Six Weeks Later

by Paul Tristram / April 19th, 2020

I am a Therapist… and to answer your question,
I (Finally) stopped believing in God,
when a badly traumatized Soldier
was referred to me via his Local GP.
I sat uselessly, before another human being,
whose soul was completely and utterly annihilated
by the unrelenting ghosts and nightmares of War.
Not only could I not help, fix, or alleviate,
but any naïve words of hope or reassurance
sounded stupid to my own ears after leaving my lips
… I ended up as defeated (with Therapy) as he was.
He hung himself, in a dingy Bedsit, six weeks later,
after drinking a litre bottle of Bell’s Scotch Whisky…
the night before he was due to appear in Court,
for assaulting a Police Officer, who had cruelly
tipped the contents of his beer can onto the ground,
after finding him sat upon a park bench crying, alone.

Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who deals in the Lowlife, Outsider, and Outlaw genres.  He wrote his first poem as a teenager following his release from the (Infamous) Borstal ‘HMP Portland’, and he has been creating Literary Terrorism ever since.  His novel ‘Crazy Like Emotion’ is available to purchase right here . Also his collection of shorter fiction Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves' is available to purchase at https://bookgoodies.com/a/B0DFMTSR4F Both books are published by Close To The Bone Publishing. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2020 at 8:04am and is filed under Poetry.