Meet the cover artist for Iam Dreamfire
Phantanomaly from the UK
Welcome to the morning when you don’t wake up.
The morning after the night after the day after the life you spent moving from interval
to interval spent unconscious, waiting and waking to and from the lack of thinking,
the lack of controlling, and if you were lucky and punctual, the lack of worrying and
worrying and good god the worrying.
Look and see, safe in the knowledge that you’ll never have to open your eyes again.
Sing and hum to the tune without notes, in the chords that defy voice boxes, and never
stop because you’ll never have to pause for breath. Unshackled from the compulsion to think,
the necessity to focus, and revelling in the unity of being truly alone, what questions do you
find yourself asking?
What do you wonder now that the taboos are ashes that finally fall to the ground?
Now that the gods and deities and spirits and schemers are shadows on a cave wall,
you neither see nor care to?
Do you wonder who you are now that your shape is indigenous to the ground, and
your personality is a chemical means that has reached its end? Do you question where
you were going, and if you reached there? Of course you wonder why. Now of all times,
what else but why, and when would be more appropriate?
In the time when there was time, why? God of Gods, why? Why the darkness that made
islands of the light in life? Why the pain that crippled her until she was only limping to the
grave, bearing her scars and memories? Why the loneliness? Why the awkward silence,
the ambiguity, why so many questions that had no answers, and only made life a quest
to try and decide the answers for herself? Why were the words you spoke just breath to
the razor-winds? Why were the prayers unanswered? Why was no-one listening to what
they were hearing? And why did no-one ever answer?
And somewhere you remember that the sun is still rising on the place on the world where
you would have been, the paths you would have walked, the millions of millions of people
still asking the small questions, still seeing only the range of eyesight, and only watching in peripheral. Somewhere the rains are still kissing the battered earth above where your head could have been. Somewhere the leaves blow and dance in the breath of the world, somewhere the waves tug at the sand, somewhere the insects scurry soundlessly, somewhere they scurry over the husk that was once an ‘is’ but is now a ‘was’, erasing the ‘could-have-beens’ in a space in the world that was both always and never should have been yours.
Do you ask if, even now, loving or hating eyes watch your every move? Do you guess if what was was sculpted, intricately, flawlessly, in the image of one who is, was and may always be? Your failures, your successes, the heights of your experiences, your passions, and the depths of your depravity and weakness, was it all pre-ordained? Or was it all an accident? What is more terrifying? Why do you want to know? Why do you need to know? And why will you never know?
The choices you may or may not have made. The places you feel you’ve been to. The people you think you knew. The endless entangled lives, and all the lies that might or might not have been true, what questions can you answer? Was it all worth it? What was it all? Was it supposed to be worth anything? Was it? Did you ever know exactly what it was you were seeing? Did you believe what you knew? Did you know what you believed? Did you know what you knew or believe in the slightest what you believed?
Perhaps the only question I’d ask, now that your eyes are blind, your ears dumb, your tongue silent and your heart settled, now that you don’t look, now that you know that you don’t know, maybe for the first time ever.
Do you like what you see?
The morning after the night after the day after the life you spent moving from interval
to interval spent unconscious, waiting and waking to and from the lack of thinking,
the lack of controlling, and if you were lucky and punctual, the lack of worrying and
worrying and good god the worrying.
Look and see, safe in the knowledge that you’ll never have to open your eyes again.
Sing and hum to the tune without notes, in the chords that defy voice boxes, and never
stop because you’ll never have to pause for breath. Unshackled from the compulsion to think,
the necessity to focus, and revelling in the unity of being truly alone, what questions do you
find yourself asking?
What do you wonder now that the taboos are ashes that finally fall to the ground?
Now that the gods and deities and spirits and schemers are shadows on a cave wall,
you neither see nor care to?
Do you wonder who you are now that your shape is indigenous to the ground, and
your personality is a chemical means that has reached its end? Do you question where
you were going, and if you reached there? Of course you wonder why. Now of all times,
what else but why, and when would be more appropriate?
In the time when there was time, why? God of Gods, why? Why the darkness that made
islands of the light in life? Why the pain that crippled her until she was only limping to the
grave, bearing her scars and memories? Why the loneliness? Why the awkward silence,
the ambiguity, why so many questions that had no answers, and only made life a quest
to try and decide the answers for herself? Why were the words you spoke just breath to
the razor-winds? Why were the prayers unanswered? Why was no-one listening to what
they were hearing? And why did no-one ever answer?
And somewhere you remember that the sun is still rising on the place on the world where
you would have been, the paths you would have walked, the millions of millions of people
still asking the small questions, still seeing only the range of eyesight, and only watching in peripheral. Somewhere the rains are still kissing the battered earth above where your head could have been. Somewhere the leaves blow and dance in the breath of the world, somewhere the waves tug at the sand, somewhere the insects scurry soundlessly, somewhere they scurry over the husk that was once an ‘is’ but is now a ‘was’, erasing the ‘could-have-beens’ in a space in the world that was both always and never should have been yours.
Do you ask if, even now, loving or hating eyes watch your every move? Do you guess if what was was sculpted, intricately, flawlessly, in the image of one who is, was and may always be? Your failures, your successes, the heights of your experiences, your passions, and the depths of your depravity and weakness, was it all pre-ordained? Or was it all an accident? What is more terrifying? Why do you want to know? Why do you need to know? And why will you never know?
The choices you may or may not have made. The places you feel you’ve been to. The people you think you knew. The endless entangled lives, and all the lies that might or might not have been true, what questions can you answer? Was it all worth it? What was it all? Was it supposed to be worth anything? Was it? Did you ever know exactly what it was you were seeing? Did you believe what you knew? Did you know what you believed? Did you know what you knew or believe in the slightest what you believed?
Perhaps the only question I’d ask, now that your eyes are blind, your ears dumb, your tongue silent and your heart settled, now that you don’t look, now that you know that you don’t know, maybe for the first time ever.
Do you like what you see?
Phantessence
Phantdirection
Phantrelease
