Lisa Knight's Blog, page 20

POETRY: THE 4TH MINIATURE VODKA BOTTLE BY PAUL TRISTRAM

He grimaced slightly, with eyes closed tight

as she inserted the 4th open miniature

vodka bottle slowly into his ass,

whilst frantically sucking his red raw cock.

A few seconds before coming,

he felt the slight trickle of Russian Spirits

meander inside as he exploded into her mouth.

Cringing and sighing as the spurts lessened

in force and the small drinking vessel

slid shyly and pathetically backwards

out of his body and into her waiting hand.

He collapsed sideways onto the bed

and waited for the climactic buzzing to recede

and the alcohol one to take its place.

She had assured him that this wasn’t the easiest

way to get drunk but it was one of the nicest.

He liked fucking Student Nurses, immensely,

for they just knew so much fun stuff

about his body and its desires and addictions.

He smiled, giddily, with a slight dribble of saliva

dripping out of the side of his trembling mouth

as he tried to decide whether or not he could

handle a 5th blowjob and bottle in a row

with nothing in between but half cigarettes?

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

POETRY: LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Someone or some people painted it in big white letters

on the front wall of Swansea Prison just left of the gate

and I mean 2ft high writing, not in spray paint

like normal graffiti but in actual bold, brush strokes.

I walked past it every day for about a month or so,

admiring this incredible act of cheek and bravery

until ‘The Man’ came and washed the rebellion away.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

BRYN FORTEY’S BOOK REVIEWS: THE LOVELY BONES BY ALICE SEBOLD

This best-selling novel has languished in my To Be Read pile for a number of years. It has also been committed to celluloid, but I have so far dodged the film too. Why? Well, if you have to ask, that means you haven’t yet (plug coming) read the Introduction and Afterword to my MERRY-GO-ROUND collection and are, therefore, unaware of how my personal history is linked to Ann Sebold’s beautifully written novel.

THE LOVELY BONES starts with a child’s murder and deals with the aftermath of that terrible act as the victim herself settles into heaven and watches as friends and family try to come to terms with life without her. Although there are marked differences between the book’s fictional crime and the one that befell my family, the basic similarities were sufficient enough for me to keep it at arm’s length until very recently.

I am tougher now, and the differences are enough for me to be objective and not get dragged into a quagmire of debilitating grief.

Yeah, right.

Susie Salmon is a fourteen-year-old girl, raped and murdered by a serial killer. She adapts to her new circumstances in the afterlife and looks on as her bereft family comes apart. In places, it is harrowing, and the horror of the situation is trowelled on in carefully presented layers, but Sebold never allows the story to wallow in the pain that is nevertheless a necessary element. She has a certain lightness that engages the reader and helps you through the darkness.

There were definite moments, and this is a compliment to her writing skills, when I had to put the book down and allow a tear to trickle down my face. These were the parts that dealt specifically with Susie’s parents. Sebold set the tone of anguish, disbelief, horror and disintegration at almost pitch perfect levels. I can vouch for that, having been there myself.

Some families, most or all at a guess, never really recover from such trauma. Mine didn’t and haven’t. As with the Salmons in the book, you do learn to tack on coping devices. Either that or you sink. I personally, though damaged, have survived; while my wife slowly disintegrated and died herself four years after our son had been murdered by a paranoid schizophrenic. It was a completely different case and circumstances to that in THE LOVELY BONES, which I nevertheless found very affecting.

As an atheist, I found the heaven aspects of Sebold’s story to be no more than a handy writing device. It enabled the victim to take centre stage and provided the spark of originality that set the novel apart from the general herd.

What happened to my son, happened and cannot be undone. I have mentioned it here not to seek a reaction from you, but because it has addressed my reaction to this particular book. Alice Sebold is a fine and compassionate writer. THE LOVELY BONES is a worthwhile addition to anyone’s library.

If you haven’t already done so, give it a try.

POETRY: I’M SO DRUNK IT’S KILLING YOU! BY PAUL TRISTRAM

He had piss all down the left-hand side of his jeans,

stamping his foot in rhythm whilst singing

“Yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow’s out of sight!”

with a toothless smile and a twinkle in his eye one minute

and then the next he was punching the wall jukebox

and primal screaming the name “Carol!” amid anguished groans.

As they carried him out past us, waste high and horizontal

he was yelling at the top of his voice “I’m so drunk it’s killing you!”

It was the most bizarre, funny and scary thing I had seen in ages,

I shook my head, smiled and decided to get almost as drunk as him.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

POETRY: FLATTERY WILL GET YOU SILENCE BY PAUL TRISTRAM

It does not remotely sit comfortably with me,

the plots and intrigues at play behind your words.

I do not care what you think, one way or the other,

my business has nothing to do with you.

My life is not an episode of ‘EastEnders’

and I shall not be joining you in yours.

Your wealth of information on others

is wasted on me, I am simply not interested,

besides ‘Gossip’ is the ‘Cowards’ way of fighting,

it separates the ‘Bitches from the ‘Boys.’

This is the last time I lower myself to speak to you

after this occasion your false flattery will only get you

‘Silence’ or, if pushed, something rhyming with it.

