Dream Garden of Unknown Skye

Dream Garden of Unknown Skye

Of Cosmic Horror and Delight

In the dream garden, the flowers speak
A language only the brave dare seek
Their petals pulse to an ancient beat
Secrets flowing like nectar, darkly sweet

The trees, sentinels of magic and light
Branches mapped from fallen starlight
Leaves whispering tales of solar decay
Where spiral galaxies twist and fray

In the dream garden, moonlight bleeds
Across obsidian waters where memory feeds
Reflections fracture, dimensions bend
Gateways to realms where certainties end
Auroras weave their venomous song
A chorus of fates where all belongs wrong

In the dream garden, comets carve
Elegant wounds through skies that starve
For light—a crown of lethal splendor
The cosmos curves, both harsh and tender
While nebulae birth and nebulae consume
Dreams flowering in celestial doom

In the dream garden, time's river tears
Through golden veins of numberless years
Its movements lawless, ruthlessly free
Consciousness ripples through phantom seas
Where memory collides with what may be
Truth dissolves in prismatic decree

In the dream garden, mountains of fire flow
Planets sway while void forces grow
Silver keys forged in bloodberry fields
Turn locks only elder wisdom yields
Gods stumble from their cosmic thrones
Drunk on wonder, terror in their bones
Their dream quest of sublime dread and grace
Forever collapsing what we wrongly call space

— Dean Bowman

About the Work

Author's Note: This poem emerged during a period when I found myself returning to the speculative fiction that shaped my early creative life. I rarely write in long-form rhyme, but something about the imagery demanded it. I was reading psychedelic and surreal poets at the time—though their names now elude me. What remains is the impulse: to write something cosmic, strange, and disorienting. Originally published online, the piece was removed when I left Medium in 2023.

Inspiration: The poem draws from Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, particularly Randolph Carter's journeys through the Dreamlands—a mythic dimension accessible only through sleep. Like those stories, it offers no fixed interpretation, instead inviting readers to find meaning in its layered visions. That ambiguity felt necessary. It mirrors dream terrain: shifting, suggestive, often unresolved.

Process: This was slow work. The structure resisted me for months. I'd return in fits—write a few lines, then abandon them for weeks. I've learned not to force such pieces; when they finally arrive, it's because I stopped chasing and started listening. The rhyming format challenged me, as it's not my usual mode. But the form shaped the voice. What began as an experiment evolved into something dark, mysterious, and strangely playful. It's one of the few poems where I felt less like I wrote it and more like I stumbled into it.

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