From Grief to Love. To Life.

 Press play.

In the blink of an eye

Life can change 

Irreversibly 

Externally

But it's what you carry internally

When your world shatters 

That matters

© John Duffy 

The Monologue of Magdalena from Herzegovina

 The Monologue of Magdalena from Herzegovina

Press play.

(A soothing female voice whispers)

O Hear me

Magdalena from Herzegovina

Charlatans abound

You know

Some say poetry is like a form of dark craft because music and poetry 

Are at their baseline 

spells that make intrigued eyes glow

But if you look deep into a King James

Magic too flows

Moses parting some sea

As someone special walked on water

Helping a blind Bartimaeus to see

So if that's not magic too using words that spells

Or even a selection of Letters 

Let us not forget turning a little water into wine

With words that rhyme 

For poetry

Stripped back

Makes its soft or hard demands and you'll listen

With wild eyes that will unconsciously glisten 

For a real poet knows

You can't bargain with it

When you enter its Colosseum

Its arena

For try as you must

You have to trust and go where it flows

For you can't fight it

Not if it has you in its tight grip 

Like the mythical sea monster 

Scylla

Who once terrorized Odyssey's ship

When he entered the Strait of Messina

 (C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Surreal Dreams

(A lone voice whispers)

I had a vision

Late one night 

I dreamt I saw my true love

Dressed in stunning wedding white

While on this life's mission 

She spoke to me like an apparition 

She said 

Put all mortal things aside and choose me above all your pride and ambition

And I will love you like Eve loved Adam

Before the greatest of falls

My dilemma is

Even though I heard her call

For she comes every night

Even though she spoke in another's language

Even though I dreamt I could once more walk with someone special and so beautiful 

Who would help me win

I remembered 

Eve cheated on Adam

Bringing sin and chaos into the world

Through temptation 

I dreamt of all of Creation

And saw how sin corrupted all nations

So each night I turn and walk away and wonder

How can this be my true love 

Who appears in my dreams from The Great In-Between 

As that ghostly apparition always pleads

Please Pappie 

Please stay

Don't leave me lonely again 

By walking away

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

 

Ever had a bad relationship?

 Have you ever had a disastrous relationship before and wondered...?

Were the dark forces at play at any given emotional traumatic moment?

Title:

Apollyon Relationships

(A lone voice ponders after a first date)

Are you my 

Morning Star

My fallen introduction

To spiritual and physical sin

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

APOLLYON reference in this case.

 

New Testament the destroyer, a name given to the Devil (Revelation 9:11)

    

The Grey Rock

I watched from afar

The ghoul who haunted me

From the wild seas of humanity 

It came like so many others

To experience The Grey Rock

Method

Birthed by so many unlucky mothers

To spread profanity and then to endure Grey Rocking

Those to kindness

Unwedded

Who never stopped talking

Copyright John Duffy 

Have you been a member of the Tribes of the Cassée?

 

Have you been a member of the Tribes of the Cassée?

(A lone voice whispers)

Like a seductive crimson arrow shot from Eros golden bow

The Moon

Mankind and all the Milky Way

Knows

When that crimson arrow hits

Your once well-planned path

Will split

And all the famous harmonies of poetry

Will lament at your door

Like falling Winters leaves

As you walk in its low country

And if you're really lucky,

You'll be hit by an arrow 

That never falls out

And makes you bleed

But if unlucky 

Doomed to fall out and grieve 

But in mournful lips

There is an exquisite gift

A new taste of a dark sensation 

A greatness to express a new world outlook 

From a tear filled Nation 

So fear not if Love's crimson arrow takes you down like an Eagle from the Sky

Your new gift to write from experience in any form

Or in a well-written book 

Might console someone new 

To the Tribes of the Cassée

To help them as their soul cries and grieves

Like someone 

Who graciously 

Once wrote this to me

When I was a lost member of the Tribes of Hemoglobinopathy

For love is a disease of the blood

And when you're broken

You'll need someone strong to lean on 

To help you walk out of its deep mud

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

(Cassée - Broken)

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Affirmation

(A lone voice whispers)

