Summertime

Like midday magic

The ablaze golden flower

Hypnotized Gods slaves

Copyright John Duffy

Evey

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 My Evey

(A lone voice whispers)

Promise and say you'll not forget me after this great fall

Even though you might still think for a 130 years

I unjustly put you  

My beloved family through it all

What you didn't really know

I always prayed I wouldn't have to put you all into that new Eden

Of seemingly endless night falls but I had no choice

So just say you'll still love me and although I know

Way deep down inside

We'll never be the same as like before we first left the great garden

And went on a crazy ride

Just don’t forget how I cried when you called out

When we spoke on the last night in spirit before I died

My heart may still no longer beat your name and my soul may try to carry on

But maybe this time around

I can only hope memories of my old love

Will still carry me to you

To try to help you pull through

So take whatever you might need

To reach new places wherever you may have to go

For our old life might have suddenly come to an end but we still even now

Both need to grow

And all we can sometimes do

Is treasure those much-loved memories

We both in quiet moments

Still try to cling onto

Whenever they appear calling to us

Right of the blue

Just remember me your old lover and friend once known as Adam

Just reborn in here

The Great In-Between and now just known as Brother Bartholomew

Who once loved you when we first met under that big old apple tree

Before the circus of living began so many thousands of years ago

When we were both young and free

Filled with wild dreams of the future like anyone else

If they were born grown-up

Like from day one looking like they were both twenty-two

It's why I'm appearing here in this scrying mirror

Whispering this story to reach you

For it's been spoken before I ascend

This is my last chance to talk

To my true love who was my second and third committed friend

So wade in the greywater with my children

For I'll be waiting in here until rebirth at the very end

So wade in the greywater with my children

I know you are watching my Evey and reading

Just standing hidden in front of the many billions

By the right hand of the eternal pilgrim  

So wade into the water for I'll always be waiting 

Copyright John Duffy

Has Apollo claimed you yet?

If you're creative.....most probably.... Salute..

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Need some inspiration?

 (A lone voice whispers)

Have you ever really loved your life

Even after you called it a thousand names as you fought through all its pain

Have you relived wonderful and sad memories which always linger and still to this day

Remain

All of those gifts are yours for they all reside deep down inside

Just buried alive

For you are an incredible illumination

Just born to feel irrefutably everything around and within

Even when you're humbled and feeling defeated

You may sometimes in quiet moments 

Feel sacred for you bathe unknowingly in the perpetual purple glow

Of a glorious unseen sun

For no matter how far you wander and no matter how far you run

Your inner sun holds treasures for the soul

The more you give the more you feel whole

Although you may change physically every seven years or so 

You're indomitable

For you unconsciously study the splendours of life

You celebrate the joys and endure all the pain

For your own inner belief and uncompromising deep  faith is truly formidable

You may be tethered and stranded to swirling rhythms and outrageous patterns brought about by Chaos

But you'll always rise to materialize to create a new sanctuary

A new glorious cosmos

Embraced and blessed with a divine symmetry

And within this new cosmos between powers of inspiration and sensation

Those slow steps into a new wild life is simply your own occult seance

Some may desire the paths you've once walked

Some may behind your back talk

But may the many side-roads streets and byroads

Be filled with happiness and love

Newer experiences and faces and may they still thrill you

Offering compassion and benevolence whenever you need

Learn to control your weaknesses and vulnerabilities found in your own Achilles' heels

Within your many worlds

For its fears are irrelevant

Celebrate in the curative power of intense pleasure

Satisfy your thirst and hunger within its revered well

Initiate that free intense deep dive to impenetrable depths

To find your own blazing strengths

Guide yourself gently from your crux to create new worlds

As your guardian angels watch filled with happiness as you unfurl

Let love and laughter elevate you

For you hail from an endless paradise

To create your own secretive realms and sacred sanctuaries

Pay tribute to your own true spirit

For its inner beauty is beyond beauty or compare

Write books

Indulge recklessly under the umbrella of life's great oak tree

Create great musings through the gift of expression found in cathartic poetry

But above all

Keep singing and smiling

For you're an original

Simply surviving

It's why I'd  like you to read this for you're simply mesmerising 

Copyright John Duffy 

Nikola

(A lone voice whispers)

