1)

I’m looking at you, George Sand

 

Patriarchy sucks.

QuasiFeminism– sucks.

But PANTS suck

the biggest one of all.

The irony of being equal

by dressing in clothes

with designated leg holes

is that now to fuck

I must get at least half-way naked.

The freedom of the bondage

we were told was a skirt

is that it just needs pushed up

over my hips, and I can express

my womanhood

without exposing any more

of my self than my ass.

So for my share of liberation

I will choose to go

pantsless, and fuck panties too-

1) because I hate that stupid word

and 2) ’cause I enjoy the breeze.

 

 

2)

Quandaric

 

I have

a shameful confession:

I watch

humiliation

porn just so I can feel

ENRAGED

at the degradation

of other

women. I’ve yet

to determine

whether it is my anger or

my shame

that is shared

between us that grips

my body and

freezes it

till I rub

the burning out.

 

More research

is needed.

 

Illusion

 

There are times I think all is lost

and it works out logically in my head

then the next day, hour, or transitory

second, the glass is full again

and I’m clever and handsome

I go look in the mirror to regard

myself reread with anticipation

my poems

and the bottom falls out again

I check my email and discover

a small poem of mine is accepted

anywhere and gigantism again

consumes me

but then I’m still not published

in Poetry magazine, I have “not

a pot to piss in” as my businessman

father might put it, I’m bald, short

with small hands, and have a

poor record cohabiting with women;

but what the hell, looking around

I see it could be a lot worse,

I could, for example, be

a simulacrum of myself

responding to life overeager

nervous and constantly

questioning myself

cloned perhaps in my early twenties

when maturity was all I

had to look forward to

and dying seemed like

the best option available.

 

 

 

Becoming Divine

 

for Walter Savage Landor

I don’t bemoan getting old

whence it is over and the

story told

it’s time to look forward

to again be bold

to look within

original sin

and enter a proximate

conception

 

I shall nary conceit

the final defeat

equate as hopeless

spurious last stand

which brings me my

glorious cup of doom

 

instead I shall assay

attempt to sashay

between halls of justice

and commonsense

in relieving the people

of their common woe

 

hoist my petard

sing free to regard

larder the most

decried by the host

most hopeful in any

final analysis

 

I shall become thee

a newborn infused

with vastly enhanced

subconscious reproach

to sweetly die rise up

fly between this

world and Elysian fields

which by remembrance

of efforts preceding

all those that might be

needing to drink

nectar of hope discover

an easy availability

of the Divine.

 

You see, witnessing

repeated reincarnation,

we all

become God,

eventually.

 

 

 

In Prison

 

The last place I wanted

to be looking good or

good looking was in prison,

but unfortunately that’s

where I found myself.

 

A FORTUNE & THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

From an obscure poetry e-zine
a poet and I assume, a solicitor
emails
to inform that a late client of
his and I share the same
surname
and that his client had
executed a road-building
contract worth £14000 000
and had received payments
of just £7000 000
before he and his immediate
family were wiped-out in a
car-smash and no other
known relatives have been
found or have come forward
to receive the outstanding
£7000 000;
what the fuck is this all
about ? I wonder;
what the fuck is the
point of this bullshit?
Robinson is not an un-
common name and there
is no way to trace my
ancestry due to a Romany
travelling nomadic history;
generations of unregistered
births, deaths and
marriages;
maybe I should email back
and confirm I’m a
Robinson
with no proof I am
related to his late client
and no evidence to support
that I’m not related;
but, possibly, I may be
worth millions
it’s possible;
it’s possible,
really,
just like the
Loch Ness Monster
agreeing
to make a public
appearance next year
at the Edinburgh
Festival.

Givens

 

Beneath the axiom lays some tread

Seen through a Spinozian lens

Forbearers from ancient Greece

To romantic Germany: councils sit upon

The throne of decision –

Listen… listen…listen…

As the machete of uncompromised

Reason whistles through the

Air.  Stopping only for stone.

Your Anger’s An Inspiration

…until you look at it more closely.
All of that energy is fuel,
if you could focus and channel it
into something creative.. who knows?
You could just have a masterpiece
of some kind upon your hands.
You could really get things done
with that coursing through your veins.
Wade through mountains
and punch stars right out of the sky.
Just imagine the good you could do?
You could help thousands of people
get their own lives back on track.
Explore the four corners of the globe,
invent something fantastic
or discover something unbelievable.
But, you can’t switch targets, can you?
All of that passion and enthusiasm
has become a personal prison cell.
Where you pace bored back and forth
hating everything and everyone
except he who actually put you there.

© Paul Tristram 2016

Tooth & Nail

Some people have constant help
with everything they choose to do,
they barely wrinkle into old age.
Never knowing what the inside
of a ‘Penny Jar’ looks like
and can still remember, vividly,
that one time that boy
punched them back in Junior School.
Those kind of people are not for me,
I see no depth nor character there
but good luck to them
I’d swap a weekend of their easiness
every six months of my life, happily.
I prefer the Beggars, the Vagabonds
the Lost, the Ones drunk and scarred
inside and out, howling at the moon
and 75% insane, The Ones unbroken
inside after beating after beating.
The foodbank queuing Single Mother
with pride and defiance still upon her face.
The Downtrodden but still swinging,
Survivors who have to fight Tooth & Nail
for every meagre thing that they’ve got.

© Paul Tristram 2015

We are officially soliciting any artwork you may have to add a splash of beautiful colors to our black and white website. We encourage original artwork, but those submitted with permission from the original artist shall be considered.

Please submit to us as you would any other piece of art. Review our About page in regards to submissions.

Peace/Love/Empathy

The Editors

Live Again

 

Lift the veil

Saunter in the sun

Mope at Mona Lisa

Shout at Shenanigans

Break out of your shell

Melt the expectations

Forge your happiness

Pester yourself

Manifest your dreams

Swim in the Pacific

Laugh at the moonlight

Reimagine your life