Creator / imaginer: Dabbler in art, literature and sound.
Madame Sickness seeps in, like a thick black gelatinous mire,
She hangs upon every breath, and every thought,
Her weight is immense, overloading with ballast,
However, Madame Sickness is a fair-weather friend,
While she lingers, she will leave her mark,
Like teeth pressed into skin, she leaves temporary scarring.
When Madame releases you from her embrace,
She vanishes, leaving little evidence of her crimes,
She will visit you again, but never when you expect her.
I am not the night,
I am not the morning light,
I am not the earth beneath,
I am not the hope you seek,
I am unseen, yet everywhere,
I am he of greying hair,
I am one for whom no one cares,
I am just another statistic,
From a generation born fatalistic.
X
Why does part of me always seek the harshest feelings?
Why am I never content when I am at rest?
Peace arrives, but never lingers.
It is as though my mind searches endlessly
For darker paths to follow,
Unable to remain still,
Unable to be calm and content.
A relentless pursuit haunts my sleep
And shadows my waking hours.
I do not want it.
I do not welcome it.
Yet it remains.
I seek comfort in the hunt for things that bring me pleasure,
While some hidden part of me knows
That one day they will be beyond my reach.
So I collect.
I stockpile.
I obsess.
I spend.
I continue the hunt.
Everything is catalogued.
Everything is placed in perfect order.
Everything except me.
I see darkness gathering on the horizon,
And I fear the grey days it may bring.
I am no longer certain
That I possess the strength
To walk that long road back into the light.
I do not want that future,
Yet it feels inevitable.
I resent the persistence of time
And the silent murders it commits.
Time is never held accountable.
It stands before no court
And answers for none of its crimes.
Lifespan, not death itself,
Is the true ticking bomb within the mind.
There is no turning back,
Only a subtle pushing forward
By unseen hands.
Dark days may be coming.
I do not want them.
Yet still they approach.
A dreamer’s eyes open, suddenly and wide, accompanied by a gasp for air,
It feels as though the sleeper has been brought to life for the first time,
The confusion passes, and they acclimatise to this new red sunlit world,
Standing high on a dune, the dreamer looks down on a black city lit by red lights,
This world of exploration is dusty and dim, as the dreamer enters the city limits,
It seems lifeless, countless tall glossy black metallic buildings stretch upwards,
Every dark doorway is scarlet lit, there is no sound here other than the wind,
No birds sing, no sounds of human commotion, just an empty silent expanse,
The dreamer stands in the middle of a sand-covered road, paved with dark stone,
The wind whips sand into the sleeper’s eyes, as the sound of a low deep hum rumbles,
From the bowels of the earth, the dreamer feels the vibration through the road,
And as the sun begins to fall, the darkness brings sinister tidings,
From the black alcoves along the street, countless glowing red eyes appear,
The glowing eyes follow the dreamer while they cautiously walk among the black towers,
Again, the deep horn rumbles with a hum, and the sound of 1000 whispering voices begins,
The whispers are almost deafening, it feels as though they are inside the dreamer’s head,
With ears covered, the run begins, a left turn here, a right turn there, and into a side street,
Black metal streetlights line the roadway, all glowing with a vivid red glow,
In the dusty darkness at the end of the street, crooked black creatures with red eyes spill out,
They cut off any escape, they rapidly approach, driving the dreamer back towards the dunes,
The pavement soon becomes deep sand and a steep incline, where feet sink and slip,
The creatures are still in pursuit, the whispering intensifies as the dreamer struggles to move,
Coal black arms burst from the sand clutching the dreamer’s clothing and limbs,
Many unnaturally long arms clasp and pull the dreamer face down onto the dune side,
The sand below the dune begins to give way revealing an enormous gaping mouth,
Tentacle-like arms begin to drag the dreamer into the mouth from where they originate,
In an instant the dreamer is devoured, the mighty jaws snap shut before sinking into the sand,
Silence falls, the city empties, the red sun rises, and on the top of the dune,
A new pair of eyes open, suddenly and wide, accompanied by a new dreamer’s gasp for air
The cycle of the dead city of dreams continues.
You can hear me in the depths of Winter,
You can hear me in the home of elders,
You can hear me by a baby’s cradle,
You will hear me when you are unable –
To take your final breath.
I am ever present, ever whispering,
For my name is death.
Deep within yourself
Break the waves of a vast black ocean.
