. Poetry from The Great In-Between: Memories of the Sixties

Friday, August 5, 2022

Memories of the Sixties

 


 Press play before you read. Salute


Do the dearly departed recite poetry in the dark?
Do I sometimes channel them as I hear their words? 


This came through. 
A deep American male voice of about....well who knows!


He speaks. 
Can you hear him?

(A lone voice whispers)



Have you ever lived in a wounded ritual


It’s a lonely world in here and I still miss my best friend and lover
My wounded ritual


For I once lived in the late sixties in the Deep South


This is my short story and heartbreak just spoken and channelled through another’s beloveds mouth


My memories of the Sixties


I always wondered why we were summoned and  petitioned so cruelly by so many blasphemous names


Were we really that cursed by nearly all we met
All over those great plains


Why couldn’t we just live and sit together peacefully but bravely
Just like any other pair of the world’s greatest reunited long lost lovers


Instead of just racing blindly from judgemental villages towns or cities

And sometimes having to hide in old badly beaten caravans in overgrown fields


Aren’t we all born free to walk under a warm summer's sun


To embrace the winds of emancipation as it blows gracefully under our feet


To be firmly told by good mothers and strong fathers
Never to surrender with your dying last breath


We always ran never to be caught for we were brought up to be arduous and to never yield


Although we were doomed to a fast-moving life of constant running


Like a wild mystical stag followed blindly by his beloved deer in the unexplored depths of society's chaotic forests


We always trespassed carefully throughout humanities deepest of woods


Always trying to keep one step in front of the hate-filled hunters


The Commoners
Self-professed royalty
Politicians  
Police 

Ice queens and kings


As we ran throughout all the ever-changing seasons and all the many hot conflicting reasons  


We had our good times though since we always used to slow dance


Sometimes mentally to a lone Motown tune while hidden within secretive motel rooms


You know the ones
Those with soft music playing only two could possibly hear


The cheap wallpaper 
Filthy fans to cool the hot air and the badly worn beds and cheap wooden chairs


I still sometimes sing unconsciously to the beloved dear who still runs around my inner sun


And in this great silence wonder where does she now constantly run


We are all the sums of our wounded ceremonies
But you sometimes have to be true to who you are


For your life can’t be lived if it’s just verbally or physically torn apart


To live in freedom is something you must never forsake
For true love is sometimes so deep it's just too instinctual


Always whisper this to each other
It’s my only advice


We'll face this world
The cruel names and the fire and ice together

Whatever our fate 
For we will never break


It’s what I used to say back in the day whenever I cried or felt degraded 


When I used to kiss and softly whisper in her ear 


When that Sixties summer sun used to bow down to bless and baptise us with its life-giving rays.......


But just like invaluable memories appearing like a midnight hallucination walking slowly back into the encroaching dark shadows 


I always think of my beautiful red rose just forever lost to me 


In this new life of ever-growing hostile and dangerous contentious green meadows 


(C)
Copyright John Duffy


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