Author: Dan Verkys

Australian visual artist and dabbler in music and literature.
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Predator within

There is an unease beneath the surface,
Something unspoken lies there in waiting,
In a black hollow somewhere deep within me,
There is a discomfort when I feel it shift,
Until it resettles back into that unknown place,
I never know when that black feeling will arrive,
Secretly, it slides in cold beneath my skin,
The mask I call my face washes over pale and bleak,
When I feel that numbing icy presence, I know,
That something in my normal day has fractured,
Something dark begins to skip out of time,
Like a needle scratching across record tracks,
A personality, no longer my own, another me, takes over,
They are here with me now, cold, uncaring, menacing,
It’s unclear if that unease is a protector or predator,
But it takes me away, out of myself, into the black,
Where I am placed into a dense dark slumber,
The unease then steps forward into confrontation,
It feels like my closed eyes are still open to the void,
The wholeness of its appearance is immense,
When that darkness, that unease, that predator awakens,
All I can do is keep my eyes closed and hold the tears inside,
Until time passes, until the strangle hold slowly loosens,
And that wave passes, before breaking onto the shore,
Only then can I return to the light of the day.

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Isle of sleep

I don’t feel like myself tonight,
Aches and pains, things aren’t right,
I don’t feel like I’ve been sleeping,
For at night my mind goes creeping,
Away to another world,
To the Isle of Sleep’s black sand shores,
Where pits lay open like gaping maws,
And ground vents breath a smoky haze,
Where fire topped trees all stand a blaze,
Where is it that my sleeping mind goes,
Every night my curiosity grows,
Wherever it is the dreams don’t share,
Am I visiting hell,
Who can tell,
Perhaps I’m already there.

The Isle of sleep
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Disconnection

The disconnection continues,
Self-expression is becoming strained,
Creative stores and levels are low,
The world feels like so much weight,
It drains all energy to appear human,
Conversational connection is awkward,
Reality is being challenged internally,
Line between thought and speech is blurred,
And, as though swept away by the wind,
Thought patterns are scattered and unclear,
Effective stability, control, and delivery is limited,
A numb comfort exists within mental shadows,
This house is slowly becoming darker,
With the termination of each light,
The outside causes the system to overflow,
Retreat into the within means survival,
The disconnection continues.

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Endless Winter

A trauma lives in the heart of every survivor,
Under the skin lies a poison growing darker,
Piercing the flesh like a black metal splinter,
The earth feels caught in an endless winter,
The broken exist using the little strength found,
Fearing the new world, every click, every sound,
When mechanical noises meant instant death,
When every 3am could mean your last breath,
Do they still search the world by night as we sleep,
Or in daylight as secrets the shadows keep,
The weight of breathing, the cost of days,
Every step feels one closer to a shallow grave,
Black venom in the blood, a ghost in the bone,
Every road I walk leads deeper to alone,
Everything feels heavier, weighed down like stone,
The world is asking for strength I’ve never known,
I would drown in sorrow, if sorrow would even try,
But I’m too empty now… even to cry.

This is an Infinite Black: A Grey New World poem, visit that link to learn more.
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Dark Machinery

In the darkness we forever sleep,
Locked within her blackened keep,
Our sleeping eyes will not see,
Locked away no longer free,
In the darkness we all fall,
Past the light a distant call,
Harvested at 3 am,
Filed away, erased by them,
Our sleeping eyes cannot see,
A future where the light can be,
No more breath now, no more plea,
We are her dark machinery.

This is an Infinite Black poem, visit that page for more info.
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Queen of the Black Dawn

A short distance from the heart of the machine,
Within a black mechanical cube, she slumbers,
The Queen of the Black Dawn,
Tended to and protected,
Affixed to her mechanical throne,
She is the keeper of arcane knowledge,
Curator of a library of occult facts,
Monarch of the portal witches,
And controller of the Dream Surgeons,
Those who deliver her nightmare payload,
Into the minds of the enslaved.
She fertilises the nightmare gardens,
Growing her awful terrors for mass consumption,
Through her, all human energy is converted,
Into a black lifeblood that flows through pipes and hoses,
Invading bodies and powers this realm of shadows.
She is the receptacle for the poison that tortures,
The provider of knowledge extracted.
A sinister machine, her only purpose is agony,
The queen is answerable to only one,
That which is a part of everything,
Creator of this world,
Her own tormentor,
Bringer of oblivion,
The one beloved, Mother.

