Are you back so soon?

I knew you would return. 

Blessed be. 

Velumbound. 

(A lone voice whispers)

Lost in these unlit, creepy, dark woods. 

Past the moonlit Shimmering Lake.

Standing here as I speak.

This despair I always feel, which makes me weak.

Tells me love is a thing that is so real

It's all I now know as I stand awake.

In this new state.

For the dead don't sleep or weep.

And when the mysterious singers in this darkness call out to me with sweet, mesmerising voices.

Each filled with such inescapable power.

My pain slowly rises in my soul. 

Hour by hour.

As I'm watched by the Nixs.

Standing in crooked but neat lines. 

On the crumbling translucent walls of The Great Watchtower.

Strange creatures dressed in blue.

Who just love to send me Red Raven notes that simply say:

Come over to us to renew

The Diamond Door is always open.

Be one of the Nixs

Follow our ways

To find the new you

Come climb the Great Watchtower walls

To drink deep from our wish-fed fountain and see past all the Black Mountains

No longer filled with urges to fight for love and light

But to become a lone Watchman of the Endless Night.

They are so relentless. 

Always looking for new apprentices.

Raven, after Red Raven, brings enticing notes every second.

They send.

Now, as I stand here at the world's end

Sending this out

Surrounded by the mountains of parchments they've sent. 

Hoping I'll relent

I reckon I'll play my part. 

To be the titled hero in this cosmic great show

This work of surreal art

While this crushing dusk and silver snow

Lovingly shatters my broken heart.

For what the Nixs don't realise 

That crisp, wide smile that I always wear

The one I flash

The one they all see through their obsidian scrying glass 

By candlelight 

As their hungry eyes follow me everywhere

That ripe smile is barren. 

The real one is still somewhere. 

Out there 

Still, I hope

Being carried around in beautiful blue eyes as time flies

Why should I carry a real smile?

For in here

The living 

Beyond the Silver Barrier 

Can't hear your soul screaming

Or when through razor-loaded invisible tears

Like a Mad Joker

You suddenly start laughing. 

For the pain you feel is so loaded with bottomless fear.

Oh, how I wish I could still be there 

With you 

Away from the Nixs and Dark Angels

For it's so painful

I used to think I was strong.

But these endless dark nights are so long.

Is today the day I will wonder

If I'm wrong to fight the Nixes' many invitations

And go along to the Diamond Door. 

Beneath The Great Watchtower 

And knock 

Asking to join their mix

For nobody in The Great In-Between knows I still miss you.

This swirling grey air and smoky fog make you look over your past life.

In time

Causing parts of your mind to speak only in rhymes, and once it starts. 

The forgetting begins

It's why they think I need to be set free.

By sending Red Ravens every hour to me

To be like one of them

The Nixs

Guardians of The Great In-Between

Bounded by a sacred oath to stand as Watchmen on the Great Watchtower

For all eternity

Emotionally empty husks 

Who surrendered to a form of self-accepting bondage 

To watch the ever-shifting skies at dusk

For the dark ones called The Flominous

But I feel like I'm bound by a great chain.

Connected only to you

Never to make a sacred oath to another, but to kneel every night and pray for a resurrection of us.

I may be trapped in this ever-evolving mystery. 

Of my own love life's history

Where nobody knows, I'll always need you.

But me

The Nix have just sent a new Red Raven note over 

So I must be quick before their Baltise drums start beating. 

Sending them all into a crazy chanting frenzy

It says I can't survive in here. 

On my own 

I'll just cast it on the great pile as they watch 

For what they do not know

My soul may be crying inside. Now I'm alone

In this.

The Spiritually Demilitarised Halfway Zone

Mislaid in the Realms of The Great Unknown

But my love for you will continue to grow.

Day by day

Minute by minute until you, too, come home

To embrace me once more 

Like the last time I saw you in San Francisco.

So we can go walk past the red lamppost on the edge of the Shimmering Lake. 

To then walk hand in hand 

Through Heaven's Silver Gates to everlasting happiness

It's a dream I just try to cling to in this darkness.

Attempting not to forget, but the rhyming has started.

But I'm still here

Still resisting the hunger to knock on that Diamond Door.

To be tempted to stand on the Great Watchtowers' parapets

Forever in the void

I know I'm now one of the misplaced, but thinking of you.

Gives me hope

My beloved Lucy to cope

Lost in here

In the Grey Ground beyond yours

In The Great In-Between

Where I now exist amongst the Nix and so many others

Unseen

Pray for me 

(C) Copyright John Duffy