It stretches beyond time and space,
Beneath a sky strewn with distant stars.
In its fathomless depths
Slumbers the end of mankind.
Doom lies waiting there,
Tentacled and terrible,
Silent beneath the waves
Since the day it fell from the heavens.
Yet something stirs within the darkness.
An ancient awakening.
The waters are ice-cold,
And countless are their secrets.
Nothing remains lost forever.
The titan dreams no longer.
Soon it will rise from the depths,
And the world will remember its name.
For you are no longer
Its keeper.
From midnight hour I hear the call,
Of distant people kept in thrall,
In blood-stained desert lands they lie,
In a place where birds no longer fly,
With beliefs stuck in another time,
Committing genocide, not war but crime.
Religion is where true evil thrives,
Its bombs destroy families and displace lives.
Over the same dirt that exists everywhere,
But imaginary faith lines create despair,
A time will come soon when humanity will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Beneath knotted storm clouds
And black, night-soaked seas,
Ancient stone columns descend
Countless fathoms into the abyss.
There, beneath a coral-crusted chancel
Of a long-forgotten holy place,
A great white eye
Stares blindly toward the distant surface.
Forgotten by time,
The Sleeper beneath the waves
Has awaited the call.
The somnolent god of the old world
Stirs within the inky darkness,
Impatient after ages of silence.
When summoned,
Its answer will be final.
In its throat awaits a single reply:
Death.
Doom.
Utter devastation.
Upon a lonely shore,
Incantations rise between crashing waves.
The stars are right tonight.
Death-cult followers gather,
Calling to their leviathan god.
And from the depths,
The Sleeper answers.
The sea rises.
Coastlines vanish beneath the flood.
Cities are swallowed whole.
Volcanoes awaken,
Casting ash across the heavens
Until the sun itself is blotted out.
The world freezes.
No soul remains
To witness the creature’s departure
Into the cold reaches of the cosmos.
All is lost in its wake.
And a dead planet
Turns slowly through the darkness,
Revolving forever
Beneath the black seas of time.
The world lurches sideways,
Bringing with it
Chaos
And ruin.
Oceans shift.
Ancient shorelines disappear
Beneath walls of rising water.
Mountains erupt from the earth.
Great valleys split open.
The land is remade
In moments.
The retreating seas
Reveal forgotten terrain,
An alien world
Hidden beneath the old.
Where life once flourished,
The dead drift silently
Across poisoned waters.
Metropolises vanish
Beneath relentless waves.
Ancient creatures,
Long imprisoned
Within the deepest trenches,
Rise into a broken world.
Day becomes twilight.
Storms consume the sky.
Rain falls without end.
The old world dies.
The whispers were true.
An age has ended.
Another begins.
Whether by judgement,
Or consequence,
Humanity has reached
The end of its story.
Asleep, yet never truly sleeping,
She lies within the Black Range.
Her breath is a distant rumble,
Felt deep within the bones of the earth.
For six thousand years she has waited,
Coiled beneath stone and darkness,
Her fury subdued by the mountain
That serves as both prison and tomb.
Every crack of thunder
Is a cry from the heavens,
The voice of a distant prince
Longing for the one denied to him.
Beneath forests ancient and deep,
Beneath peaks crowned in shadow,
The Serpent Princess slumbers.
Above her,
Lightning bridges earth and sky,
A fleeting touch between lovers
Separated by the ages.
She is worshipped by the Cult of the Serpent,
Whose rites and offerings
Keep the ancient sleeper bound.
For they fear the prophecy.
They fear what will happen
Should she awaken.
Far beyond the stars,
Her leviathan prince waits.
His heart is forged from stardust,
Shadow,
And grief.
With every passing century,
His sorrow grows.
Two mighty serpents,
Fire-eyed and scale-clad,
Kept apart by those
Who fear their union.
But no prison lasts forever.
A day will come
When the mountain cracks,
And the ancient princess rises.
Then her prince shall descend from the heavens,
And together they will unleash
Doom upon the world that divided them.
Oceans will boil.
Mountains will fall.
Cities will vanish beneath fire and flood.
All life shall perish
In the wake of their reunion.
And when the prophecy is fulfilled,
The Serpents will depart.
Beyond the stars they shall return,
To the realm of the Ancient Ones,
Where time has no dominion
And darkness stretches without end.
There,
Far from the lifeless husk of Earth,
The lovers will coil together once more,
Never to be parted again.
