For those of you coming in late ... I used to write A LOT ... a lot A LOT ... regularly clocking in at 250 poems a year. Somewhere along the line, however, I got into a deep rut, where I was pretty much writing the same damn depressing doom poem over and over. I mean, it was OK for Picasso to get into a "blue period", but this was setting up a NLP-like feedback loop for me, so I took the conscious step of quitting writing for quite a while. While I still occasionally wrote, there were several years where I put down less than a couple of dozen poems. I tried to start up writing again a few years ago, but found (much to my dismay) that my poems pretty much picked up exactly where I'd left them off ... the same images, the same words, the same sense of abject abysmal failure and loss. Needless to say, this was NOT what I was hoping for.
One thing that I've noticed is that I write more when I have a set schedule to fit "poem writing time" into. As such, I wrote quite a bit more back when I was taking that I.T. degree at Chubb, despite being under huge time constaints due to the gruelling nature of the program I was in ... I would typically start the day's poem on the bus going there, continue it during a potty/lunch break, and finish it up on the bus home! However, since I graduated (back in Feb '03), I've been in a miasma of unfocused days/nights, so the writing has dropped way back again. Anyway, here are EIGHT "new" poems, for your "reading enjoyment".
CARRIED ON UNSUBTLE WINDS
1
portals allow
the passage of the new
we cross frontiers
through realms of fire
choking, sweating,
nearly killing
forged of focus
to future goals
2
damaged but not defeated,
battered but not broken,
we are shocked to wake
on mornings past destruction
which none could count
would be the dark
beyond survival
rather than fresh days
3
unseen chasms
grasp our step
the emptiness veiled
by layers of spin,
madness encrusted
in ancient accretion,
the dam breaks
and all is scoured
4
nothing spans
the absences,
nothing allows
the moments' fill;
we take up
the massive weight
and march into
the darker days
5
lost from pattern,
unable to mold;
no forms suffice,
no norms succeed,
we are carried
on unsubtle winds
pressing regardless
of any of our needs
- Brendan Tripp
02/01/2003
Copyright © 2003 by Brendan Tripp
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DAMNED TO DECLINE
1
everything conspires
with these gravities
opposing points
which fly unkempt
treading the fabric
rending the weave
disrupting continuums
towards devolving states
2
these lines all break,
the shocks apply
and interrupt the flow,
transferring from stasis
the endless decline
hidden from surface
waiting below
for signals to arrive
3
shattered intent,
dysfunctional dreams,
we can not attain
the merest shadow,
we do not arrive
at the place achieved;
all is ruined,
all is lost
4
the complexity
of nightmares
is fully brought to bear
within these days;
we are destroyed,
bound and frozen,
unable to act,
damned to decline
5
taunted again
we see our hopes
dangled before us,
offered up
then snatched away;
never touching,
never tasting,
always left with ache
- Brendan Tripp
02/12/2003
Copyright © 2003 by Brendan Tripp
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NO EXTENSION PAST THIS DARK
emptiness
the void includes
all aspects
of this life
all facets
of existence
we go empty
by default
nothing moves
by volition
only sinking
only down
stuck in gravities
without ending
steep descents
on below
dropped to loss
stunned and blank
we can reach nothing
we fade to less
no words, no deeds
no fill to time
just rushing
flowing nowhere
lost deeper
than ever gone
the grey envelops
all our sight
we can not shift
out of this mode
we can not free
the heart or soul
barest needs
are what gets met
only the minimum
the thinnest of lines
no horizon
to see beyond
no extension
past this dark
- Brendan Tripp
02/20/2003
Copyright © 2003 by Brendan Tripp
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Ah, I see I will have to split this into multiple posts ... so many space codes ... so little per-post character counts! These three are from Feb '03, and we'll see if we can get the March ones into the next post!
