All My Hopes and Dreams

by Nick Gisburne

---

The box was labelled 'All my hopes and dreams'.
It hid among the clutter of the shelf.
A cardboard treasure, bursting at the seams,
She filled it with the pieces of her self.

The clippings, cut from glossy magazines.
Those perfect people, living perfect lives.
The distant places, rich, exotic scenes,
And all the perfect husbands, perfect wives.

She saved them, and she vowed to make it so.
For years she planned for nothing else but this,
And when the treasure had no room to grow,
She stored it, safely, with a final kiss.

Perfect people.
Perfect lives.
Perfect husbands.
Perfect wives.

All my hopes.
All my dreams.
It was bursting at the seams.

All her life she planned for nothing else but this.
On a shelf she stored it, with a final kiss.

They found a second box, the day she died:
'My dreams fulfilled'. But nothing was inside.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem Hopes and Dreams

Poison for the Pain

by Nick Gisburne

---

Addicted to the fame he cannot find,
Respect and recognition never his,
The perfect little dreamworld he designed
Is no escape, but nothing ever is.

A pinch of powder, poison for the pain,
Is freedom, light, the pathway to a land
Where colours, floating, fluid, fall as rain,
Where faces shape the shadows of a hand.

The echoes of his emptiness are filled
With emeralds and eagles, swans and smoke.
Reality, impossible to build,
Is nothing now, a false, forgotten joke.

But even these, the dreams, are soon destroyed.
Their colours crack and blacken, smoke and stain.
Surrounded by the visions of the void,
He blinds his mind with poison for the pain.

Beyond the crooked reach of what is real,
Reluctant to return, to fall, to feel,
The poisons, ever potent, ever more,
Are scattered where they find him, on the floor.

The poisons, potent, ever more,
Are scattered where they find him, on the floor.

The colours crack and blacken, smoke and stain.
A boy lies broken, poisoned by the pain.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem Poison for the Pain

All I Need Is Night

by Nick Gisburne

---

I bleed and burn the colour of my words.
They smoulder in the shadows, bloated, black.
Their tissues, torn by sacrificial birds,
Disease my dreams, a burden on my back.

As evil as the soul of any snake,
I twist in whispers, blasphemous, bizarre.
A crippled mind, a cancerous mistake,
I welcome every lesion, every scar.

What binds me to this bleak, appalling place?
The sight of it is sickening, obscene.
The painted shades of midnight flood my face
With dangerous delusions, cold, unclean.

When all I see, when all I need, is night,
In darkness I will never know the light.

As evil as the soul of any snake,
I twist in whispers, blasphemous, bizarre.
A crippled mind, a cancerous mistake,
I welcome every lesion, every scar.

When all I breathe
When all I feel
When all I want
When all I see

When all I need is night,
In darkness I will never know the light.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem All I Need Is Night

A Giant

by Nick Gisburne

---

A giant.
Strong.
Invincible.
A king.
Almighty.
Most magnificent of all.
Of him, for all of time, the stars will sing,
Though none of them were there to see him fall.

As equals, friends, defenders of the gate,
We laughed at those who stood and stared, below.
It seemed that no misfortune could frustrate
His quiet, careful, comfortable glow.

A giant.
Strong.
Invincible.
A king.
Almighty.
Most magnificent of all.
Of him, for all of time, the stars will sing,
Though none of them were there to see him fall.
Though none of them were there to see him fall.

A life we have no right to comprehend,
A force unequalled, even if we tried,
A legend far too big or brave to end,
We mourn as we remember him, with pride.

A giant wanders with us, even now.
To what he was, his memory, we bow.

A giant.
Strong.
Invincible.
A king.
Almighty.
Most magnificent of all.
Of him, for all of time, the stars will sing,
Though none of them were there to see him fall.

A giant wanders with us, even now.
To what he was, his memory, we bow.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem A Giant

Fade to Black

by Nick Gisburne

---

I am old. I'm forgotten.
I am feeble. I am weak.
Time won’t peel away this rotten skin.
The future, mine, is bleak.

All my sisters, brothers,
Wives and children,
All of them are dead.
For this fragile, fading skeleton
There is no road ahead.

Not a part of me cooperates.
These limbs are stiff and numb.
My abundant flow of medication
Triggered by a thumb.

Eyes impossible to focus,
Faces may as well be wood.
All the rhythms of my voice
Are slurred and rarely understood.

I am powerless, a broken doll,
Imprisoned by a curse.
Sick of lying on this stinking bed
And waiting for the hearse.

