The Rider in the Storm

 The Rider in The Storm

(A lone voice whispers)

Hello

I still love you

As my dilated eyes have seen you

Shall I open the doors of perception

Where nothing is real and

Invite you into a

Strange marriage of heaven and hell

Will you wait for me

The Golden Man

Talking now

From beyond the silvery stars

Now living at Devil's Dam

Talking to my lambs

Sitting with JPL

And Ron

Talking about my wild love

Just working my own version of

The twenty-seven club

Here in an old Babylon

Opening old LSD new doors

Watching me as 

Mr. Mojo Risin

Taking over all the black and white dance floors

Shining like gold

In old portals

Telling my ghost song

Lit by a ring of burning fire

My old music

The wizard's new wand

Held by me

The immortal singer

Life's winds

Are blowing baby

And my wands

A singing

The Lizard Kings

Reborn to be retouched

Back on the road

Appearing in

Golden storms and through

Fire lit beautiful portals

Singing occult

Songs to still hypnotize

And preach to the listening

Mortals

For

I am The Golden Man

From beyond the silvery stars

Here to breach

All within reach

Who wants to live at

My Devil's Dam

To talk with me and my

Demons and lambs

To open old

Fire lit doors

Be seduced by my words

Used as

My golden lyre

Tell all the people

Around you

And

Will you just listen

As I relight

Your deepest desires

As I rework Old Babylon

Where we'll

Shine like gold

In old newly lit portals

Waiting with the Unknown Soldier

To appear on this

Moonlight drive bye

In these strange days until the very

End

When the music's over

And no longer plays

Will you wait for me

Under the eternal Grey Sun

To walk the soft LGBT parade

Filled

With loose L.A. men and wild women

I know

Billy the Hitchhiker came for me in

July in seventy-one

As I laid in that warm bath

Before we walked up

Devil Dams

Badly worn bridle path

After we shared a brown feast

A feast for well-loved friends

To celebrate me being down for so long

Now you know

I'm here with

Pamela

Riding the white crystal ship and thinking

She was always the one

That red-haired unhappy girl

I once met in the London Fog

When I was young

On the Sunset Strip in 1965

My cosmic partner now is in here with me

Watching the twenty-seven club play

On big screens

When I was once alive

The silk and wine

Are now together again

For true love

Can never be outrun

No matter what the Man

Or any old pagan

God's say

As long as their stories and memories

Are still sung

Under the 3 am sun

Shall I open the doors of perception

Where nothing is real and

Invite you into a

Strange marriage of heaven and hell

Will you wait for me

The Golden Man

Talking now

From beyond the silvery stars

Now living at Devil's Dam

Talking to my lambs

Sitting with JPL

And Ron

Talking about my wild love

Just

Working my own version of

The twenty-seven club

Here in an old Babylon

Copyright John Duffy    

Image shared under fair usage policy.

 

Mortality

 

As we all quietly age, one thought must surely creep into sight.

Did we embrace of talents and our life?

 

Title.

*Mortality*

 

In days of futures old

When you see your tale told

Will you judge how your life was lived
Those long days and seemingly endless nights
Of your talents and silent dreams

Will you wonder what you achieved

 

Will you wonder if your dreams came true

Will you witness if you embraced you

Before you pass to see your maker

Before lodgings are took

Before the call of life’s old rook

Will you be a king or queen of adventures

Took

Or will you be forlorn

Will you question if you choose mundane

Or instead clasp bespoke

 

Will your gifts sing to courage and chances

Embraced and redeemed

Of hopes and cherished dreams

Or will you fall by the wayside

Soon to be unseen

 

Will you wish all your quick or slowly

Taken steps

Of happiness and times you wept

Stay forever in all those you love

As you enter above

Serenaded by mourning doves

 

Instead

 

Sing a sonnet of a life taken with courage

Where you will survive the ages

Like old mages of old

 

A story to embrace by others

Until they too are old

 

So instead of stupor filled nights

Filled with rituals of the same

Remember this life isn’t some easy game

To be cheaply played

 

Don’t be waylaid with visions

Unspoken

 

Rise and cash in life’s bestowed precious tokens

And don’t just leave broken-hearted with forlorn old reveries

Unspent

 

Make your life your labour of love

So you can smile from clouds above

 

To witness the smiles and laughter

Echo through the celestial serene halls of hereafter

 

Be the captain of your own ship in the mists

Majesty of your vast empires of where you may struggle but still persist

 

*It’s how you’ll survive*

 

Copyright John Duffy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you a survivor?

