Poetry Website

Life gets harder the older we get.
Besides the backstabbing, betrayals, slander,
physical, emotional and mental attacks.
We lose people to death… more and more.
Oftentimes things seem to go wrong
far more than they go right.
There are hard decisions to make,
important crossroads that we cannot understand
the full consequences of until further down the road.
We do wrong sometimes, we make mistakes
by the bucketful and if we’re gracious enough
and wise enough to learn from them
then maybe karma will let us off that grinding
treadmill and into the summer playing fields awhile.
Your dignity matters, keep it held above water
and in the darkest hours don’t lose hope or faith
or give into the negativity collecting around you.
Be a beacon, my friend… not for the world…
but for yourself… and hold that head up high.

More at http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.

They laughed
when your industry
led you to shave
the lavish heads
of daisies,
all down your childhood pathway
until, in a raging giggle,
you decapitated several frogs.
Then they seldom smiled.

When you were thirty
and the spade you handled
was as cunning as clever,
and earth was divided
in all places,
they entered that division
with a knife.

Starch-coated, they are
cheerful in your garden now,
while the stubborn daisies
root and rise again.

Saddle bags
A horse named Shadow
Somewhere outside of nirvana
They prance in the morning light

Off the grid
Man and beast
Confidence in the unknown
No reflection just spring water that’s real

I’ll wait for you
Forever isn’t that long
Coffee is brewing
Tired but beautiful with the promise of the day

Love is a beautiful piece of art
It is abstract yet has purpose and meaning
We all make up different colors
On the smooth surface of this canvas
Many colors will mix and make a magnificent color
Where others will never get a chance to mix
As gentle brush strokes move colors
Across the delicate material
Different colors mix and make an even better combination
Water can disrupt the natural flow
Of colors as changes in life often do
And make colors less vibrant or even break them down
Eventually the water will dissipate
And leave behind a random set of colors
Which hopefully make a breathtaking display
It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Which is true when looking at the colors of love
The final display is only beautiful to those
Who can see past the colors
And feel the passion that was behind the masterpiece

Whose are the choices
about sitting together on the beach
counting pebbles and the advancing waves
before they very quickly recede and fade
into simple plain surfaces, that very soon again
throw up mighty and menacing poses, asking them
to run fast back to safe and pleasant shades of rest
and before they, at times, take long and unpredicted
lengths of time to reappear in dancing rhythmic
curled balls of surf to break against the sandy shore?

Certainly, without them having to make
conscious and concrete choices in any complex ways,
these waves, this sea, its shore, the pleasant blue sky,
the soft soothing breeze conspired in definite
untracked ways to call them to make
these awkward and efficient choices to
join voices and views together.