H.P. Lovecraft Inspired Poem
I was asked back in the Spring of 2010 to be apart of mixed media event celebrating what would have been H.P. Lovecraft's 120th birthday.
The show was a roaring success and the audience was filled with people in costumes of all different ages and from all different walks of life. As mentioned in my last entry, my piece I brought to the stage was influenced by not only Lovecraft but by the insanity that came from years in the trenches along the Western Front in WW1. I was very nervous about the poem because I had never written anything with such a strong historical content nor had I written something with such a dark feeling that didn't show at least some "light at the end of the tunnel." I also threw away any rhyming scheme or rhythmn which I had not done before. I sent the piece to the organizer of the event for his input. He was so impressed he had me as the finale for the night (don't ask me why)! Anywhew, here it is...
THE MADNESS
The year of 1917 has shown no end to this...
This plague that has swept over Europe
In January, the snow had come to fall along the Western Front
changing the mask of trench warfare
but it was only a masquerade
The snow gave a strange beauty
even to the desolate waste that is No Man’s Land
A white blanket,
lying softly,
tumbling over the quiet ground of the mine fields
so that all the ugliness and death could be hidden
The snowflakes
tenderly shrouded the dead bodies
and scenes of destruction
of madness
such of which has become
the regular horror that is life in war
It seemed for awhile as though everyone was just waiting
The tracks were frozen
stopping most supplies from reaching the troops
vehicles halted by the ever falling snow
and sometimes you could even fool yourself
into thinking that this Great War had frozen with it
but the guns...
The guns, they still fired
they were the only thing that made any noise,
but when the Gods of Nature decide to howl
their icy breaths blowing silently screaming snow
across the surface of the Earth
even our guns could do no good
against such power as the Winter wields
in No Mans Land
you cannot strike what you cannot see
In those Winter days
came periods of eerie long silences along the Western Front
that lasted for hours
and within those Eternities I first began to hear
the true madness
In those screaming silences
We all could hear it
both sides
German and French
sitting, holding our breaths, waiting
until the weather would warm and we could kill each other once again
Those of us that survived that hard Winter
once again got to live under a constant canopy
of shrieking steel
delivering death and destruction
and these are days which no man was meant to know
Trench warfare has become my daily life
And I wait with the rest of the French Army as we are sent like lambs
into the slaughter house by ignorant commanding generals
made to work with no rest and no gain
for the sacrifices we have made
After a time I began to think that a man would have to go insane
in order to keep one self alive within such circumstances
You would have to lose a part of your soul
when you are constantly surrounded by such waste
and you have no choice
You either come to handle it
or you don’t
There is no middle ground
We are at war and this is what our lives are now
and I have truly come to believe
that in order to survive I have had to lose a certain part of my mind
that I shall never have returned to me
I have seen others fall into the Depths of Madness
Its face shows Its self differently in every man it touches
some succumb quietly
while others are dragged kicking and screaming
into the darkness of these Hells
but some of us,
some of us welcome the Maddening with open arms
taking it in like a long lost lover
familiar and comfortable inside their insanity
and we all have something that is able to hear her call
speaking softly to us all
And these,
these are secrets that were once whispered to the first men in their dreams
told by something Older than God Himself
and sometimes when a man’s mind is pushed to the brink of it’s sanity
you can here these whispers again
Those whispers
I have seen can drive a man to the truest depths of madness
in its most pure and primal form
and once you have been faced by its horrors
you can no longer deny it’s existence
It is in every one of us and I have seen it’s face before me
and I have now come to wonder if it has a name
The show was a roaring success and the audience was filled with people in costumes of all different ages and from all different walks of life. As mentioned in my last entry, my piece I brought to the stage was influenced by not only Lovecraft but by the insanity that came from years in the trenches along the Western Front in WW1. I was very nervous about the poem because I had never written anything with such a strong historical content nor had I written something with such a dark feeling that didn't show at least some "light at the end of the tunnel." I also threw away any rhyming scheme or rhythmn which I had not done before. I sent the piece to the organizer of the event for his input. He was so impressed he had me as the finale for the night (don't ask me why)! Anywhew, here it is...
THE MADNESS
The year of 1917 has shown no end to this...
This plague that has swept over Europe
In January, the snow had come to fall along the Western Front
changing the mask of trench warfare
but it was only a masquerade
The snow gave a strange beauty
even to the desolate waste that is No Man’s Land
A white blanket,
lying softly,
tumbling over the quiet ground of the mine fields
so that all the ugliness and death could be hidden
The snowflakes
tenderly shrouded the dead bodies
and scenes of destruction
of madness
such of which has become
the regular horror that is life in war
It seemed for awhile as though everyone was just waiting
The tracks were frozen
stopping most supplies from reaching the troops
vehicles halted by the ever falling snow
and sometimes you could even fool yourself
into thinking that this Great War had frozen with it
but the guns...
The guns, they still fired
they were the only thing that made any noise,
but when the Gods of Nature decide to howl
their icy breaths blowing silently screaming snow
across the surface of the Earth
even our guns could do no good
against such power as the Winter wields
in No Mans Land
you cannot strike what you cannot see
In those Winter days
came periods of eerie long silences along the Western Front
that lasted for hours
and within those Eternities I first began to hear
the true madness
In those screaming silences
We all could hear it
both sides
German and French
sitting, holding our breaths, waiting
until the weather would warm and we could kill each other once again
Those of us that survived that hard Winter
once again got to live under a constant canopy
of shrieking steel
delivering death and destruction
and these are days which no man was meant to know
Trench warfare has become my daily life
And I wait with the rest of the French Army as we are sent like lambs
into the slaughter house by ignorant commanding generals
made to work with no rest and no gain
for the sacrifices we have made
After a time I began to think that a man would have to go insane
in order to keep one self alive within such circumstances
You would have to lose a part of your soul
when you are constantly surrounded by such waste
and you have no choice
You either come to handle it
or you don’t
There is no middle ground
We are at war and this is what our lives are now
and I have truly come to believe
that in order to survive I have had to lose a certain part of my mind
that I shall never have returned to me
I have seen others fall into the Depths of Madness
Its face shows Its self differently in every man it touches
some succumb quietly
while others are dragged kicking and screaming
into the darkness of these Hells
but some of us,
some of us welcome the Maddening with open arms
taking it in like a long lost lover
familiar and comfortable inside their insanity
and we all have something that is able to hear her call
speaking softly to us all
And these,
these are secrets that were once whispered to the first men in their dreams
told by something Older than God Himself
and sometimes when a man’s mind is pushed to the brink of it’s sanity
you can here these whispers again
Those whispers
I have seen can drive a man to the truest depths of madness
in its most pure and primal form
and once you have been faced by its horrors
you can no longer deny it’s existence
It is in every one of us and I have seen it’s face before me
and I have now come to wonder if it has a name