 Press play.

 A piece for those trying to smile 

While walking 

The longest of miles 

Title:

The Monologue of the Survivor 

(A lone voice whispers)

I have loved my life

Called it a thousand names

As I fought through pain

All its gifts are mine

They all reside deep inside

For

I'm illuminated

I feel everything around and within me

Even when I’m defeated

I feel sacred

I bathe in the perpetual glow

Of a glorious sun

But no matter how far I wonder

No matter how far I run

My inner sun

Holds treasures for the soul

The more I give

The more I feel whole

Although I change

Physically

Every seven years

I'm indomitable

I study the splendour of my life

I celebrate the joys and pains

For my faith

Is formidable

Stranded to rhythms and

outrageous patterns of chaos

I materialize to create my own cosmos

With

Divine symmetry

Between my powers

Of inspiration and sensation

This wild life is simply my own seance

I desire the paths I walk

The side roads

Streets and byroads

Filled with newer experiences and faces

Thrill me

I offer compassionate and benevolence

To all in need

I control the Achilles' heels

Within my world

For its fears

Are irrelevant

I celebrate in the curative power of pleasure

I satisfy my hunger within its revered well

I initiate the deep free dive

To impenetrable depths

To find my blazing strength

Flowing from my crux to create new worlds

As my guardian angels wept

Love and Laughter 

Elevate me

I hail from paradise to create my sanctuary

To pay tribute to my true spirit

For its inner beauty is beyond compare

Writing

Poetry

Singing and smiling

For

I'm an original

Simply surviving

Copyright John Duffy

Are you a poet?

 Press play 

The man from Besançon

Press play.
 

(A lone voice whispers)

For although I've conquered and walked through all my dark shadows

I can still remember fragments of a time

Of been so exquisitely and extensively broken on the inside

So thoroughly painfully 

So many times

Over and over again

But still like so many others

I chose to still shine so beautifully on the outside

As that glow slowly helps to relight an old fire

On the inside

Helping me to emanate acts of kindness

In new empires of compassion

To just one 

Inspire

Within each day of this

Me starting my new life

I've finally found the courage and climbed a strange ladder

Out of the old one

Which now takes me to newer places

So I can vibrate so much higher

My glorious lights still flicker and reigns supreme

On so many ancient white altars

Illuminated by supernatural looking candlesticks

Although they may shimmer

Fluttering within view of so many daily eyewitnesses

Angels who I sometimes see

Half hidden in the early morning shadows

I know they all simply smile as I stand still 

Clasping close all these newfound self-empowering emotions

The sensation of swimming inside all these deep spinning mysteries

In newly discovered hidden oceans

I now explore

Sometimes feels too overwhelming

But as I walk barefoot in my now discovered underground streams

Which I never visited when I was once broken

When all hopes of finding happiness seemed unreal 

I now feel rejuvenated by those waters

For they bestow me with so many daily tokens

As I just wait for discovery by a fellow treasure hunter

To help me rewrite my life

With a more positive and powerful slogan

I was once but an invisible but precious rhinestone

Born in Besançon  

In beautiful France

Tasked to forever 

Walk and write alone

To cope with the essences of a soul

That once was shattered into a million pieces

But now with an original dynamic glimmer and shine

My new words pirouette and dance at every God-given chance

Creating subtle perceived glories

Within the reflective ambiences of fragrant essences

Of the possibilities of narrating magnificent poetically staged stories

Ones where I'll find my missing link and be happy

For I now know as I'm walking

I'm talked about

By those watching spirit guides and angels who counsel me

The ones who are forever eternal

Like a hushed ever-rolling soft evocative lullaby

An untethered circus of irreducible fragments of appropriate words

I'm now free from that hard grip of old tyrannical ringmasters

Power-hungry kings or savage queens

For I'm now just my own seductive séance

A child reborn 

From the darkest 

Of nights

When I finally found the courage to leave Paris

But still, I’ll keep rising 

To keep climbing this ladder

To find true happiness and freedom

To reach newer heights

Where I'll be the only leader of a much kinder kingdom

A place when I get there

I'll just call it

My rightful place

My own home 

And dominion

 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Who are you missing this Christmas?

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