"Damnatio ad Bestias II"

Reluctant dragons

Pulled out the teeth

That gnashed in their mouth.

There's polish on the mirror that

Says you've got no alias

The hero, eternal:

Joshua J Tripoli

We, emptied gowns

Filled skin with diamonds

Guided guileless

The Lion and the Child.

"A Time for Tears"

The wonder of the fevered dream is as great as the trespass against it; the forceful step of the uninvited. Lo, the meandering song transcends the violent glory! Through bliss and the valley of its passing, I came to know you well; the moment, the moment, the moment… up with every down. Here we remain, in the eye of silence; the mercy of sorrow, the joy within pain, the lens through which all things pass, still and untouched, Alive!

"Totem"

There came a moment (as they often do) when I was greeted by tears in the midst of creation. Although, this time felt different. Out of my hands, the tears fell. I groveled, but of joy; humility. As though peering through the universe, not of it, but outside, there was a hole in reality. And there you were.

A child fearful, looks up to his Father.

"Aphrodite Dressing Her Hair"

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"Aphrodite Dressing Her Hair" Tripoli, 2015, oil on canvas. 

You pulled up the root and

Nothing was there

A glimpse, a flicker

Periphery whispered

Settled on

Your name

"The Enlightenment"

A wedding reception:

Christened with wine and light strung in lines;

Bacchanalia and Christ.

We tasted, sipped each glass,

Back and forth, sweet and sweeter.

She spoke “I AM” and wine turned into water.

We slipped through the crowd,

Above the spiral stairs.

The land stretched toward impossible mountains.

Serene and green, awash in seas of gold,

Behold, the bloom, Mimosa;

The misted breath of rest

For all who would attain it.

The children know our hearts.

Little Forest; Paradise, Angels;

All bowed to the wind.

We felt the edge;

The limits of our nature

Plunge and ascend.

“You called my name.”

“And I answered.”

"Damnatio ad Bestias"

What does evenness suggest?

I am a prism, aware of the light.

Three times a failure, four times a winner.

What does the elderly couple talk about at dinner?

The limits of quiescence. The end of the flesh.

-The fly was as much God’s child as they were-

We’re rolling now. Tumbling, tumbling.

Tender leaves, whispered things, angel wings.

O beautiful daughter, astonished, bereaved!

Kali praying at her feet; the Lion peaked. 

"Girl-Boy"

CD: "Collaboration has to be the key theme. The way we approached it is unheard of. Challenging other artists to be willing to wade into other mediums with another artist is a big deal. I think that would be something I try to get across.

The other, and for me every bit as important, is that having Parkinson's and other movement disorders doesn't mean you can't be creative. If the right person (you) can see a certain level of talent, it's almost an obligation to reach out. I truly believe that if you didn't see something,  this show wouldn't be happening. 

An established artist has a lot on the line. They're name and reputation are at stake. I think we're throwing down the gauntlet to a very cocooned art community. I think our age difference adds even more to the table. We SHOULDN'T have anything in common, but we have a lot more than people would know. 

An admiration of each others work AND work ethic was critical to all of this happening, but we can't share our warped sense of humor and make each other laugh. 

We're serious artists dammit."

http://www.chuckdooms.com/

"One Man's Trash"

JT: Your interpretations are spot-on. The darkness that surrounds some of these pieces is tangible and you are entirely accurate in depicting them that way. But as you’ve said, you start at the edges and work toward the center. The center is always light. That is what I want the viewer to take away from this experience. The ultimate realization that in all darkness, there is light, untouched, unconquerable, forever shining. I feel that understanding when I look at so much of your work. You don’t ignore the darkness, but instead see the reality of that darkness: as an image. Not real, fleeting, inconsequential, laughable even. I see a man unafraid and sure.

I want you to know that you can do no wrong here. There is no need to feel any pressure. Don’t see me as highly regarded, or more experienced, or superior in any way at all. Our nature is one. Just enjoy. By leaving behind any notion of future or past, we can focus instead on the reality of this moment being utterly perfect and only becoming more so. This show is going to be great. There is zero doubt in my mind. When we’re working together, doing our best, with a good heart and with the best intention, how could it be otherwise?

