(Ed note: We are pleased to bring Paul Tristram’s work out for a second time! Today we present five tremendous works, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we do–The Eds.)
Slashed Tyres
Once you Conquer
… ‘Solitude’…
everyone becomes
‘Expendable’,
even ‘Disposable’.
That’s Power
and Freedom
… and (Absolute)
‘Self-Control’…
I do not even flick
fingers anymore…
nor stoop to argue
with those I’m
about to Reward
… with an (Entire)
Lifetime of Silence.
© Paul Tristram 2026
Unchartered (Inner) Waters
… So, after a ‘Lifetime’
of being Guarded…
how did that Feel?
Sorry, I’ll wait a while,
you’re still shuddering
… that kinda ‘Smiling’
is New, you look…
(Absolutely) Beautiful.
I know, super sensitive,
… but I was just
reaching out to light
another bedside candle.
Nuh, I’m not gonna
stop looking at your
Fresh (Maskless) Face.
I can’t put into words
the ‘Change’… you’re
Aglow, and making
me spill my Emotions,
whilst rush-talking
myself back…
from the (Very) Edge
which your Soul just
Springboard Dove Off!
© Paul Tristram 2026
Autonomous
(Become The Centre Of Your Own World First)
That ‘Emotional’ Autopsy
… there are cold winds
beating a path
to your Soul.
Vermin and Vexation
and a Crone-Hag’s Sneer
… away from the Fire
you Cower and Groan.
“You want more
of Spring?
Yet, it brought you
nothing but Winter!
‘They’ are not more
Lucky than you
… ‘They’
just do not Care…
you want too much,
‘Love’ is Deceptive.”
Empty that ‘Longing’
out yourself…
fill it with Light,
Mind-Nutrition,
and Independence…
let ‘Affection’
… Seed and Vine…
in Conditions Wholesome.
© Paul Tristram 2026
Perpetual ‘Healing And Growth Stages’ When You Pioneer
The very moment that you ‘Let Go’
you start Healing…
still going to Hurt for a while,
but a Shift has taken place
deep within your Psyche…
the road to Recovery is tricky.
‘Barriers’ and ‘Boundaries’
are two completely different things,
and ‘Intuition’ can be ignored
but never manipulated…
my ‘Mistakes’ made me this good.
As a child, I did not Rebel
purely out of mischief…
I wasn’t born to be a ‘Follower’,
I’m here to walk ‘Authenticity’ true.
© Paul Tristram 2026
You Absolute Beauty (I’m Rooting For Ya!)
Trial-Tested, and Victorious
in your Resurrection…
you’ve earned that Pride.
Emancipated from any
(previous) doubt…
weak folk break, quit,
give up the ghost…
strong people advance
and maintain… Eclipsing
their former self
before the Fire which tried
to destroy them… actually
Uplevelled them to Warrior.
You only lost
what you do not need…
freeing you completely
from people and places
which would merely
obstruct ‘Progress’ forward.
You’ll remember this time
as a ‘Growth Period’…
and smile like a Winner
at the grace and dexterity
you employed to ‘Master’ it.
© Paul Tristram 2026 (Header image provided by the author)
(Added Image by Christopher J Ananias)
Paul
Your work shines with insight and positive energy. Too often poets try to be positive in unrealistic ways, but via cynicism, that’s the way to go!
To CJA: I love your pictures
To All: I hope not too many early birds saw the giant distances WP placed between poems. My fault, though I would have to be clairvoyant to have known it. But it is fixed!
Leila
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Paul
Your words have caught the inner rhythm of a dialect and a dialogue that all those who have ears should hear. (And that does not mean literal ears, it means the symbolic inner ear/s of the deep inner hearing of the voice/s not all can, or want to, hear.)
Your writing expresses a philosophy of life that’s both specific to the poet and applicable to all who want to follow Carl Jung’s individuation process. When a person does not “individuate,” according to Jung, they are living an Unlived Life, which means they aren’t being themselves. This makes them angry, stiff, uptight, judgmental, difficult, mean-spirited, greedy, grasping and lashing out in various ways not always physical. Children with parents living the Unlived Life are haunted by this for their entire childhoods and beyond.
In other words, if we don’t resist and we don’t hold onto ourselves in the morass of modern life that wants to turn us into nothing more than cogs in the machine, we will suffer for it and make others suffer (much more than we ever have to naturally).
And this is a truly global problem now.
The price of resistance is VERY high for the resister but the price of not resisting is even higher.
REAL resistance has zero (0) to do with carrying a sign or gathering in crowds of any kind.
If we all resisted in the way your poems are recommending, the world would change in an instant and all of our “problems” (so-called) would go away – they would vanish into thin air, literally.
Dale
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These five poems read like a journey from armor to openness. “Slashed Tyres” is the hard shell, where silence is the revenge. “Unchartered (Inner) Waters,” with the haunting bedside candle image, is quiet, and the last two turn that tenderness into resolve. Strong, confident voice throughout.
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