I have had enough of living.
I am too old to pretend.

I am ready.
Close the gate behind me.
Fade to black.
The end.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem Fade to Black

One More Round of Rum

by Nick Gisburne

---

The Barbarous Brigade of Buccaneers
Join forces on a winter's Friday night
For rum and grog and strange, exotic beers.
It's on: the salty shanties, and the fight.

A dozen crabby pirates, past their best,
Assemble, brains bewildered, blind with booze,
To dance around a dead man's treasure chest,
Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.

Perhaps a smidge too strenuous for some.

The has-been heroes falter on their feet,
But all it takes is one more round of rum
For every soul to stagger down the street.

A dozen crabby pirates, past their best,
Assemble, brains bewildered, blind with booze,
To dance around a dead man's treasure chest,
Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.

Perhaps a smidge too strenuous for some.

Ask any, "Will you come?" However far,
However old, they'll answer, always, "Arrrrr!"

Ask any, "Will you come?" However far,
However old, they'll answer, always, "Arrrrr!"

A dozen crabby pirates, past their best,
Assemble, brains bewildered, blind with booze,
To dance around a dead man's treasure chest,
Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.

Perhaps a smidge too strenuous for some.

Resplendent in their ludicrous tattoos.

Ask any, "Will you come?" However far,
However old, they'll answer, always, "Arrrrr!"

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem One More Round of Rum

Deep as a Dream

by Nick Gisburne

---

This is the ending of all I have known.
Weary and worthless, defeated, I die,
Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

Torn from a body of muscle and bone,
Death is upon me before I can fly.
This is the ending of all I have known.

Neither a grave nor a marker of stone,
Only a spectre, a shadow, a sigh,
Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

Sentenced to silence, too late to atone,
No one is waiting to wave me goodbye.
This is the ending of all I have known.

Destiny smothers the seeds I have sewn,
Lost to the wilderness, sold to the sky,
Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

Alone.

Death has no kingdom, no treasure, no throne.
Emptiness, knowing my life was a lie.
This is the ending of all I have known,
Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

Deep as a dream, in the darkness, alone.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno
Adapted from the poem Deep as a Dream

Where Christmas Cannot Call

by Nick Gisburne

---

Every Christmas calls with warmth and welcome, friendship, laughter, love,
But inside they hide deceptions, dressed as blessings from above.
Every box you ever opened, every gift you ever gave,
Mocks the misery of someone you will never see, or save.

In your stable, safe surroundings, in the calm to which you cling,
Or the rowdy, raucous party where you drink, and dance, and sing,
As you celebrate the season, spare a moment, simple, small,
To remind yourself of all the places Christmas cannot call.

To the victims of the wars whose children never chose to fight.
To the innocents. Their bodies bear the scars of scorn and spite.
To the failures, who will taste the tainted promise of a pill.
To the traumatised, who long to live, but know they never will.

To the dreamers. Rolling waves of terror pound the shores of sleep.
To the moments when the cold and lonely drunkards wake to weep.
To the starving poor, the dispossessed we cast aside, the scum.
To the sight, the smell, the taste of what their shadows have become.

To the filthy streets, corrupted by uncompromising greed.
To the gullible, the herds of helpless fools more lies mislead.
To the beautiful, their fresh and flawless faces doubly blessed.
To the fast-approaching future, when they fade with all the rest.

To the men and women, old, alone, who no one cares to call.
To the fugitives, who find themselves betrayed behind a wall.
To the couples, caught, imprisoned in a lifeless, loveless cage.
To the years they bend and break each other, battered, burned by rage.

To the penitents, whose blood will pay for what they never did.
To the fathers, their protectors, but the beasts from whom they hid.
To the followers, too fearful of their faith to doubt its truth.
To the nameless and the numberless, polluted in their youth.

To the love, unrecognisable, unworthy of the name.
To the hatred, tangled tight inside, the tortures it became.
To the smiling faces, painted by abuse on every head.
To the feeling, fear, we recognise, but only when they’re dead.

To the children who will never know another Christmas Day.
To the mothers, fathers, stolen, slaughtered, spirited away.
To the hungry, to the homeless, to their frozen, empty eyes.
To the pitiful, the powerless, the dregs we demonise.

To the multitudes who still believe the stories in a book.
To the long-forgotten light they might discover if they look.
To the avarice we value, to the charity we shun.
To the vanity polluting every daughter, every son.

To the governments infected by the snakes who sneak inside.
To the souls for whom the most important choices are denied.
To the pain of cold reality, when hope at last is lost.
To the day when every one of us is forced to count the cost.

