Author: Dan Verkys

Australian visual artist and dabbler in music and literature.
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The Distant Blue Cell: A Dream Sequence

A blue cubed dream cell vibrates with a deep resonating hum,

It contains nothing but an elderly man with long white hair and blue robes,

The dream cells translucent walls glow and dim in time with the hum,

The occupant slowly and continuously paces the perimeter of the room,

The bright cube is surrounded by a beautiful deep space panorama,

The dream cell rotates, powered by the occupant’s relentless trek,

With the Earth far in the distance, the rotating cell outwardly shines,

From the surface of that planet, the cube itself appears as a distant star.

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Z is always in last place

It’s complicated to share where I’m at,

Because I don’t really feel like myself,

I feel bisected, slighted, and typically ignored,

I’m fed up, tired of everything going wrong,

I am not invisible, I matter,

Perhaps I’m unwell, does that register?

I am unhappy, old, fat and depressed,

In another fixed race where I’m in last place.

What does it take to get by easily?

I don’t need a win, I just need a place,

Where life doesn’t constantly,

Kick sand in my face.

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Yeoman of Dreams

Still awake, he spent the morning dreaming,
Over-indulging in a world he created for the purpose of escape,
Unable to do so, he became disoriented and eventually lost,
He was found drowned, washed up on the shores of the dreaming sea,
In the waking world he disappeared, and nobody noticed his absence,
For he was never fully there, his existence was semi-transparent,
He kept one foot in the present, and the other firmly in the dream realm,
Fruitful was the Yeoman, this cultivator of vast dreamlands,
He sort solace through imagination, and found comfort in the world of dreams,
A rider of two storms, but ultimately he became the master of none.

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Venomous Intrusive and Irrational

The night is warm and silent, breezeless trees stand still as corpses,
Intrusive venomous thoughts begin to enter through old wounds,
Convulsions of memory shake themselves into a distorted reality,
The familiar unwanted feeling begins to ripple itself up the spine,
Discomforts’ creeping fingers create a buzz at the back of the neck,
The skin begins to crawl, numb at first, before the unreachable itch,
It feels like a thousand tiny spiders suddenly marching across the skin,
The edges of vision begin to dull and darken into shadowy haze,
Uneasy hands begin to reach for the nearest item of solid comfort,
But it’s too late, we have arrived, the rational mind has left the building,
Now, there is only panic.

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Under a Red Ribbon: A Dream Sequence

In a small grey, empty room with no windows, a spotlight illuminates,

A wooden chair, where a thin man in a white suit sits patiently,

Grey haired and spectacled, his eyes are open and alert,

His feet are comfortable, and his hands rest gently on each knee,

A red ribbon hangs down above his head, gently moving in unseen breeze,

A white cat enters, performs one rotation of the man then exits,

Unmoved, he closes his eyes, and listens to the sound of ocean waves,

The room slowly fills with swirling cool water.

Then all light goes out.

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Are we ghosts?

Ghosts whisper on the evening wind,

They are the blurred faces of distant times,

Their energy spent, locked in hollow places,

Existing, not knowing that their time has passed,

Sometimes doors are locked that shouldn’t be,

There are times when we move unnoticed,

Moments when we’re not acknowledged,

Have we passed from the memory of others?

How can we be sure that we’re not a ghost?

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Lost at Sea

My heart feels lost at sea,
Adrift, I am directionless,
Home feels like a distant memory,
I long for solid ground underfoot,
I’m on an ocean vast and featureless,
I hear the sound of distant ships,
Focus seems impossible,
My head swims with thought,
Waterlogged and weary, I drift on,
I fight fatigue as night falls again,
I see no lights on the horizon,
No welcoming lanterns on the beach,
How long must I fight this current?
The night is cold and dark,
Not a spec of light shows,
Until the dawn of a new day,
Tears and ocean water are as one,
I drift on, keeping my head above water,
Until the day my heart makes landfall.

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Empty Kingdom

Do you hear that calling, in the midnight hour,

Can you hear the lonesome crying, of bitter tears so sour,

Far away from this place, kept by the unseen,

The restless King of hearts, awaits his absent Queen,

Her throne is cold without her, and his heart the same,

Nobody understands, their constant toil and pain,

They mask themselves to outside eyes, to hide their suffering,

These are the days of the healing Queen, and her broken King.

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Quiet at the water’s edge, The

The final rays of sunlight fall,

Golden and fading as they crawl,

At the water’s edge shadows unfold,

A wrapped body laying prone and cold,

Washed onto cold stones from who knows where,

Dumped with malice and without care,

With cold white skin and glazed blue eyes,

Staring lifeless into the darkening skies,

Silent within the suns dying glow,

Christened Jane today, her surname Doe.