A voice at midnight

 

(A lone voice whispers)

As I walk alone in here

Just looking for a strange city called Redemption and a means to atone

Surrounded by whispering, crying voices in this ominous new darkness

Of The Great In-Between

Which swirls all around humanity, but to the profane 

All around you

It still remains today totally unseen and unnamed

I always really wonder deep down inside as I move and peruse

Does she honestly still miss me, that lady in black who was never satisfied

Even though I was famous and talked about every day 

On every world news

That young war bride I once met when I toured worldwide

Who I once used to sit with in secret and in the low hours by candlelight

Converse in-depth about love life and all its sometimes painful mysteries linked to death and power

Which always used to remind me of Macbeth

As we sat underneath that magical old blackened oak tree, no matter where we were

Somewhere hidden in the many fluctuating realms of the forbidden

Just connected by a portal, I used to call forth by a secret incantation the name of a dandelion

One of The Great In-Between's most beautiful flowers 

Only known to a few of the last descendants of those deemed immortal

From where I was born and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi

To then be known all the way to the wet sandy shores of the Baltic Sea

Am I soon to be just a faded, jaded memory

A part of a now-old and forgotten legacy

People come and go in your old life 

I suppose

Friendship, heartbreak, and love go hand in hand with something resembling Damocles' sharp knife

So I'm told now I'm wiser as each day I grow older

Some relationships will seem to last forever, and some will inescapably be cut so deeply by their biblical silvery blade

That no matter how hard you may have cried, shedding such sad tears 

Or kneeled for hours and prayed

You'll eventually know that's why love and friendship are entwined around treasured memories of others

You once so dearly cared for

Sometimes choose capriciously to slowly just fade away

But if I could only just see the face of my precious, treasured memory once more 

Starting from today

I would thank the Almighty until the final day of my baptism into a new holy Jerusalem

If only he would bless me with the power and the magic of an endless Midsummer Night's Dream

To once again in this darkness

Sit together and talk under this new blackened old oak tree

After I once again try to just summon her

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

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