Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who’s currently up to his elbows in Magic, and long may it remain this way.

Razor-Sharp

Every now and again it happens
… the Gods have to reach down
and slap me sideways.
I never lose anything,
worth keeping,
during the following Transition
… in fact, with hindsight,
I gain far more because of it.
Ego and Arrogance
poison Talent,
just as much as Complacency,
and Comfortableness
dumb it down,
and dull its beautiful Colours.
To remain Consistently Brilliant,
whilst Evolving
from one Creative Oak Ring 
to the next… takes a Boldness,
which is only achievable
when the working edges
of the Craftsman’s Tools 
are absolutely Razor-Sharp
… and the ‘Striving Instinct’
morphs back-and-forth between 
both the Predator and the Hunted.

Aim To Be The Best You Can Be… Without Cutting Throats

He didn’t die until a few months later,
but I’d travelled across the Border
to spend some time with him.
To see someone you admire and respect,
weak and frail, is an awful thing…
yet, his eyes burned-blue once more
as soon as he noticed me standing there.
She left us alone, and his brilliant voice
instantly became serious and even again.
“Don’t you dare change, evolve.
Stay away from women who want 
to mother (Control) you,
and men who want to be like you.
Strength comes shining from your heart,
not blaring out of your mouth…
leave the gossiping to the cowards.
Let your previous ‘Best Work’
be your only competition.
Have your own Back.
Aim to be the best you can be…
without cutting throats.
There are very few things in this life
which cannot be fixed or changed,
but a hollow Victory is not one of them.”

Simpering Fool

Half the town called him ‘The Village Idiot’,
the rest referred to him as ‘The Simpering Fool’.
Eyes like the football pools, one home and one away.
Dribble constantly streaming from the corners
of a toothless, simple-smiling mouth.
Walked hunched like a hunchback,
even though there was no hump.
Hair stuck up in a small half-circle on his crown,
like a schoolboy, yet he was somewhere in his forties.
Spent most days picking fag-ends out of the gutter,
and scooping litter up from the pavements.
He was often to be seen feeding pigeons,
jackdaws, starlings and sparrows in the park,
with food-scraps he would heron from rubbish bins.
At night, he’d stay in an old gun turret down by the canal,
and that is where they found him when he died
(his absence did not go unnoticed for very long).
There was a metal shoebox by the side of him,
which when opened, revealed 33 pens,
£56.98 in various notes and coins,
1 wedding, and 14 engagement rings.
At the small and meagre funeral, 
two unfamiliar women turned up from the city, 
which lies 10 miles or so to the west.
They claimed, that for donkey’s years
he’d walk on over, from time to time,
and he always gave £50 each 
to both the ‘Children In Need’ and ‘Animal Rescue’
charity shops which they both worked in…
and he never once stopped long enough
to accept the massive ‘Thank You’ 
which they would heartily try sending his caring way.