"Fetishist"

Oh that feeling; fidelity in color...

Red ribbons and hair, gold meadows and sun, black streamers behind us.

Stillness in the mind of wind. So many coats cannot hide you;

I can see the breeze in your smile, whatever blue the note may seem.

The peaks and troughs of waves breathe color and form

Through endless lines, the breathless mime: Death!

Herself, the Harbinger of things we have seen

Fulfilled and yet desired, holds us even as we falter,

While we stand devastated, transformed and transfixed.

How can we stray?

The end is as beginning: contractions, open and closing.

Sweet smokescreens never shrouded the bather,

No matter the scent or color the matter,

The kiss of winter has never moved the sun.

"The Sirens (R)"

I was driving by Taco Bell (R) one day and as I watched my mind I heard the sweetest, most enchanting song calling from within it's walls: "Come! You're hungry and you've worked so hard. You deserve this! Let us please you. We're so delicious and we want YOU!" I saw the bones at their feet, the crimson tide. I tapped my baton and waited in silence...

"You've Never Known Another"

***

You’ve never known another. You’ve never known another.

***

A beautiful day. Cool breeze, warm sunlight. New life. Why do you cry? You’ve done everything in your power to deserve this. Thankful, determined, empathetic, kind. You’ve done everything to deserve this. Grateful melancholy, constricted freedom, tempered bliss.

What sword is dulled by flesh?

A dream of waking. The corner of some dark room in a house I do not know. My consciousness incorporeal, unbound, lazily searching. Panic. The room swelled, pregnant with fear, a myriad birth of terror. Strange plants and fruit. Mirordered spiders deep and wide.

There I recalled: disembodiment, impenetrability, safety. My consciousness remembered the body, abandoned in the corner of some dark room in a house I do not know, sleeping softly, unaware, and unharmed. The fear that burst into being revealed the façade:

“I am not the body;” a passing delusion, an impossibility.

My consciousness rejoined (unlimited to) the body and cast the exact opposite of a shadow in every direction. An aura untouched, projected the sphere. Eternal, my core, transcendence. At the limits of my emanance, a slow fade, graduated into darkness: the spiders, the webs, and the fear...

Here in (remembrance) the darkness,

the fear had never really existed.

Here in the darkness, here and there,

are little spheres of light (never so far apart)

and spiders weaving webs.

Simply living. Natural, beautiful, and perfect.

It was not real. It was God.

***

"It Stirs"/"Bearless"

It stirs, stillness moved to empty tears;

Grief nor joy a painted color, but

That which can’t be uttered

A dream beyond this life

An infant heav’n returns to womb, to witness

The births and deaths of countless dreams

Each blessed and cursed with separate breaths

Counting each confounding beat

Until each beat has sounded.

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"Pulling Hair"

***

Apocalypse. Jaguar melting.

Graveyard of skin. Whistling bone.

Quenching flame. Cleansing renewal.

Uncompounded. Circle of light.

***

Fundamentals

The artist walks a tightrope. A game of balance: expression and the inconceivable. The manifest and temporal, the medium and means. Against these fundamentals, the artist plays the weight of counterbalance. The precious “Other,” the mountain that levitates beyond duality, beyond existence; he draws upon himself with an awareness that cuts like a sword.

The line reflects the perception of mind in the witness. Form is granted, color bequeathed, light and shadow arrayed in awe.  Just as a building, monumental in scale, occupies a perception of great expanse and time, not an iota of space or time is obstructed in its view.  The infinity of space, the lack of time; here, within, the artist rests.

The artist is less an “artist” and more like art itself. This understanding is where we are all headed. Nothing is lost, nothing is gained. Once you’ve seen him; simultaneously horrifying and the greatest thing that’s ever happened. The bird keeps singing… “Here and there, I rest and watch. Here and there, I rest and watch.”