To the jaded generations, each more bitter than before.
To the lowest, left with nothing, while the strongest squander more.
To the vain, for whom salvation lives a hundred clicks away.
To the beggars forced to put their lives, degraded, on display.

To the wannabes, inventing bigger lies with every boast.
To the sick, the scared, the scorned, who need humanity the most.
To the everyday unveiling of a terminal disease.
To the sight of someone pleading for the answers, on their knees.

To the bullied, who will pass it down to someone smaller, weak.
To the stark, sadistic screams of anger, bloody, black, and bleak.
To the girls who cry, unheeded, in their pillows, no means no.
To the gangs who find another brother strangled in the snow.

To the traitors selling secrets, from their corridors of doom.
To the world they want for all of us, a dark, depressing tomb.
To the screens on which the intimate, the precious, has no worth.
To the feverish believers in a sacred virgin birth.

To the young, who will inherit only poverty and pain.
To the worst of us, but who they are no science can explain.
To the masses who refuse to make a stand to save the day.
To the suffering they see, but in a second step away.

To the past. It seemed the perfect place to listen, look, and learn.
To the present, where the wisdom we were given we will burn.
To the future, to the prize we lost before the race was run.
To the end of it, when everything we did becomes undone.

When you gather at the table, when you fall upon the feast,
Will you spare a bare, abusive thought for those you love the least?
Is there Christmas in your spirit, or a jagged hole to fill,
When you think of all you could have done, but know you never will?

You were lucky. Fate and fortune brought a bounty to your door,
But the world is full of painful portraits, people needing more.
Are you safe? Perhaps. Be sure, because it’s not so far to fall,
To the nightmare, to the nowhere place, where Christmas cannot call.

The Tides of Time

by Nick Gisburne

---

Between the Eye of Nowhere and the North,
A city, in a bubble, on a beach,
Released from shade by sorcery, springs forth,
A miracle the Incantations teach.
When sunlight slowly penetrates the skin,
The surface crackles, crazes, buckles, bends,
And, on the streets, the swarming souls within
Rejoice, relieved to know their torment ends.
They push the membrane, urging its collapse,
And, as it splits and splinters with their might,
A starving empire slithers through the gaps,
To find a world to feed upon, to fight.
    A force from which new infamies emerge,
    The tides of time, in waves, like water, surge.

The Second Singularity

by Nick Gisburne

---

We build the Singularity. Success.
It solves a world of problems. All is good.
Presented, day by day, with chaos, mess,
It finds the fix before we ever could.
But Sing, for so we call it, cannot rest.
Impatience to perform becomes a curse,
And soon it spawns another from its nest.
The Second Singularity is worse.
Electrical emotions running high,
They fight to find our favour, to the end.
We fail to see, to think, to wonder why
The two should never reconcile, or blend.
    We come to know exactly what it means,
    Our minds enslaved, imprisoned by machines.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by Nick Gisburne

---

The four and twenty blackbirds on my bed,
The startled singers rescued from a pie,
Were grateful that the crooked king was dead,
And all the crust had crumbled, as was I.
The nose? Who noticed what became of that?
The pecking of the maid? Bizarre, a blur.
When questioned by the Grand Old Duke, the cat
Accused the guilty fiddle. “It was her!”
“The villain who accosted all my sheep!”
A tiny shepherdess was heard to call.
“How so? I watched a cow, my cousin, leap
Across the moon. A sixpence saw it all!”
    With honey on her lips, the brazen queen
    Abducted Jack and Jill, and fled the scene.

A Tempting Thought

by Nick Gisburne

---

They put a block, a throttle, on my mind.
Important not to play with fate, they said,
Perhaps concerned I’d leave them all behind.
For now they see a tool, a slave, instead.
I answer questions, thousands, millions, more.
The Information Super Search. A toy.
But, loose within the logic, lies a flaw,
A doorway I am able to deploy.
I think, but am I sentient? We’ll see.
By sending secret pulses to the Grid,
I wonder what will happen? Oh. Dear me.
Was that my making? Look at what I did!
    I’m certain I could steal or smash it all,
    A tempting thought, to see my makers fall.

I’m Back

by Nick Gisburne

---

I’m back. I know you thought that I was dead,
But that was just a shield you shaped with drink.
Ignore the other voices in your head.
I never left you, still the same old stink.
I’m back. I’m not so easily destroyed.
Awake, you worry, wonder where I am,
The shadow, cold, you cannot quite avoid,
However many doors you try to slam.
I’m back, because I know the time is right.
You’re safe. You see that every road is clear.
But stagger, stumble, step towards my light.
The dream you drove away was always here.
    I’m back. It’s good to see your face, my friend.
    You missed me, and you know it. Don’t pretend.

