Creator / imaginer: Dabbler in art, literature and sound.
In a forest glade, several bodies lay,
Half buried by a killer,
He comes back each week,
To take a peek,
At the trophies he has made.
They lay there dead, in a mushroom bed,
Arranged in his secret place,
Where only killer and forest know,
About his trophy bones,
And the madness in his head.
Thunder rolls through late-night air,
The power is cut, a home is left in darkness,
It simmers in the residual heat of the day,
A weary sleeper tosses and turns,
Lightning flashes through an open window,
Rain pours down, as the wind shakes the trees,
Tonight will not be restful,
Dogs bark madly, they echo in the distance,
As thunder cracks and churns above,
Sweat beads on the forehead, restlessness,
Sudden silence, as the rain and wind cease,
The lightning and thunder disperse instantly,
All dogs are hushed, but the heat remains,
Within the restless sleeper, the nightmares endure.
Awake, but still dreaming, his eyes open to the sound of an ocean,
Unable to move, paralysed, his bed is afloat on a vast churning sea,
His face is cold and wet from wind and ocean spray, as he drifts,
The bed is unsinkable, it rides atop undulating waves,
As it mounts the crest of an enormous wave, the ocean falls still below it,
The waves quickly dissipate, and the bed comes to a halt,
Now in still waters, the bed finally begins to sink, falling away from him,
Leaving his buoyant body floating unaided on a waveless sea with no land in sight,
The sun rapidly falls, and is replaced by the brilliant light of a full moon,
After what feels like an eternity, his body slowly begins to sink,
As if gently pulled below the water by invisible hands,
As his face submerges, the water surface freezes over instantly,
His paralysis suddenly releases, and he begins to struggle, fighting for his life,
He is pulled along by an undercurrent, as he bashes against the inescapable ice layer,
Panic washes over him as he battles to access the air above the ice,
But he soon succumbs to the cold and the water, his body floats motionless,
His glazed eyes peer through the cloudy ice, up at sparkling stars above,
As his body begins to silently sink down into the black ocean depths,
His arms and legs float up before him, as he plummets into the deep,
All light eventually fails, but he realises something isn’t quite right,
He becomes calm as he realises that there is no longer a need to breathe,
He slowly rolls his body over to face the ocean floor,
As he sinks, he faces a black nothingness that disappears in all directions,
He continues his descent, as countless time passes,
Far down in the inky depths below, he can see an orange light glowing,
He closes his eyes and allows the weight of his body to carry him down to the light,
Upon opening his eyes, he sees light pouring from the mouth of a massive skull,
The gaping mouth burns with an unnatural flame, that engulfs him as he enters,
After passing through the enormous burning cavity,
He’s now surrounded by the cool flame, and he continues to descend,
His speed increases, as the underwater flames lick at his face,
The cavernous space narrows into a small opening ahead,
He manages to angle himself enough to pass through it,
He soon feels himself burning through light and time, before being regurgitated,
Spewing forth from a giant waterfall, that spills into a fine clear lake,
After an ungraceful landing, he swims for the shore,
As he pulls himself on to the stoney bank the ground begins to rumble and shake,
The earth begins to collapse around him, landscape and lake fall into nothingness,
A desolate world being swallowed by a black emptiness,
The ground gives way beneath him, and he tumbles into the darkness,
He falls screaming, his face is peppered by surface remnants,
This new descent lasts so long that the cool air has time to completely dry him,
Suddenly, a pure burst of white light erupts from below like an explosion,
He averts his eyes to protect them, but the brightness engulfs him,
Now blinded by light, his spinning fall comes to an abrupt stop, and he opens his eyes,
To find himself staring at the ceiling of his own bedroom.
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.
Falling from the distant stars through time itself,
Into the deep cool waters of an ancient land,
Lost to all memory, a forgotten numen beneath the waves,
As eons pass the subsiding waters form a vast wasteland,
Miles of desolate emptiness, and beneath these ancient sands of time,
The star fallen sleeps, imprisoned within the dark restraints of dreams.
