drinking
quite serious in this place then?”
“Hell yes, the last time this happened
someone lost an eye, the pub was shut
for 3 months for major refurbishing,
2 police riot vans, 4 taxis and a milk
float blew up right across the street!”
He informed me as we both swayed
sideways to avoid a broken beer bottle
that was flying, at speed, towards us.
© Paul Tristram 2014
After Snorting The Bottom Line…I arOSE
Scanned the debris and ruin all around me
through tired, demented, bloodshot eyes,
punched my ragged, butchered fists upwards
at the impassive heaven’s and yelled “Enough!”
Of course, the skies remained silent
watching my petty struggles with disinterest.
So I would have to do it all again myself, Ok!
I headed one more beer for the road,
started trudging forward slowly at first,
sometimes dropping down onto my scuffed knees
but always rising back up again undefeated.
The weight of the past clung and hammered
down upon my back, the mess of the present
swirled around my bruised feet trying to trip
me up and floor me destitute once more.
But I fought and pushed onwards, each step
a mountain climb with tenacity in my right fist
and stamina in my left, gargling out defiance
and determination as my survivor battle cry.
The trudging soon became a gentle walk,
my grimace became a laughing smile
and the canyons of chaos once imprisoned in
levelled out into a bluebell wooded stroll,
where just up ahead I met you waiting for me.
© 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.
You can read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.
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