If you need something to read 

To try to avoid the last waltz before a mental defeat 

For things to settle down and become that bit clearer

While thinking about life

In a quiet moment 

Surviving all your obstacles

From dams or brooks

Read on and 

Slowly sit and look

In that mirror 

When everyone seems to have your name 

Written in black capitals letters

On their charge sheet

As you petition 

Like a plaintiff in error

Look deep into those tired eyes and remember 

When you were young and brave

When no one stood in your way

And say to those pallbearer shadows 

Roaming deep

Be on your way, 

Return to thy keep

For my fate

All my works in progress 

All my hopes and dreams of love and success

Maybe false or may come true

Or melt away like something deliquesce

Into the blue 

But the one love I keep with me deep 

Is the love of my pilgrim soul, 

Who greets me 

Wherever I sleep

For I'm but a wayfarer in life

Facing challenges 

Wherever they come 

Standing courageously on life's battlefield

With my higher self 

And all things hard or sharp

We cut in two

With bravery as our spiritual knife

For together 

Me and my eternal pilgrim soul 

Will never yield

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Theme: Infidelity and what it can drive you to do.

 

Theme:

Infidelity and what it can drive you to do.

How far would you go for revenge?

Title:

The Confession of Charlie Spanwick

(A lone voice whispers)

There was a time when I had no need to pretend

For I 

Through visiting church

With my newly found Mary 

Had discovered my illuminated friend

Who brought such bountiful faith into my life to help me keep breathing

Brought yellow bales full of hope

To keep me dreaming of a future with a wife

A house

2 children and trips to the seaside and country fairs

All the beautiful things from God's Island 

But like all things 

Shining and gleaming 

Like rare expensive diamonds 

There was a price to pay

If from the Lord's path

One swayed

So I now walk step in step

With those from the deep depths

From the long grass

No longer dreaming

Just another lost soul earning his keep

For those sitting on crooked thrones that never sleep

Pray for me

My name was Charlie Spanwick

My crime

I broke one of the seven deadly sins for a man who took my beautiful wife

And I nearly got away with it

Until the cops found my old Pa's favourite knife

For nothing breaks a person deep inside than those who cheat

And takes them on a false ride

But today 

I went to church

And found my illuminated friend

When I prayed and said 

Forgive me Lord

Save me from the Devils slave trade

For I'm just a man who once got played 

Give me a second chance

And I swear I won't get swayed

And go rushing blindly in 

Like the charge of the light brigade

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

The Sacred Tree

 

(A lone voice whispers)

I can remember now I'm seventy-five

In this nursing home called

The Atonement 

A surreal time 

When I felt so alive

A pivotal moment in my life when happiness blew 

Like a magical ruby red seed within golden leaves

Through my soul garden

Where nobody grows

And slowed and stopped to paint a priceless picture like a young Picasso 

I thought would last forever

When we caressed 

And would never die 

Up high 

In our now twin minds, 

Midnight sky

A tapestry of two hearts beating as one 

Entwined in mind

Where in time

We spoke in rhymes 

But like all golden leaves Once green

Sent from The Great In-Between 

The gold heralds a time to grieve

So now apart

We silently cry 

Me the daylight 

And She 

The crow 

Who flies at night 

With ruby red lips

Bestowed with a kiss 

To sink so many ships

And in this mournful hour In this precarious night 

As I write

Before Saint Peter

Calls me home

I leave this letter to her

Infused with powerful memories of those happy days and hours

So she knows

I'll always remember the day we first met

And each willingly received

A red rose from the sacred tree

All lovers see

In each other's enamored eyes

When with eight magical letters

They bind forever 

With a sweet romantic line

They utter

I love you

Before their beautiful relationship breaks down and stutters

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

The Oracle in the Mists

 The Oracle in The Mists 

(A lone voice whispers)

Oh, poets who write by pen or quill 

Young or old

Hear me

Does the long night bring stories of the new 

Or memories of the old

Creeping in

Calling to be written by you 

By the Eternal Temptress

Hiding somewhere 

Supernatural in the cold 

On some unseen Capital Hill 

Do you bind them up by your will 

Like a chained up Prometheus

To your wild green 

Hills of Creativity 

Hold them to account like a reborn form of Socrates

Before releasing them through your choice of quill

Until they can whisper no more when they are spilled

To be still

And lay satisfied and sated

Asleep for ages

Like an insomniac after taking a strong sleeping pill

On some pages

Until those  

New or old voices

Waiting and whispering 

Out in the cold

Call no more

But watch like sirens 

Watching Ulysses 

Standing on your luscious green hills of creativity 

Bound by your will

Waiting for your sympathetic ear

Day and night

All year round 

On the wet slippery shores

Of your minds

Right Hemisphere 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

The right hemisphere controls creativity, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skill.

Source:

Google.