We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.
The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ...
Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.
It begins innocently enough
With a wondering.
With a however hung
On a what if.
With a maybe
Married to a possibility
Not yet exposed
Or explored.
Sure, there are answers—
Some of them are even
Convincing.
What is deplorable
Is thinking the obvious
Is obvious
Just for existing.
It requires
Some agility—
Some frisky flexibility
To not become distressed
When provoked
By a question
That turns into a quest.
I hid
In the shadow
Of my blemished youth
Unable
To determine
What I should be
What would
Get me the acceptance
I so longed for
Bending with the wind
In order
To find my way
In the flood
Of adolescence
Seeking to defy radar
Be a ghost
That came and went
With whatever fad
It was miserable
Twisting myself
In a suit
Too small
Or one
That swallowed me
Trying to not split
The seams
Trying to hold
Up to an image
Too big
For the boy
I found myself
To be
Conscious always
That pretense could fall
And others
Would see
Who I rejected
But did not know
Maybe even now
He remains a mystery
A riddle
That has no solution
The two of us, my co-worker and I
busy at our computers.
John took out his cell.
“Have to call THE wife, won’t take long.”
“What? “You want to call THE wife?
My surprise meant nothing to him.
At 59, he was very much “old school.”
Was he or I the fool?
My young wife had she been there,
She would have told John calmly
that using the word, THE, today,
was indeed rare,
and pejorative.
It lowered her to a “possession.”—
an object “his” property.
John was baffled,” but, but,
I love my wife…
She is my whole life.
My own wife, having recently
returned from the “Women’s March”
could have explained it all.
Would John have understood?
The smell of freshly sharpened pencils
upon her slender, stained fingertips.
The taste of daisies and forget-me-nots
upon her pursed, concentrating lips.
She shudders, as her imagination
runs rampant up the throat of her soul
and bursts colourfully out of her mind
through wide, dazzling eyes.
Attacking the workbench with majestic arcs,
finger whips and thumbprint smudges.
Water is easy… it’s trickling the depth
whilst retaining the veneer that counts.
Fog… still has to be focused.
Trees… firework up out of the ground.
Hills roll or are monument.
The shadows… alive
or merely dormant, wasted spaces.
To trap ‘Energy’ within a single teardrop.
To mirror a ‘Love Sonnet’ upon the reflection
of a mischievous, half-scowling raven’s eye.
To creatively EXPLODE from the roots of the heart…
out onto the page or canvas,
is the very difference between mere pictures and Art.
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
The machine hummed
Forcing the air
In his tired lungs
I looked at him
The mask
Covering his face
His eyes closed tightly
The constant beep
Reminding me
He did not breathe
On his own
This was my brother
My childhood friend
And often my rival
As we competed
For every advantage
As I alternately
Fought and championed him
Drawing a family circle
Around him
Even when the circle
Became a ring
He was my blood
The child of my parents
They’re gone now
My heart to break
Without their succor
Hope faded
That all intercession
Had failed
That the end
Would come
With the turn
Of a switch
And there was nothing
I could do
But let him go
I watched him spin
the rain back to the clouds.
The front of his cap
hid his life face.
A mobile phone took
hold of his hand.
He carried his hat
up and down the road.
The rain lashed down
but he didn’t care.
All he thought about
was the doobie
that waited to be swapped
with the moolah
that was folded in his pocket.
I watched from a bus stop
listening to the rain break
itself up, while he waited
to fix it back up.
More at http://www.gculshaw.co.uk.
Five-thirty p.m., 1985,
A crowded bus.
The passengers generate heat as
The men stand round-shouldered
Reading newspapers, and we all
Sway to the rhythm of the city traffic.
I scan the rows for an empty seat and
I angle past the others, ignoring all,
Except for one.
He stoops under a worn gray hat,
An overcoat overwhelms his slight body
And his dark eyes glance from row to row
With urgency as the bus halts.
A seat opens and the little man
Moves toward the vacancy.
I am closer, and I will have it before him.
The man grips the overhead bar for balance.
He is short and his coat sleeve slides
To his elbow and faded blue numbers
Appear on his forearm.
They are clear enough.
I stand motionless as he slides by me.
There is room for him to pass, but
He steps sideways.
He does not look up.
He says nothing.
The lights dim
The darkness welcomes
The flicker
On the screen
I sit on the edge
Of my seat
The anticipation
Like the small boy
Who cherished the hours
In the old Lido
Still mesmerized
By the stories
On the silver wall
No longer Gene Autry
Good and evil
Simple as the black and white
Hats the actors wore
Telegraphing their moral code
The challenge more taxing
Now the plot
More involved
Challenging me to dig
To find my own truths
In the dialogue
The strength and weaknesses
Of the character
their imperfection more apparent
Making it hard
To label heroes and villains
When the movie ends
And the house lights
Come up
I like to carry
From the theater
Questions to discuss
And to debate
With friends
Who share the experience
Like voyeurs
Who peeped
In the director’s window
Time, spent like this, doesn’t weigh heavily, weighs
almost nothing at all, fills in, fills up, follows a set
schedule, offers some diversion, endless game shows,
some cooking, and home improvement, reruns of
reruns, comedies we know well enough to recall
the lines and old police shows smacking of relevance
from ten, twenty years ago; we’ve come to this after
the years we were too busy to even know that this
exists, this world of filler, what some of us do all day
while the rest are away, it’s like a waiting room for
those of us waiting for time to pass, the day to end
it explains us, begins to define us, the lost, the ghosts
the shadows of our former selves, it knows us well
replaces friends and family and conversation, fills
in the silence that so easily grows all around us now.
I stood with Robert
In the woods
In the stillness and the chill
Of the time stopped
To reflect
On my destination
Where I would go
What I would see
And how deep
The snows ahead
Were for me
Still a mystery
But there was
A clarity in the air
The time to pause
So needed
But I could not stay
Even with the cold logic
Mine was to forge ahead
There was only
So much time left
And I had to be
Where I was suppose to be
Like the horse
And the sleigh
My life has a mission
With a slush-covered path
That leads me finally
To my home