What sound does
a year make? It may
be the sound of changing,
dragonflies coasting
on the breeze before unkind
winter snap. I remember
the song of road travel,
uncertain outcomes.
Traveling back, even a month,
what advice would I offer?
The Q changed my life
2nd Avenue Subway opened in January
86th to Times Square in 9 minutes
86th to Union Square switch for the L
12 minutes to Jefferson Street, Brooklyn
Chopped 35 minutes off that trip
No more psychotic buses
Slow as molasses with drivers who forget to open back doors
You have to drive the bus and open the doors
The back door is where you want us to get off
Open it Jar Head
Duh
The Q is religion in this town
It’s secular too
God freaks stay away from the stations
No pamphlet people trying to steal your soul
or your wallet
They know the evil of the Q will get them
They’re afraid the Q might make them Queer
Win Win Boss
Come to NYC
Take the Q everywhere
Don’t give beggars any money
Unless they are missing body parts
Every sob story is bull
The pizza is real here
This has been your urban cowboy
With the scoop
‘It’s taken me years to get this far’
she thought to herself,
as she stopped upon a thin, narrow shelf.
Just over two-thirds up
the darkened pit
she had naively let herself drop into.
‘The Falling’ had seemed to take forever,
there had been a ‘Splash’
followed by a ‘Crunch’
Scars had formed and broken bones
painfully knitted back together, slowly,
in those first delirious, wretched months.
The ascent did not get any easier,
you just became more in tune
and accustomed to your surroundings,
the further you reached upwards
towards the circular ‘God-Like’ light.
The nooks and crannies were treacherous,
yet exhilarating, the more height she gained.
And three weeks ago, or there about,
she had felt the breeze spiral down
onto her grey, parchment face again
and cried tears of another kind for a change…
a wonderful, hopeful, heart-swelling change.
It is the straggling ‘Hanging Ivy’
which she is now focused upon,
dangling but days out of fingertip reach…
as we leave her to her strength and struggle,
a survivor Lost yet not waiting to be Found.
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
She’s laying upon a sun lounger
within the shadows of the back garden.
Trying to ignore the silly songbirds
singing Springtime lullabies of love.
She’s stopped chewing her fingernails
at last and her Pityriasis Rosea
has receded back and faded,
leaving just a faint daisy chain
of small purple flowers
around her otherwise pale left wrist.
‘It’s nice to be out the other side’ she sighs,
down to only two packs of cigarettes
and still descending all the time.
Now that the ‘Breaking’ has ended
and the ‘Knitting’ and ‘Mending’ started,
she’s finding a different shape
and level of ‘Ache’ to taste each day.
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
Twining
hour to hour
in a string.
Making more
coffees for
strangers than
I can count.
Speaking
with polite enthusiasm
about my working
class plight.
Was that a grande?
Could you say that
again?
Would you like
that heated, sir?
Sir?
before you read this
ah, never mind, see
here you are
waiting for
a rhyme
this time
just like
spring
You earth-bound, soil-laden
souls of terrain:
I’ll take my chances with
the highest trapeze, the stilt
walk, the tide-licked craggy
coast.
I’ll make my feet go where they
must, clear my declarative
throat, then:
Share a thought or two, take
the chance to be human
without worrying about any
performance.
He can vividly remember so many
of the conversations
which took place
walking these three streets
over to the shops and back again.
Sometimes he would simply listen
intently or distractedly
to the house sparrow chatter
flying musically from her mouth
and punching pretty holes in the sky
around her smiling face.
But that was another time…
a ‘Yesterday’ now tangibly dissolved
into sigh-inducing memory.
Although when he closes his eyes
and quiets his yearning mind
for but a moment,
it feels almost as if he could
still reach out a trembling hand
and touch her warmth once more.
Yet, it is an action and gamble
far too great and important to take.
So instead, he settles for whistling
one of her many favourite songs,
as he opens the door
with a still beating heart built for two
but a shopping bag
carrying only enough vittles for one.
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
Rolling into the classroom
on Monday morning
they ignore him
will not be silent
as he speaks
chat among themselves
about the weekend
this and that
cocooned in subcultures
he would not understand.
An anachronism
he cannot break through
to quell their energy
bend them to his will
force the curriculum
down their throats
teach them ‘respect’
nor can he corral them
down the narrow path
his life has taken.
He would beat them
if he could but
thwarted by laws
he would repeal
can only shout.
“Shut up! Listen!”
he bawls getting
momentary attention.
“Why?” one of them
simply responds.
He has no reply.
The blinds are closed, the doors locked, blocked,
lights are out, they huddle in the corner, for once
literally hiding in the classroom, they talk quietly,
get their phones out, text their parents, their friends,
each other, post to Facebook; there’s nothing new
about it, they’ve planned for it, practiced this, but
this time it could be serious – this is not a drill.
From across the street, from his angle, TV news
gets it all, the deserted feel of it, a few police cars
around, some movement now and again; it’s spring,
it’s quiet where there should be voices and noise,
a few sneaking around the way students their age do,
but now it’s silent, like Rachel Carson’s silent spring,
pesticide poisons our place, our air with this, we have
taught them to hide and wait quietly for the all clear bell,
the end of school and what they learned about today.