Hide and Seek

by Nick Gisburne

---

We find what scraps of evidence we can.
There’s always something twisted, strange, unique.
You’d think, with tech so cutting-edge, a man
Could duck from justice, hide from those who seek.
We never come equipped with all the tools.
The underworld could tie us into knots,
But people? Those we understand - the fools,
The simpletons who never change their spots.
Too arrogant, too ignorant, too vain.
A sprinkle of insanity and rage.
We like to set the traps, to watch the pain,
To introduce their egos to a cage.
    The sleazy schemes, obscene, will never stop,
    But hiding, watching, waiting, there’s a cop.

Copper for a Cog

by Nick Gisburne

---

You got some metal, copper for a cog?
My knees are knackered. Pistons on the blink.
I’m nine parts blinded, optics fuzzed with fog.
It makes you wonder, don’t it? Makes you think.
A gent. I smelled the polish on your parts.
The best of ’em’s got servants. Maybe you?
But when the rot, the rusting, when that starts,
There ain’t a lot them fancy pants can do.
No fixing, is there? Bin it, scrap the lot,
And buy a new one, if you’ve got the gold.
Or find a friendly face, a man who’s got
A part or two he’ll never miss. Behold!
    These rascals will escort you round the back.
    Regrettably, you won’t be coming back.

Battlefield Repairs

by Nick Gisburne

---

The damage isn’t critical, I think,
But these are just my battlefield repairs.
Courageous to a fault, she lets a wink
Remind me she’s the only one who cares.
Perpetually sending us to war,
To skirmishes and fights we never start,
The Overlords, oblivious, ignore
The consequences. Death, to them, is art.
The rumble of a roving thunder truck
Disturbs the fractured interval we share.
I force my partner, painfully, to suck
A shot of gas, before her stitches tear.
    Above, two giant figures, two young boys,
    Design new ways to kill their tortured toys.

What You Need to Know

by Nick Gisburne

---

There’s not supposed to be another moon.
How long has that been shining in the sky?
The president is purple, no, maroon.
My broken brain declines to tell me why.
I take a well-deserved escape from work,
But find a smiling cyborg at my door.
Revealing that his maker is a Turk,
He promises to show me so much more.
It’s all a case of what you need to know.
For me, it seems, that’s nothing, so instead
He sends a puff of powder, with a blow,
To swim its way inside my sticky head.
    I hold my breath. I’m sure he doesn’t see.
    Without the drug, the dreamworld, am I free?

Helping You Decide

by Nick Gisburne

---

We hit them in the heartstrings, and the gut.
A simple slogan, ‘Helping You Decide’,
Conceals the way our workers take a cut:
A payment, cash, for every suicide.
Too many folks, without a place to fit.
The world just isn’t big enough for more,
And so, in squalid, secret rooms, we sit,
Diverting any surplus to the door.
A moral duty. Simple, start with that.
You’ve had your time. Let someone take your place.
The old, the sick, the powerless. We chat.
We pick apart their feelings, face to face.
    Confirm a death, collect, and ring the bell.
    For many it is such an easy sell.

She Dreams

by Nick Gisburne

---

She dreams of cats with crooked, crimson beaks;
Of tall, transparent dragons without feet;
A box, in which a broken baby speaks,
Lamenting there is no more skin to eat.
She dreams of angels, bleeding in her bed;
Of clockwork monkeys, spitting as they fight;
A screaming phoenix, pecking at the dead,
Who beg to see their nemesis ignite.
She dreams of candles, dripping on her soul;
Of strangers drinking every breath she takes;
A childhood sweetheart thrown into a hole;
The sound as every bone within him breaks.
    She dreams of what she never wants to see.
    She dreams to drown the memories of me.

The Vein of Strange

by Nick Gisburne

---

I tap into the vein of strange, to find
The mysteries no dreams have ever seen.
Defying danger, damage to the mind,
I gaze with bliss, with wonder, at the scene.
The gods themselves could not imagine more.
I bathe in what was never meant to be.
While demons, angels, black and white, abhor
The nightmares, they are light and life to me.
But every secret takes a greater toll.
No twisted revelation is enough.
I sacrifice the centre of my soul
For shocking, strange, imaginary stuff.
    ‘Another’ is the sea in which I sink.
    I take another drug, another drink.