A Darkness Comes
A second darkness falls with the night,
Slipping behind my eyes from the afternoon shadows,
A thick, greasy film that stinks of fear and sorrow,
It’s a foreign invader, the embodiment of sickness,
Although symptoms are common, at night they feel extreme.
It comes when I’m alone, painting fearful images.
No matter how I try to cope, the torment continues,
It enters my sleep, and pours in thick black nightmares,
Voices tell me I’m dying, whispering sweetly in my ear,
A pain here, a cough there, it has me in its icy grip,
The only thing that combats it is company, distraction, or morning.
Tomorrow it will regroup and return with a vengeance,
For another night of torment, grief, and torture,
My mind can’t rest, the darkness feeds on fear,
I’m not alone, millions of people greet this stranger nightly,
But that doesn’t help me when I’m struggling to sleep,
Where it pokes, prods, and toys with my emotions,
The morning light banishes the beast, forcing it to flee,
Until we battle again tomorrow night, for control of me.
Deep within yourself break the waves of a vast black ocean,
It stretches beyond all time and space, capped by a star-filled sky,
In its fathomless depths, exists the end of all mankind,
Doom slumbers there, tentacled and terrible,
Kept silent for eons under waves, since falling from the sky,
Something within the darkness now stirs, an awakening,
Ice cold is the ocean and countless are her secrets,
Nothing is lost forever, the titan will soon awaken,
For you are no longer its keeper.
Under knotted storm clouds and blackened night-soaked seas,
Ancient stone columns plummet countless fathoms to the darkest ocean depths,
Beneath the coral covered chancel of a long forgotten holy place,
A white leviathan’s eye, stares blindly upwards to the distant surface,
Forgotten by time, the sleeper beneath the waves has awaited the call,
The somnambulistic god of the old world impatiently stirs in the inky darkness,
When called from slumber, the creatures answer will be final,
In its throat the reply awaits, death, total doom, absolute devastation.
On a beach, incantations can be heard among the crashing of the waves,
For the stars are out tonight as death cult followers summon their leviathan god,
With his rising, the sea rumbles and floods, destruction is unleashed upon the world of men.
Cities are annihilated by waves, and sunlight is blacked out by ash from erupting volcanoes,
The lands freeze, and not a soul is left to witness the creature’s cosmic departure.
All is lost in its wake, a dead planet slowly revolves through the cold darkness of time.
The gaping mouth of the waterfalls is forged by the river of lies, which flows with the tears of the suffering, the falls flow constantly, even below the surface.
Liars float above the current, greedily feeding on their victims, before bathing fat and bloated on the shore.
The deceived are drowned beneath white capped waves, held heavy with the chains of loyalty that shackle them.
Their broken bodies are weighed down by great stones of deceit, before being swept over the falls, discarded onto the rocks below.
Falling out of their dreams, and into the horrible reality of facing a new day’s sun.
With one last exhale, he steps from his doorstep and into the inky black darkness outside,
His body begins to rise gently in the warm black scentless air, slowly drifting up into space.
He always felt that his front door led to the end of the world, and he was correct.
Crossing his feet together, then arms across his chest, he closes his eyes and lets the drift take him,
Within moments he’s in the atmosphere, still, no longer rising, there above the earth he hovers,
Invisible currents gently tug at him as his body floats in orbit above a bright glowing world below,
There is a serene internal warmth, a comfort, no more pain, stress, or sadness, a feeling of relief.
The glowing warmth of the sun reflecting from the earth below him doesn’t last however,
He feels himself violently tugged into the darkness behind the earth, cold and anxiety fill his system.
Now in complete darkness, he begins to fall back into the dark world below him.
There’s no heat as he re-enters the atmosphere, but he begins to freeze, blinded by ice and darkness,
Rocketing downward like a human missile aimed at his own rooftop, at impact he opens his eyes. He finds himself standing inside his home, hand on the front doorknob as he prepares to leave
Dan Verkys 