Her eyes shine through my darkness like galaxies, Starfields illuminating the darkest reaches of my being, Ancient constellations stitched through wounds left unnamed, Their silver language quieting the storms that I hide in my mind, In Amber’s gaze, the night bends softly toward mercy, And even the shadows seem reluctant to remain, For where her light gathers, forgotten chambers awaken, Dust-covered hopes stirring like embers beneath cold ash.
I have grown cold, hardened by loss and the ravages of time, Hued from cold black granite, weather-beaten, broken but true, A monument shaped by tempests no hand could shelter me from, Edges worn by grief, yet refusing surrender to ruin, The years have carved their silence deep into my bones, Leaving echoes where warmth once lingered unafraid, Yet beneath the stone, beneath the fractures and the frost, Some forgotten ember in me leans still toward her distant fire.
For she is with me, and I with her, eternity will have to wait, We dance together at the edge of the deep green ocean of sleep, Where dreams drift like drowned stars beneath a moonless tide, And silence folds around us like velvet curtains drawn by unseen hands, The dark no longer hollow, but rich with whispered tenderness, My bride’s breath is a lantern glowing faintly against endless dusk, As though time itself pauses to watch our fragile orbit turn, Two weathered souls suspended between ruin and becoming.
Should morning call us back with its pale and restless hands, Still I shall carry her constellations beneath my fractured ribs, A hidden firmament burning softly through granite and grief, For love, once kindled in darkness, learns the language of enduring.
The stillness of a winter morning, Awakens with cold and sharp clarity, The night before brought such melancholy, That lingers still in the frost like memory, Its quiet ache suspended in the pale air, While rooftops wear the silver breath of dawn, And bare trees stand like solemn witnesses, To thoughts left restless in the dark, Now softened beneath a brittle light, As silence gathers in the waking cold.
There is a hidden fracture in the world, A gaping wound leaking black emptiness, Where the infinite darkness of the void seeps in, Slowly choking all light and love, Soon, a great plague of sorrow will cover the land, From raging sea to distant mountain, Blacking out the earth into a deathly silence,
Under full moon ten wolves came skulking, With silent step and black fur hulking, To infiltrate a village sleeping, For its children they came reaping.
Some were devoured and two brothers were taken, Back to their den where they’d awaken, And feed upon the savage teat, Of mother made of fang and padded feet.
Hidden beneath an old dead tree they wallow, Nurtured beasts in a cave-like hollow, Growing with time into wolf-like men, Worse than wolves, when they left that den.
In the deepest forest where a cottage hides, The brothers killed two men but spared their brides, They claimed this den and the women within, To make them their own and breed their kin.
News reached the castle from across the land, A tale of wolf-men and their carnivorous clan, The King was disturbed by this horrific event, And to the shadowed wood his finest were sent.
With silvered blades and torches bright, Six brave knights rode through the night, Through twisted briar and raven’s cry, Beneath the pale and watchful sky.
They found the cottage black with dread, Its doorway stained a sullen red, Where the brothers rose with a sinister grin, Human without but beast within.
When dawn at last embraced the glen, No howl remained of wolfish men, The women freed from fear and grief, Were led to warmth and sweet relief.
So ends the tale the old tongues tell, Of wolves that dragged two boys to hell, And knights who rode where nightmares tread, To keep the living from joining the dead.
“The Werewolf or the Cannibal” Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1512
Warm is the golden sun that rises, Over eucalyptus and cypress shadow, Across night frosted lawns beginning to melt, After the long night, a new day is born, There is a cool sharpness to the air, A calm silence throughout the home, Where I sit, eyes closed but seeing. A brief glow of sunlight shines through glass, It feels like a kindness, gently warming my face, Every time feels like the first. In this moment my mind feels free, I can forget the sadness of the past, And the fear of what the future will bring, In this moment I’m caught, Spellbound and suspended, Within a rapturous embrace of warmth. In this moment everything is ok, And I am enough.
Far beyond the dying waves that make landfall, Within the dark depths of unseen mystery, A watcher in the water observes mankind, With deathlike white eyes, unmoved, but all-seeing, An ancient enigma waiting below the surface, Formerly of cosmic residence, now held in a watery cell, The watcher enters dreams, accumulating secrets, Existing beneath the dark waves for aeons, Ready to arise when summoned, To spread madness and doom upon the earth.
