The Plains of Lhee

For many years I travelled far upon a ship of sleep,
My body ageless, kept alive,
While I in conscious dreams survived,
My destination distant stars,
I rode upon a wave of hope and left a dying Earth.

Aeons passed as if in days as I in perfect slumber lay
Yet finally my vessel stayed,
Orbiting a yellow globe,
The seventh round a seventh star,
A soulless, barren, deathless world –
For what need is there for Death
Where there is naught to die?

For thirty days and thirty nights I looked throughout this land
For signs of life: I searched in vain
Yet nothing in this place remained,
This sere and broken sun-bleached plain,
These cursed Plains of Lhee.

And then a light, and then a ship, a mirage seemed to be,
A-sailing on a long-dried sea
That split the arid Plains of Lhee.
Like moth to flame, this eerie craft,
Seeming drawn to me.

A song of silence deafening from this strange skiff arose,
Through every sinew of my being
Pulled me forward, beckoning,
A siren-song drew ever on,
I followed at the call.

All dead, all dead the passengers, all dead lay all the crew,
Their withered corpses alien
In shape and face to me and yet
One thing transcended all of this
And etched into my eye -
A sense of sheerest horror at the moment that they died.

Bodiless, I lingered long upon the Plains of Lhee,
Longtime ago decayed to dust,
And join that savage crew, I must,
But one last task remains -
Unfettered by constraints of time
And space I cast my conscience wide,
To find a writer’s ready hand
To pen this tale of mine.

The Ship of Dreams (image)

The Ship of Dreams

(Inspired by the song 'Mindsleep' by Naseby Crossing)

"They stand on the platform life. Sometimes one, sometimes many: the hopers, the sleepers, the disillusioned dreamers. Their dreams are beacons in the dark of the blackest nights, and, as they watch, a mist forms on the horizon. Out of the mist sails a ship, from ...a land beyond lands. No ordinary vessel, this. No wind to fill its sail, powered only by their hopes and fears.

They board, one by one: the old man, the child, the star-struck lovers. As the gangplank is raised the ship departs, making its perilous journey across the Seas of Lethe to the Land of Dreams, beyond the Veil of sleep, the place where dreams take flight. As the boat rocks gently, the song of the siren lulls them into mindsleep. There is a long way to go before morning."

By far the most complex piece I've attempted, taking 2 weeks from concept to completion. A mix of 3d, Photoshop and photo manipulation.