The Backflipping Ninja Shoplifter… Freaks Out!!!

by Paul Tristram / May 31st, 2020

I’ve never seen anything like it in me life, Officer
… and I’ve been ‘round the block a few times,
some of those occasions, backwards, matey.
He’s up on his toes, one minute, like a lunatic,
doing this nifty, cool-as-fuck shuffle
… then he’s sliding upon his graceful heels,
I must admit, it started to get a little erotic,
until the stunning, precision, violence kicked in, that is.
He took down the Security, both of ‘em,
with gut-wrenching summersault-cartwheel thingies,
and a rigid-steel index finger… I’m starting to sweat
… off his completely controlled and dextrous hands.
I shit-you-not, sir, me and Maggie were loitering
over in the Booze Section, semi-mouth-lactating
over the new Gooseberry Aftershock samples,
we jumped the queue six times, ‘Book ‘Em, Danno’.
They’ll never catch the young whippersnapper,
he was away up the wall like a retreating vampire,
through the air vent, just as quick as you like,
and we could hear him shuffle, at rapid speed,
first off in a left, and then in a rear direction,
until we heard three screams from the back carpark.
And from there, well, he was away, like, innit…
yeah, that’s right, you’ve done this before ain’t you,
he had his hood up, what looked like a false beard,
and an absolute, terrifying ‘Danger’ to his shifty eyes.

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, May 31st, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.