We are hardwired to provide maximum resolution, Once there were eyes, now cameras are the solution, Life means desperation for the technologically devout, The sky outside remains dark ever since the blackout, The landscape is rain soaked where the buildings stand tall, Here, where we were nearly wiped out by a nuclear war, So many missiles, unchecked AI sub routines fired those, Using cold machine logic to destroy unknown human foes, So, this is our world now unhappily ever after, Where eyes keep recording and headsets transmit data, The wealthy moved off world, and the poor were displaced, Desperate people become cybernaughts, lost in digital space.
A journal blog post incoming, an attempt to defrag my brain, I’ll do my best to contain my rambling. The current me has been overthinking, a lot, over obsessing about all the usual nonsense even though life has been relatively uneventful, I’ve taken active measures to ensure I feel ok as much as possible, so most stress is probably of my own design.
Look, on the whole things are ok, but I seem to worry a lot more lately, often without any reason for it, I have concerns for my health (physical and mental), I worry about my wife, my family, and the future. Death has been an active thought passenger and every ache or pain felt sets my mind off, I have been seeking alternatives to the real world that don’t include chemical or liquid substances. I’m escaping reality where I can and this has really helped. For a few years I have actively avoided the media and have recently limited my social media exposure, which is having a positive effect. The usual trappings of sadness still creep in, feeling old, ugly, fat, useless and out of touch with the world, these are things I can’t hide from, but I will give it a bloody good try.
Escaping the outside world seems to be all I want to do, the current me feels lost in dystopian sci-fi again, particularly the books of William Gibson, his Sprawl Trilogy audiobooks have been on repeat because I’m too lazy to read lately, and the video games I lose myself in for hours have also helped suspend belief that the real world exists. I feel a hypocritical complaining about the modern world, of the advances of AI and how it has killed the arts, yet I hide neck deep in sci-fi like I’m a small child who has fallen into a ball pit, I don’t get me at all.
With the approach of summer, I’ve noticed I’ve been drinking more and that I need to knock it off for a while, but it is an indicator that my mind isn’t where I need it to be. My social anxiety is overclocking right now too, any time I’m forced visit the city for work an event, I am physically sick before stepping out the door, followed by a day of depression and paint peeling anxiety levels, this weighs on me until I escape back to our home in the country. A contributing factor I see, as the year ends, is that the world feels like it’s in turmoil, it feels too fast, spiralling, people in public places being aggressive, openly violent, unhinged, many peaking on chemicals, all glued to phones, everyone feels desperate, money is tight everywhere, it costs so much just to get by, it is all rushing and many just aren’t coping, there doesn’t appear to be any relief in sight. It feels like the worse parts of Christmas Eve shopping madness but every single day, pure speeding chaos.
I guess I see why the current me is lost in Gibson’s Neuromancer, the dystopia feels real, it fits nicely into our current timeline. People all seem plastic, fake, all outraged about things that probably don’t directly affect them, nobody seems genuine, it makes me feel old and confused, little makes sense anymore, it is a depressing cocktail. Well, I can’t deal with it so I’m running from reality before I (over)think too much about it.
A friend of mine has been experiencing the very same emotions, his dystopic drug of choice is the film Blade Runner from 1982, among other things. He has recently invested in VR and has found some success finding peace off world. Perhaps the advertisement from Blade runner is true, “A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!”
We’re both artists, well, him more so than me, but we’ve both been struggling to comprehend the current world, its people, and how we fit into it. In these stressful times most believe they’re a superstar, glued to their devices, posting, posing, obsessed with athleticism, money, success, appearing as avatars of themselves. With Blade Runner in mind, I can’t help but think we’re going to need a Voight-Kampff machine to locate anyone with a shred of empathy left out there. Maybe my recent thoughts that the film The Matrix being our currently reality has some truth to it.
I’ve decided to take the VR colony ship off world too and join my mate. Like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, we’ll be two old weirdos in VR goggles complaining about how annoying modern world is, while hypocritically relaxing in a digital one that has been made a reality by it. Time to wake up Neo wherever you are and save the real world so we can all come home.
The wind blows the grey gum trees outside my window, Reminding me of the ocean in the distant south, The sound is like waves crashing on a beach, A brief rain shower falls on the green spring grass, Activating the scent of a fresh countryside morning, The sun is rising over the tree line now, And, as the gum trees bend and sway in the north wind, An orchestra of birdlife swells into an overture, And the country awakens.
Nobody cares about what you’ve done, Do not hark on prior glories, Because people only like to hear, About themselves and their own stories, None of us are anything special, But some think that they’re more, Than rotting flesh beneath the ground, Or breakless wave upon the shore.
Dan Verkys 