This is an Infinite Black poem, visit that page to learn more.
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Ocean of Shadow

It happened so long ago,
It feels like forever,
Another me, another time,
I stood by watching my life,
Like a black and white TV show,
I was trapped within its glow,
As I lay here thinking tonight,
I’m lost in an ocean of shadow,
Memories of another life,
Visions of another me,
Broken heart full of sorrow,
I hope for a brighter tomorrow.
I never really belonged there,
Like an invader in an unknown land,
No happiness, no light,
No strength for the constant fight,
Wounded with every retreat,
Trapped within life’s deceit,
The countless scars I carry,
Weigh me down upon the floor,
Filling all my darkest halls,
Faded places on empty walls,
Frames torn from where they hung,
Like happy old songs no longer sung,
Inside it’s empty just the same,
Consumed by some inner shame,
The crushing weight of memories chains,
Keep me down among the flames,
Back in present day I find myself,
And although I’m not alone,
I’m still holding on to that sorrow,
Waiting… hoping,
For a brighter tomorrow.

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A Fracture in the Night

Just like that, I sink back into the black,
It envelops me, devoured by dark comfort,
I no longer resist the pull, there’s no point in struggling,
It numbs all senses, it keeps open eyes closed.
It mutes all sound, it guides me down, then holds me there,
Until I can no longer breathe, the black void swallows all colour,
All life, all joy, that gaping wound that swallows me whole,
Leaving me hollow, matte black, lifeless, colourless, doomed,
It presses in without a sound, a velvet weight beneath the ground,
No pulse, no spark, no memory, just endless dark consuming me,
No voice remains, no will to fight, just fading into night,
Until I can no longer breathe, the black void swallows all colour,
All life, all joy, that gaping wound that swallows me whole,
Leaving me hollow, matte black, lifeless, colourless, doomed.
And as I feel death’s breath near, cold against my skin,
Just like that, the pressure thins, the stranglehold loosens slow,
A fracture in the night, until I can no longer breathe,
The black releases all colour, a flicker, faint and torn,
From the wound I was reborn, just like that, it disappears,
Into the light of a final day.

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The Spectre

He could feel it down deep in his bones,
Changes fundamental as if lost in the snow,
Blinded by the white light that the sunlight throws,
Forcibly upgraded, from a bird to a drone,
Here in the black, far away from it all,
Reluctantly evolving as the future calls,
From cold cave stone to circuitry,
His veins now flow with mercury.
His metal teeth hum with new lullabies,
A new world of hatred paints black his eyes,
Pressed into service that he lives to despise,
It’s the gravity of reality that he fights to deny,
He could see it way down deep in his bones,
Incompatibility with a world full of clones,
He covers his eyes as they cast their stones
Fake is the smile masking a sadness he owns,
He won’t go forward and he can’t go back,
From birth, against him the odds felt stacked,
It’s a spectre of a past him that they all attack,
He keeps the real him away, safe in the black.

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3A.M

Three a.m. the hour splits its skin,
Streetlights flicker like a dying limb,
Engines idle with a patient drone,
They come for the ones who sleep alone.
No sirens, no footprints in the rain,
Only the hush of a numbing chain,
Curtains breathe, the shadows detach,
The city exhales its body snatchers,
Cold hands, soft knock,
Time stops at the edge of the clock,
At 3A.M they carry you back,
Through the veins, through portals into the black,
To Mother, the Overseer’s iron tomb,
Where breath is traded for endless doom,
Breaking down every dream they lack,
Forged anew here within the black,
Elevators descend below the street,
Heartbeat syncing to a factory beat,
Names dissolve in a thermal haze,
Faces entombed in electric graves,
Teeth of steel hum lullabies,
Mercy coded in their lies,
Bone to powder, nerve to wire,
Feeding Mother’s sleepless choir,
No prayers, no sound,
Just the turning of the underground,
At 3A.M they carry you back,
Through the veins, through portals into the black,
To Mother, the Overseer’s metal tomb,
Where breath is traded for endless doom.
Breaking down, every dream they lack,
Forged anew here within the black.
Are we saved or erased?
Is this mercy or waste?
In her shadow we’re stripped of our names,
Reassembled as obedient frames.
3 A.M, No more skin, Let her in,
At 3AM they carry you back,
Through the veins, through portals into the black,
To Mother, the Overseer’s machine embrace,
Where flesh forgets its fragile place,
Breaking down rebuild the soul in chrome,
No one returns, but no one’s alone.
At 3A.M we carry them back,
Through the pulse of the endless black,
To Mother, whose silence never sleeps,
She harvests the promises we keep,
Break them down-turn the weak to exact,
Perfect machines, installed here within the black,
Morning comes, the beds are made,
No trace of those who slipped away,
Only the hum beneath the track,
Mother breathes… enslavement within the black.

NOTE:  A.I has been intentionally used with this project.

A new Infinite Black Soundtrack Project

3A.M is part of an Infinite Black (IB) project I refer to as Infinite Black: Artificial Reality.
The concept was simple: writing set to music — a compilation-style soundtrack inspired by the iconic film albums of the ’90s and early 2000s, where artists from different genres came together to build a sonic world around a story. Those soundtracks didn’t just support the film — they expanded its atmosphere and mythology. Learn more here.