Will you all still survive flocked together like starlings as one 

Before Tuesday 

5th of November 

With such interconnected surreal deep thoughts

Many in here ask 

In this great silence and whisper into its endless abyss 

Does will it last

Peace

This magical thing between so many others but only us when you read this

Echo in vivid colourful dreams while we stand still impatiently waiting

For that drunken call to summon us on the stroke of midnight on 5th of November 

While you all gather together in strange-looking masks 

To sing drunken pagan songs full of strong oaths or immoral convictions 

To try to still cling onto all those things you were brought up to respect and believe 

As you attempt to push back that congregation of darkness which will appear

With wide dilated eyes

Will you pray upon your now nearly bare altars of hope

 With just about anything used as a means to cope

As some of you kneel to pray to try to continually believe 

In political hope

Will the watchful eyes of our friend and one of life's many unspoken saviours

The Winters Sun 

Turn into sleet and rain

As it remembers the millions of lost souls who died in agonising pain

We in here can only pray she will still shine ever brighter

 To seed new faith as she still mourns and grieves

No one knows all the answers, my child 

Everlasting hope and some form of peace could arrive 

So you could maybe conquer this crazy new normal we all see

Or it could all go wild

And turn into a new savage garden which resets a dying society 

Where dreams and people are greedily consumed and repeatedly defiled 

By those in charge obsessed with creating constant streams of self absolved notoriety 

While the masses queue up alone standing two feet apart 

Defeated to believe it's conceivably the only way to survive 

Venturing around like tattooed indentured new AI-controlled slaves 

Or hiding lost in alleys 

Back rooms or doorways like unvaccinated exiles

All living blindly under the auspicious black red and white umbrella of a new world order

Called a Fool's Paradise

Will things change in 2024

Well, we'll wait and try to guide humanity 

For it still has a fighting chance for it's never too late

Copyright John Duffy

Amy

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(A lone voice whispers)

Remember me

For I've been trapped in a dark place

Beyond painful thoughts and loves many war crimes

But still, I’ll rise and begin to climb

I’ll climb higher to a new place through this burning fire and melting ice

 

Past my old pain whatever comes

Whatever happens 

 

Right past all the friendly liars

Whatever transpires

 

I'll say my faithful goodbyes to all my worldly deniers 

For I've heard so many sad things and sung drunk and danced alone to some famous love songs

Filled with my heart with sorrow and gin until it nearly broke and relived so many wrongs 

Which echo and sing deep inside as I wander and think throughout this grey swirling smoke

My old friend

Mother Depression shows me those painful signs still lingering within my mind all the time

Signs of my once lived life's true reflections

But I’ll survive and I’ll rise even though I may feel down

For I've acted out my life on so many big stages

Throughout its crazy life-changing ages

But I’ll grow back to how I used to be

To be brave enough to face the new world and whoever I’ll see

I might still feel trapped in that dark place

Beyond anyone's thoughts and crimes

But still, I’ll rise and begin to climb

For when this grey mist finally lifts

I know I'll still be remembered as one of life’s twenty-seven priceless gifts

Just this time around I'll be climbing higher

 

Climbing higher to reach new places hidden in time

Where I can unashamedly stand proud and recall a previous lifetime that was once all mine

Before I go on to an original place where I’ll be free

Wherever I look as far as the eye can see

Just remember me for I’ll soon be better

No longer hiding but just singing a new melody

This is my hearts love song and glory

As I'm now free to tell one of my life's many stories

One where I'll sing endlessly when I enter that new day spent no longer crying

You wait it's my life's only decree

For I'm now rising higher

I might have been once trapped in crazy drug-fueled places

But still, I’ll rise above all crimes

Just you wait and see

For there's a new life’s that’s waiting just for me

In here 

Now I've accepted I'm just another soul 

Living in the hidden realms and grey swirling smoke of The Great In-Between

Copyright John Duffy

The Beguiled

 

(A lone voice whispers at 3 am)

There was always something so controversial and medieval about exploring semi-clothed in the dark shadows

All the deeply hidden essences of you

But I guess it's just one of the many unspoken reasons why I stepped into your view

Just unconsciously attracted when you appeared right out of the blue

Copyright John Duffy

A wild woman called Gipsy Lee

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I once came upon a dangerous woman with no limits in a rundown bar

