. Poetry from The Great In-Between: Want to know how to be a guide?

Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Want to know how to be a guide?

 


(A lone voice whispers)


What a year to be alive to see poetry still thrives


Want some new readers?


Well, I asked this once when I was institutionalised


Before, in The Great In-Between 


I was baptised to be non-institutionalised


So here's my advice 


Try to write immersive experiences 


For some long-lost legends whisper 


That every spirit seeks to walk in newer realms on their way to redemption 


So take your readers by the hand, like a leader 


Take them on soul-tempting journeys into the unknown and mysterious 


Hold them mesmerised


Spellbound through words like ringing church bells


To keep them reading slowly like the birth of a caterpillar 


And when that red key eventually turns in their minds


To open a blue portal and enter them into a strange interdimensional place


Through the two great ancient white pillars


Of Ashtara and Shoka

 

To where smoke and fire

Day and night burn 


A spiritual place

I call The Great In-Between


A mythical experience for the curious mind

Begins


A fog-filled place where pain, sorrow, and sin


All things seen or unseen

Like love and happiness exist 


A wild place where darkness 


Shadows selves

Corwatturea creatures


Spirits

Angels and beauty 


Coexists 

In absolute tranquillity and harmony


And you, my friend 


In that subliminal moment, that red key turns


A new reader of yours is reborn


One who seeks their Drover

As their need and curiosity take over


To move them through higher high roads and lower byroads 


Unexplored old church lanes 

Of joy and pain 


To walk them through the fire and snowstorms 


To find a new mother load 

Via this underground railroad


Unspoken poetic stories to take them under like chloroform


For their souls 

After stepping into


The GREAT IN-BETWEEN 


Will have been truly transformed and renamed 


For now, they'll walk like new-aged gods and goddesses 


Baptised in that smoke 

Fire and rain


To stand up strong like their newfound Drover 


And walk forward forever

Trying to stay pure and unashamed 


As their need for more

Slowly takes over


(C)

Copyright John Duffy

No comments:

Want to know how to be a guide?