Tristan's Blog

Where will you place it this time There isn't much space on my skin that hasn't been marked by your fury Eve less room remains on my heart for another scar Your eyes are wild with hate Unprovoked anger spins from your tongue My eyes are blank and tearless They've run themselves dry I feel unworthy so I stay Expecting, accepting another blow Your soul is black For some unknown reason Something has hurt you So hurt me Hurt hung onto too long manifests itself into anger You try to transfer it to me but it still resides in you So where will you place it this time When my skin has turned to ash....               ---Tristan, Summer, 2017

Under my tears I lay in wait again To be torn apart From illusionary friends. The heaviness of this Has dropped me on scuffed knees The rawness burns. I'd lift my head to see a way But the blows have left me shrinking. The pain drips constantly But not enough to drown Just enough to push the salt deeper. Under my tears I want to scream to extinguish the noises Why so many unfamiliar voices. Oh the sea of torment Is on me now Pulling me further from tranquility. Servility has manacled my ankles No utterance away from this absolution Close my breath Then close my eyes.                --Tristan, February, 2013

Eyes out my back window      Lost in thought      Ankle fog      Low rumbling tide      Shifting sand Precarious anchored sea grass. Winds whistle on salted weather      Vacant deck       Adirondack chairs       Grey scabbed       Two empty glasses       Prone wine bottle Grape stained pool from drips. Busy myself with the start of the day       Grinding beans       Pressed coffee       Aroma filled air       Startling noise       Ahah coffee for two perhaps. Holding my breath before turning around       Mussed hair       Sleepy cuteness       My old tee shirt       Eyes downcast       Coffee good mornings What did we do smiles exchanged. Out the w...

Stirring in conversation over a cup of coffee he has a way of leaving even while he is still there. He smiles and nods in accommodating fashion but the thousand-mile stare says he is gone once again. Then the rain falls between them to her, suddenly, things don't seem so clear. Confusion and hurt overwhelm her Panic hardens around confidence There is no strategy for departure Only twisted ramblings of salvation. Attempting to retrieve his heart she awakens before the sun to whisper in his ear. Her eyes relay a truth that is too heavy in stealth silence the emotional has led the physical in disappearance. Instantly broken a wholeness shattered into pieces a tailor of the heart with steady hand is urgently needed. She does not look for one Nothing is beneath her now.     -Tristan, 2013

Tristan is the pen name of a young writer from the Oregon Coast.  A fisherman and a poet, he writes from the perspective of a new deeply involved wordsmith, in expressing himself through the written word, and enriching his soul.  He wants to share his journey with you, and to share his creativity and his words with you. In Tristan's life, there have been crises, struggles, and challenges.  His courage and his character to deal with life's obstacles is reflected in his writing. "I want my work to flow like a wild river, carving its own path.  The river is sometimes inhibited by dams that suspend the natural flow of something. I want people to feel something, feel uncomfortable, feel sad, hurt, broken, happy, but just feel." Tristan's poems have been published in "The Echo" newsletter and Honoring Our Rivers  (2018), an anthology of writing by inmates of the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, in Pendleton, Oregon.

The cottonwood and the hemlock trees mingle in the lower pastures Standing high by riverside eyeing the flood of love's disasters. To where I follow a raven's fate who scouts in pallid skies for mate designed for only he if knowest tears he'd cry. Toward western skies in askance flies the raven with dirge on his heart His sorry I borrow like it's my tomorrow A burden of grief in cart. The river a path that has come to a crash with vastness so large evokes shivers With nothing to follow his heart has been swallowed How will he spot a lost love's quivers? When darkness falls his longing still calls and body implores him rest But sleep won't come Until he's undone Bound to an eternal quest. Just before the dawn awakes I set for bountied seas The raven perched upon the stern of my ocean faring steed. Beyond the port between the jetties across the bar we flee New mates akin by broken hearts He with I and I with he. Briskly...