Somewhere wild in downtown Sans Francisco

And her seductive magic cleansed and captured my souls' sad spirit

When she danced into my life in that wasteland of old emotions

Under a moonlit road

Way past midnight in that bars lit up disco

Singing such a sweet Motown song which mesmerised my soul if when I'm pushed

I'll admit I tried not to hear it

But when she pirouetted with such elegance unworthy of this world as she twirled

And her dark hair swirled and draped across her shoulders on that deserted candlelit dance floor

When I saw her crimson red lips move to engage all who looked

Penetrating deep down to their innermost sensuous core

I just knew she would be the heaven-sent gatekeeper and owner

Of the fire, I was born with in that front bedroom on my ma's farm

In good old Kentucky and the eventual bringer of such heartbreak

If the moment came when we were tragically condemned to wander alone like loners at closing time

When I had spent all my drinking money

I can still remember her eyes shone so luminously like twin Philosophers Stones

And in that unmarried glimpse which started all of this

We started a metaphysical short dance in a mysterious statement of feral love

With an introduction of wet lips which ended in a fateful goodbye French kiss

For as I thought our free hearts had melted together

Combined and into merged into one

But at that very moment

I can always remember her saying softly

Breaking my heart forever

Now I'll always own you and mister

I'll permanently be the sole woman you'll always pray you'd won with that only kiss

For from now to until evermore

You'll only dream of me because now you're done

Copyright John Duffy

My Child

When my beautiful Marylou died

 

And the once garden bound butterflies gathered and paid a fleeting visit and surrounded her open casket

When the Blue Queen landed on her now cold lips to give her a farewell kiss

We found inner peace as we embraced the exquisite thought

It's not only us 

Who would of her miss

Copyright John Duffy

(Image from a recent poetry prompt)

The Tramp

 

 (A lone voice whispers)

I was dirt poor when I was born many moons ago

I the now blind man speaking to you

One of my new silent audience  

  

Who I can feel that you've survived watching and listening nearby

Everywhere I go

Now just listen as I continue

I came into this world naked and small without a suitcase of money gold or any forms of riches

A big house or even a flash car

I always expected when my time was due

I'd take that same familiar road North

The one invisible to your human eyes but a shimmering road in this half-light

I still see so well

I always knew I'd walk proudly for even though your eyes might only see strands of my darkness and cheap rags

Those sad symbols of degradation that some in society use to see and judge whilst raising hell

For when my time was eventually called and my flesh and blood ultimately fell

Corrupted and maimed continuously by the lice and vermin of lamentations

Heralded into life by outrageous curses

Cheap lies and wicked spells

I saw with my own semi-darkened illuminated eyes

My greatest stories reborn in all who truly knew me as they still once breathed and stood tall

Tales of strength compassion and endurance

Hope empathy and kindness

Oh how I smiled when I swam that final nautical mile to the Silver City

Under the bluest of all skies

My immortal lines of never judge a book by its cover

Or the many beautiful chapters hiding inside its jacket might never recover

For they might just be an old heartbroken lover struck down in their full glory by life

A deserted husband or abandoned lonely wife

A lonely brother or sister

Lost and wandering looking to life to re- kiss her

All just searching for new reasons to mend old tainted wounds

Linked to severe trauma relived in countless internal rooms

Who might just need an encouraging hand

To help release them from unwanted friends hiding in deep purple emotional balloons

Those lines above I once said to the many spirits who gathered at my passing at Manoir de Ban

In Switzerland

On December 25  

1977

Will always echo into eternity forever in heaven

I might have been dirt poor when I was born but I always knew I would swim home rich

For I was never a tramp

And now will always be a reborn soul whose ephemeral translucent skin no longer itches

Like so many of those still alive who willingly sell their souls for cheap riches

I may have once pushed a trolley full of junk before you

But to me

I'm still the richest man in the whole goddam Galaxy

Just once tasked with struggling there on Earth in temporary agony

But deep down inside something used to whisper that soon, I'd be reborn to stand valiantly

To then wander free like a returning soul stepping off the old boat and entering smiling with a new passport

Into Gods Eternal Country

And then the lone voice vanished as though called back by powerful representatives

Hiding in the ether

Those who speak in broken languages through the many hidden frequencies

In-between the silence

I sometimes hear in random early morning realities

Conjured by a strange form of medieval alchemy

Who pass me by like a fast-flowing breeze

Speaking about their lives and all its many strands of happiness and sad entwined tragedies

Copyright John Duffy