It’s Nine O’clock And All Is Hell

Contributor: Paul Tristram

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Lost deep in the cruel city
my pockets have been picked clean.
I’m heading straight for disaster
but not the kind that can be seen.
I feel like I’m walking through a sewer
while the rats make decisions up above.
I’d like to learn a foreign language
but no one will teach me the one called love.

You can cut the atmosphere with a knife
turn a wrong look into a murder.
The tension’s knotting up my back
my paranoia’s the weight of a steel girder.
The rain is bouncing upwards
as if to instantly leave this stinking street.
There’s another half-woman on the corner
trying to sell her gone off meat.

HATE, HATE, HATE
I see through neon eyes.
I always take the bait
when it’s wrapped in drunken lies.
“You’re too LATE, LATE, LATE!”
said the beggar to the thief.
I’ve begged it all and more
all that is left is grief.

Lost in a labyrinth of lies
lost in a city of crime.
I’d ask someone what day it is
but no one seems to have the time.
Somewhere just in front of me
I can hear a tolling bell.
That’s another hour wasted
it’s nine o’clock and all is hell.


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Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.