YOU ARE THERE, NO MATTER WHERE
every extension attained
in anticipated distance
still bears the mark
of these broken states,
still carries with it
the taint of madness
and the nightmare
unleashed from the abyss
here our damage
shows differently,
no less shattered,
no less flawed,
only more abstractly,
more glancingly borne,
a mantle of decay
scented more than seen
assenting now to systems
which we would not design
we take what structures offer
trying to maintain
some sense of center,
an anchor point in storms
whihc threaten our destruction
on these unknown shores
how far away
is far enough
to have sufficience
enough to save?
I fear the answer
lies on mobius belts
where no set going
ever leads away
and fear's the essence,
the cardinal thing,
it labels every vector
and its freezing locks the mind
into faulty stasis,
downsweeping declines,
and endless torments
one never may escape
- Brendan Tripp
02/16/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
FUNDAMENTAL, PERVERSE
continuums of delusion
besetting the race
each with its lies
presented as truths,
each locked in cycles
of devout protestation
of being the one
beyond all other faiths
this, the ultimate con
the shell game of belief
where one seed of fact
explodes to a web
ensnaring, destroying,
negating the real
building a history
of impossible tales
how they all sputter
when accused of the lie
and scramble to offer
their most saintly case
as though one good apple
forgives a million fools
willing to kill
to preserve their deceit
from outside of belief
in the cold naked real
each faith seems a spectrum
from psychotic to vague
with the rabid purporters
the same in each type
and accustomed masses
just buying the lies
why can't mankind
escape from this game,
to look at the universe
for just what it is
and not make it a contest
of ultimate truths
all cross-debunking
and twisted into madness?
- Brendan Tripp
02/17/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
ACCRETIONS OF OUR ANGUISH
not the darkness
of the norm
not the darkness
of old pattern
but yet a darkness
as much as any
a darkness forged
by mundane madness
we fail in ways
unaccustomed here
we fail in modes
unable to be framed
but here our failures
are no less vile
than the common failures
of our state
distance can't remove
the shadow
distance can't dilute
the pain
distance can't repair
the breakage
distance can't undo
this fate
driven down
made unwhole
new layers of doubt
form accretions,
depths of anguish
from which we can't escape,
points of tainting
which leave eternal stain
we grasp at voids
to find some basis
to save us something
on which to build
but all is empty
all lacks a form
not debased
not empty here
- Brendan Tripp
02/19/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
IN SHADOWS TOO LONG CAST
a strange array
of pain intrudes
there are the agonies
all too familiar
the immediate aches
of failure, loss and dread,
but others too
are part of now
some events
so far outside us
still touch us with
an anguish, vague;
while anchored into
dates, locations,
they have no points
within our lives
does this ache
form a being
which visits us
from time to time,
or is that pain
somehow free-floating
and drops like rain
upon the heart?
or might there be
some link unknown
between that loss
and ourselves here,
some causal factor
beneath the surface
which makes such grief
fall to us as well?
God knows I have
enough of anguish,
of tearful times
built into my path,
why do these things
effect me too
like blades incising,
and spears impaled?
- Brendan Tripp
02/20/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
ZERO, TORN APART
the killing flame
explodes within
we are cornered,
trapped, treed,
left no avenues
for escape
and so we snap
into lethal rage
too many days
have ground us down,
too many pressures
brought to bear;
we can not filter,
we can not sort,
no nuance left
within the storm
gripped by tension
and terrors unnamed,
crushed by stressors
tearing worlds apart;
we can not do,
we can not act,
we are crumbling,
shearing, falling off
at the core
is the pit,
the yawning chasm,
the great abyss;
there is nothing here
to steady,
to focus,
to center or to frame
and nothing leads beyond
this nightmare time,
nothing promises tomorrows
less dire, less dark,
less set in pain;
we are lost within this,
cast down and damned
to a world of death and hate
- Brendan Tripp
02/21/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