Go and sycophant yourself some other victim.

There’s the door out of my life… fuck Off through it!

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

BRYN FORTEY’S BOOK REVIEWS: POETRY FROM THE NEAREST BARSTOOL BY PAUL TRISTRAM

It has long been my opinion that the many and diverse writing talents that came together under the Beat banner were linked not by a particular style, but by their attitude. I don’t know whether Paul Tristram shares my enthusiasm for that particular group, or whether or not he considers himself part of the post-Beat movement, but I think his work does fit. He has the right attitude.

Tristram is an in-your-face poet, part of the knee-you-in-the-bollocks and kick-you-when- you’re-down school of hard knocks. His lines are peopled by losers; the women either easy or unobtainable, men mostly alcoholics in the making and usually up for a fight. They hang out in council estates where the police will only enter in pairs and gentle citizens stay clear of.

He reminds me in places of the late Jack Micheline – part-Street, part-Beat. Or A. D. Winans, whose jazz poems I love but who can also rant with the best of them. Probably the closest to him in both style and content though would be the late Dave Church, a vastly underrated American writer. Church and Tristram both explore the underbelly of their respective experiences.

Paul Tristram seems to be quite a prolific writer, posting two poems a week on the Imaginalis site and popping up quite regularly elsewhere. He has a rough and ready edge that is well suited to his specific area of concern. His poetry can be angry, sad, bitter, with an occasional slice of wry humour creeping in through the back door. It’s not poetry that lends itself to being quoted from. He doesn’t craft exquisite little lines that can be taken out of context. Each poem is a whole and should be read as such.

I see Tristram as an intuitive poet, pouring life experiences onto the printed page; highs and lows, not forgetting the doldrums. He would probably keep filling notebook after notebook even if he weren’t being published, but lucky for us he is.

I have always preferred the more real work to be found in the poetry small presses rather than what I find to be the more sterile outpourings of the academic big leaguers. Paul Tristram is a small press poet, and coming from me that is a compliment. He wants to tell you about people, places, events. Often unsavoury, sometimes bleeding onto the page, but offering a vitality that is his own.

His own sub-heading is: ‘For those who like to point their fucking finger!’ Reading this collection of hard-ass poetry is not always easy, and why should it be. Give it a try though, and you might find the poems speak to you personally.

POETRY FROM THE NEAREST BARSTOOL has my recommendation.

Bryn Fortey

POETRY: I’ll NEVER WRITE ABOUT PTERODACTYLS IN A POEM BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Because they are ridiculous

and deceased,

if they were ever here anyway?

I’ll never write about Pterodactyls

because I don’t believe in dinosaurs,

in the council estate I live on

people die young.

Written by Paul Tristram

POETRY: I HURT MYSELF SO MUCH BECAUSE YOU DID BY PAUL TRISTRAM

‘I hurt myself so much because you did.’

She wrote in red and blue felt-tip pens

upon the little card that she had decorated

herself with a countryside watercolour.

Slipped it into its envelope and looked

around the large table at everyone else

in the Art Therapy Group and saw everybody

holding their very own cards and smiling.

Suddenly she felt like she did not belong…again!

She felt like an alien, someone whom THEY

had not told the Secret to, like she was standing

outside of the picture, merely observing it all.

She wasn’t smiling; she was weeping.

BANG! The emotional pain punched her deep

inside her senses, wearing his grinning face

and sporting her mothers crucifiable shawl.

She started to cry louder, stood up shaking

and screamed across in the Doctors direction

“You Liar, you said it would make me feel

better and it’s just making it ten times worse.

You’re just making us pick the scabs off

our eternal wounds so we can suffer some more.

Once again, the Chameleon Abuser has twisted

its foul head and this time the face of torture

that it’s showing to the laughing world is yours!”

Written by Paul Tristram

POETRY: FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SHAME BY PAUL TRISTRAM

They had broken-up exactly four weeks ago.

This was the first time that her friend since childhood

had managed to persuade her to leave her home.

She was still weeping pathetically and muttering his name

to her watching, patient but helpless friend

on her 3rd Gin & Tonic in their local pub

when in he walked with another woman (a complete stranger!)

She stopped weeping immediately and stared transfixed

at them standing at the bar in absolute disbelief

but as cold and silent as a graveside statue for fifteen long

and excruciating minutes as they conversed playfully

merely feet away and no one called the police or did anything?

She felt her heartbreak and misery turning to anger and hatred

and flowing like molten lava inside her darkening breast

destroying a lifetime of goodness, wholesomeness, optimism

and hope which she had always fed, watered and maintained

healthily and unconsciously right up until now.

She turned and gnashed at her friends supportive cheek,

growling loudly like a wounded, trapped animal, then arose

with her vitriol, leaving far more than just a pub behind,

pissed her short walk home, locking the door upon the world

where she stays stubbornly and adamantly his Victim.

Written by Paul Tristram

MUSIC: TRIPPING MAJOR BALLS BY SMOKE IT ‘N’ DIE

Album: I Don’t Remember The Weekend

Artist: Smoke It ‘n’ Die / Howard Billington

Released: March 2015