TOMORROW DOES NOT FREE
we crawl to the edge
weary from journeys,
broken and battered,
and what do we see?
a new abyss,
fresh darkness,
more torture lurking
in days ahead
never a bottom,
never an end,
every plateau
only leads down,
every pause in descent
is a ruse, a feint,
a lure to tease
with thoughts of ease
no, this damnation
goes deeper still
I have glimpsed behind
the curtain of deceit
to see the path
laid out for us
with all the pain
and untold anguish
tomorrow does not free,
it is just the first step
into new-wrought doom;
we are surely cursed,
as all things fail
and every dream is ruined
in the onslaught
of an insane evil world
we have nothing
but our regrets
and a taloned fear
that rips the mind
and lacerates the soul
we cannot face
the trials before us,
we can not stand more pain
- Brendan Tripp
12/18/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtytwo ...
ACID DRIPPING SPITE
1
why is that
this realm of blue skies
and calm air
and gentle heat
won't reach to me,
am I coccooned
within a zone
of isolated pain?
2
too many plans,
not enough hours,
we run on rails
from point to point,
rushing vectors
which leave no time
for sleep or quiet,
relaxing or ease
3
strange patterns form
in back-current eddies
that look like boons
amid all of the bane,
these prodigies
bait our believing
that something good
could rise again
4
as losses mount
and wounds debilitate
we can not hold
old dreams as real;
death enfolds
and themes the future,
casting shadows
across all frames
5
the darkness falls
as though a cloak
that would defend
against the world
whose cutting winds
and subhuman hordes
churn mundane madness
and acid dripping spite
- Brendan Tripp
12/19/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtythree ...
IN MUNDANE HELL'S WAKE
1
the abyss opens
as time lies to us
to lure us to the pit,
every hope broken,
every plan failed,
we plummet into depths
with no promise of return,
no prospect of release
2
there are insufficient words
to express this anguish,
there are not enough verbs
to capture our pain,
no adjectives serve
to frame the horror
of what this world is
or the suffering it bears
3
in moments of calm
come glimpses of clarity
of the nightmares ahead,
the hideous trials
which will make our days
spent in torture here
seem like a heaven
of tormentless time
4
what is this darkness
which grips the soul
and poisons the heart?
we are immersed in it
as fish are in the sea,
we breathe it in,
enfolding, all encompassing,
it is all we see
5
all wrong, all vile,
the greyness swallows
dragging down to voids
in mundane hell's wake;
we can not reach the stars
when denied the sky,
we can not find the truth
when everything's a lie
- Brendan Tripp
12/21/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtyfour ...
TOO HATEFUL, TOO VILE
caught by blindness,
frozen in time,
all goes forgotten
in Lethe's grasp,
run down river
and out to sea
while nothing's seen
out of the real
locked into mid-points,
unable to shift
from realms of intent
to those of action,
no sign posts show
the way to free,
no maps trace out
the road to light
into oblivion,
ever so lost,
we move without reason,
sliding through space
as if to scratch
some persistent itch
deeply beyond
the facade of the age
outside of the grid
we can not place marks
all swirls, convolutes,
recurses unending
as externals erupt
and internal fires
drive deeper still
the masses we bear
we scrabble for hope
where we know there is none,
scraping at dirt
for the merest glint
of something exalted,
this world is too dull
to offer me that,
too hostile, too hateful, too vile
- Brendan Tripp
12/26/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtyfive ...
FRANTIC IN LOSS
1
nothing here fulfilled,
nothing here complete,
everything in absence
broken, degraded,
unable to attain
the vaguest goal,
unable to achieve
the merest aim
2
distorted hours,
constricted lanes,
nothing moving,
all locked behind
unyielding gates;
we are blinded here,
set to decay
beyond all focus
3
nightmares rise,
no defense,
no refuge,
all dreams die,
stolen from us,
ripped from fingers
desperate in grasp,
frantic in loss
4
we see the marks
of damaged days,
nothing flows,
we can't connect
with any source
within our reach,
we struggle with bonds
suffocating us
5
vague relief
oozes in,
we fail less than those,
we fall less low;
cheap comfort that
we are not as vile
as we'd suspected,
not as direly down
- Brendan Tripp
12/27/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtysix ...
IN THIS CYCLE EVER DOWN
can we believe
that any veil's
removal means anything
as far as freeing
or seeding change?
so artificial,
these mundane modes,
so very hollow
deep inside us, though,
there lurks an ache
which would desire
that all these lies were true,
that by the turning
of an imagined page
days were refreshed
and somehow renewed
we've seen too many
of this kind pass
to let ourselves hope,
knowing that by hoping
we are doomed to despair
as these are as linked
as belief and blindness
in this cycle ever down
the nightmare has a steely grip,
all its denizens
reek of madness,
degradation and decay,
it has no lines
which are not warped,
no vectors running
which are not twisted
deeper and darker,
there is no light
and no release;
we are chained here,
cast to a world
that is to us Hell,
sent down to torments
none others would suspect
- Brendan Tripp
12/30/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtyseven ...
MADNESS AS PATTERN
1
it is all useless
it is all empty
it is all perfunctory
nothing means anything,
we fall ceaselessly,
passing into void
passing into dark
passing out of time
2
no change
no shift
no movement through
we press one act
and not the frame
we inch the mountain
but no one knows
or cares
3
deluded forms
in the deluge
nothing tracks
beneath the flow
ancient distance
measured down
and deeper still
now cloaked by waves
4
the abyss spreads,
the chasm widens,
all is swallowed
by these depths;
nightmares erupt
and burn through sleep,
searing our sanity,
charring our trust
5
smothering days
unable to breathe
unable to move
locked into rotes
of chaotic design,
madness as pattern
failure as tone
with no route away
- Brendan Tripp
12/31/2002
Copyright © 2002 by Brendan Tripp
... that's thirtyeight ...
EMPTIED OF BELIEF
incomplete,
eviscerated,
we are nothing
but the bleeding,
we have nothing
but the ache
of broken promise,
demolished dreams
all our vectors
end unfulfilled,
leading nowhere,
at one with void;
more decaying,
more despair
comes a'dawning
with each new day
all these fragments
gel into lies,
splintered bits
of failed intents
which cannot meld
with prophesy,
can not attain
the needed myth
too long abandoned
all things conspire
to break the will
and cast us down
to lower states
of abject loss,
hopeless, prayerless,
emptied of belief
we are the carrion
torn by mundane beaks
of rapacious demand,
too often dead
as by decree,
we cannot fight
these scavengers
aching for their feast
- Brendan Tripp
01/02/2003
Copyright © 2003 by Brendan Tripp
... and that's thirtynine ...
I gotta tell ya ... I'm going to be happy to get finished with this ... there were a bunch of points in this current batch where I had to tap-dance around totally indecipherable passages. This worries me for another project I've been putting off for years ... I have travel journals that I've never typed up, and some of those date back to my "drinking days", a couple of decades and more back ... and if I'm having a hard time decoding my sober scrawl from a handful of years ago, I hate to think what some of that stuff penned after a few margaritas at the bar at some Archaeological Villas at a ruin site is going to be like to transcibe!
