She survived
on a “Children’s Transport”
to England.
But the memory of her mother’s
panicked attempt
to pull her
from the moving train
has never left her.
And the mother?
As the SS soldier
viciously shoved her
on a cattle car
bound – she was told –
to the “East,”
she remembered her own
anguished attempt to keep the child
and was grateful
that the daughter would survive.
I feel the calendar lies
Though I know
Its purpose
To record accurate time
Days and months
Footnoting special events
But it tells me
I am 72
Officially old
How I fight every day
Its certainty
That I should start
The process of crumble
Lending myself
More to the rocking chair
I will not demur
Taking the easy path
Conceding to frailty
And though
I know
I cannot win
The war is on
Where have you gone
once tender and resilient
voice of community –
Where have your verses
escaped to – are they under
house arrest?
Did you place them in
a lock box to bury in the back
yard by an old syntax tree?
Where did the comfort go
of another poetic sound,
whether alto, soprano, or
haiku?
1. The Older
We build a place, a common ground for
us to use to energize the topics we need
to keep the talk going. There’s a distance
we must travel each time. It frightens me —
the distance seems greater each time.
2. The Younger
And finally,
he’s learning
to be patient:
he smiles, nods
and then offers
to help whenever
I seem confused
— quite often now
I need this.
Your Breadcrumbs…
Led me nowhere nice
or pleasant…
but, there Is wisdom in this,
for I never walk down
the same dead end, twice.
Once free of your demented,
inane circles
everything levelled out
quite quickly.
You have to tear off
a strip of flesh
from the walls of your soul
every now and again,
to learn ‘Emotions’
strange and bewildering ways.
‘Humble’ is such a dodgy word,
it reeks too much of ‘Meekness’
and neither one
of these false idols
has nor deserves any place
upon Life’s haphazard road
of day to day education.
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
I recite to a bird with the cortisol level of my bookworm finger
As a loop of a plane lifts like a lid’s sticky picnic licked jam richness
Daily writing task are like poison ivy drooling on my unlaced trainer
Is there irony in a leaf half eaten between hemispherical sculptures?
My momentary surprise deflating slowly like sandy diet cola.
I count down the shuttle of froth with the gravity of a coaster.
I hope the goal in my head does not hide like a marbled mothball.
Ponytails in the sky are smiling behind the roofs of cork rind sun.
Sometimes I shelf ancient books leafed through a tall tree
The wisdom of the tree disguises the branch logging me in
There is a friendly walk into a tunnel’s incubation of trees.
Without the crowds of people nobody’s bar-coded identity reads.
The leaf is as dog-eared as the seven day television listings
With blue opaque smog like the smell of a petrol stations
diesel dripping on the foliage lingering the day’s restlessness
The caterpillars comatose neutral gears ignites a car alarm.
He cupped his hands
Around the flames
of a kitchen match
Large, hairy knuckles
With a Bic tattoo
Spelling love
On one hand
And hate
On the other
The fraternal love
An orphan emotion
If his reputation
Was to be believed
Prison time
Numerous scrapes
With neighbors
The hardness
Of his face
Lies about his age
He has not worn well
With nicotine-coated, sausage fingers
And yellow teeth
His hands
Blocking his face
Assuring the flame
Allowing the unfiltered cigarettes
To burn
I sniff the tobacco
As he blows a stream
Into my face
The mixture of sulfur
From the match
And burning leaf
Creates a cloud
Floating across
His broken teeth
The cigarette burns down
As the light grows
Gray swirls
Circle my face
Like dirty cotton
The smoke is extended
Thinner still
Until it disappears
The remnant
Of a Budweiser
Sits beside an empty
His primitive ash tray
Ours is not a conversation
Just the bones of words
That transmits
Basic information
He does not have the payment
He is threatened
By my attitude
I dare not
Push the issue
There is a coldness
In this man
He promises
To have the payment
By the end
Of the week
I take his promise
Chewing on a sandwich
Of frustration and fear
a blink of an eye at 24 frames a second
endless flickering of a splendid hologram
revealing a universe totally out of order
a constantly growing round peg
battling a fast shrinking square hole
pat answers don’t fit any questions
an endless array of mistaken notions
an amalgamation of borrowed ideas
struggling to justify the ways of man
24 frames are mere images
fading on exposure to light
Your face has changed
From 13 to 40
You have filled
The demand of adulthood
I look with the slight memory
A faint recognition
But I am afraid
To speculate
To put my finger
On the roll
To place you
In my past
I know it hurts
That you are anonymous
That years of pimpled faces
Of kids eager
To get beyond
The clumsy
To claim their place
Among what they think
Is independence
Only to find
The bind tighter
Jobs, children, husbands
Commitments
That blacken your calendar
Now I face your disappointment
That during the best
During the worst
Years of your life
You can find no register
In my blank stare
I feel guilty
Not remembering
But time
Erased so much
Like the erasers
On my blackboard
And I am left
With just the yellow dust
The powder
Of times past
Every wind dust-thick
The air is green
Of tree green
Grass green
Grey green death.
Heat is a breathing thing
World filling
Head filling
Blue spaces filling
Between purple clouds
And invisible clouds
Like tons of corpse hands
Stroking faces
Of walkers
In storm city.
Dust-thick wind
Grows crueler
Purple grows black
Gasping grey green of death
Filters light.
Far away
A white hot whip cracks
And huddled children count the seconds
Before the whiplash roars
The scary welcome sound
God moving furniture
Upstairs
(Why can’t we run outside and see Him?)
Dust-thick wind
Makes trees drunk
Drunken trees dance
Like joyous Hassidim.
Torn newspaper
Gets up alive
And runs somewhere
In circles
Nowhere
Secret place.
First drops fall
Like bullets
Through dust-thick wind
Death grey green
Heavier
More
More
Splashing drops
Splashing
Flash and groan
ROAR
Crescendo crescendo crescendo
(Witches fly in that magic time)
When hot clouds
Burst
Like crushed bodies.
Storm wind
Screams
Whips tree frenzy higher
Blood drops
Rain
From black sky
Black clouds
Black rain
Black trees
Black wind
Black screams
Frozen in memory
By whiplash flashed
Of blue ice light
Darkness again
And then the roar
God breaking furniture
Upstairs.
Earth throbs
Turmoil of lovers
Rising falling
Rhythms
Faster
Slower
A million ecstasies before
Crescendo crescendo crescendo
Writhing
Fiercely tender
Biting Clawing Stroking
Now NOW
Lightening thunder
Rain
Surging rain
Bursting like rockets inside my head
Thunder
And the wind subsides
Distant thunder
The lightning is no longer in the room
The earth is peaceful and tired
Trees tremble softly
Warm green winds whisper
And caress wet towers
In storm city.
1966