Shadows and Lights

(A lone voice whispers)

The human condition has always been the ultimate palette

A mixture of deep shadows and bright unforgiving lights

Personal contentment infused with heartbreaking pain

Dancing in tandem all over this beautiful planet

And as with all things in life, two things constantly remain

Duality

For as much as we shine our own blessed light

We must be aware of not casting our negativity through other subtle means or interactions

For the growing darkness may try to consume you subtly

We all must at one point in our lives

Pivot and see past our darkest factions

For to face our innermost fears is to cleanse them with hope courage and tears

Will you have the courage to pivot and face your darkness

To then stand proudly like a true soul champion and hold your weary candle higher

So that others can better see their own dark shadows

To help guide them out life’s deep and sometimes dark meadows

Will you encourage lost souls to dance with their devils in the pale moonlight

To dare to embrace with all their might

Some distressing emotional issues they might need to drag out into the light

For the souls expedition is not to save the many layers of mankind or to preach

But rather to refine your own and others

If they appear willingly and ask for help

Within your reach

Our heart and soul has always been our divine grand work

Just that we sometimes forget as clerks and lose our minds in the process

So let’s hack Life

Let's condition the ordinary to be extraordinary

Let's commission compassion and love to be our brave standard-bearers

Let's tap into the divine by cleansing the deep depths of our minds

And let’s celebrate our life as our darkness unwinds

Let's dare to live within our own grand cleansing and make that grand balancing and correlation

A means to defeat the armies of infernal damnation

For to never seek internal happiness and all its incredible celebrations

As you still live through life and its ever-changing constellations

Is simply a desecration that's inexcusable

So let's levitate life with acts of invocations of kindness

To rise above all dictators and their acts of subjugation

To stand together and rise higher in jubilation  

  

As we embrace the true validation of who we are

And glow brighter from that soul-changing revelation

That we only require our own thoughts of self-acceptance to revel in that pivotal acquisition

That we are unique beyond all those who try to defeat us with their lies and cheap jealous accusations

Copyright John Duffy

A piece inspired by a beautiful friend of mine from Google+ who once so radiated such positive energy.  

This is for you.

Lyn Weiss.

Your star still shines in 2021. 

Hera's final love letter to Zeus

 

(A lone voice whispers)

I never prayed to get so deeply embedded within your mind

I never cursed you to only think of me all the time

Is that why you return every morning or at midnight after all you've done with I

Remembering all those sweet-tasting memories before we crossed that tragic red finish line

But you're just someone else chasing the unquenchable and heights of immortal glory

Surrounded by love-struck worshippers like grey clouds

Who salivate at all your incredible mendacious tall stories

Metaphorical flesh and blood followers

Hypnotised and stuck knee-deep in the dire clutches of humanities deep deluge and mud

I didn't want to break your heart

So maybe it's a good thing we're so far apart

Just another pair of extrovert tragic star-struck lovers

Lost upon a lonely beach

Looking for some light or just something to lead our way forward

Towards a new soul flame who might risk all for us

As we still looked and searched

Willing to swallow our red pill and risk getting hurt

Someone new who maybe just out of reach

Walking all alone waiting for someone too

On that lonely soul-destroying beach

Perhaps Love is a losing game

A sad yellow book filled with so many lonely endless names

Maybe one day mine will disappear from its neverending archives as true love appears

Maybe it won't

Maybe I'll still be alone as they all cry and watch me as I'm buried six feet under

Into that Mount Olympus cold dirt

But at least then in those final acts of spiritual closure

I can peacefully ascend as I'll no longer hurt

Copyright John Duffy

A dash of creativity on a rather serene Sunday morning. At least it hasn't rained. Salute.

Channelling Carole Landis

Press play before you read, salute.

(A lone female voice whispers)

I still cry inside

Whenever I still think of you

My old love

Of us being together like The king and I

Of you waltzing me around like your only chorus girl

But I was so wrong even in those moments

When we kissed and looked deep into each other's eyes

I thought you were a gentleman at heart

I should have known it wouldn't have lasted

And we too would eventually fall apart

We once danced like wild daredevils in a new red circle

Before I went to rehearsals

My mommy once said

A star was born when I entered the world

A place where blondes are at work

And men are such careless fools in all the things

They do

What did I know when out of the blue, it happened

And I fell madly in love with you

But like Ike and Tina and what happened in Flatbush

Behind all these green and black flickering lights

It’s still like being in show business and I’m still at war with you

Always suffering as my memories are still ambushed

You used to be always on my mind

For you were once like all those dark stories and deep scandals found

In Paris

Breathtaking still as I watch you

Hidden somewhere in here

From just over this grey wall

I now feel so embarrassed

Remembering when I waited by that old door in Capri Drive

Waiting for you to call home

Looking around that well-loved room

Thinking what shall I do

But you never came back

You simply disappeared into the falling rain

Away from my lodge and refuge

My hideaway by the Pacific

You went to her

From your own valley of the dolls

I later found out from all my critics

Leaving me walking around in unrelenting pain

But giving up was once so easy to do

Now I’m sat all alone in here

Just missing you

Near a new Glendale

Hidden behind this Astral Veil

You went at eight and never came home

Never called me once on my telephone

I wish I hadn’t picked up those tablets

But it’s now too late

You’re gone

Gone right out of my life

Yeah I’m angry

Still crazy

Still sat all alone just missing you

Life was so much better when we were two

But now after waiting all these long years

I’m giving up

Going to go much deeper into these dark swirling mists

For you’re never coming home and your sweet lips

I will no longer miss or

taste

Now they are just unwanted memories

Of all those beloved places

We once used to hideaway from the watching eyes of the world

To kiss

I now realize I have replaced you

For a new place called

Everlasting Love

I once found people living there who looked fine

Met a few good looking guys

Did what I had to do

Made false promises

Told plenty of lies to get what I wanted

You might never be coming home

I know that now

It’s ok if you are watching and listening

I’ll stop crying in time

For time in here just flies whatever you do

Maybe I’ll see you again

Maybe I won’t

Maybe I should have waited lived and enjoyed my wonderful life

The one that God to us all freely gives

But what the hell

Enjoy your dam life

Lost somewhere

In here

I now wake up screaming

Like Vicky Lynn

But I now know deep down

That’s the price we’ll all pay

For living lost in mortal and sexual sin

Now I'm just like a Jill McGann

Following Gods secret commands

Pray for me

My family

Old friends and viewers

For I'm going to find a new home

In this dark mist

To finally reach and kneel before him 

The Almighty

To be anointed as I kiss his hands

I know I'll live forever

For my name is embedded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

At Seventeen Sixty-Five

Vine Street

I'll live forever but who'll remember your name

My name is Carole Landis

Remember me

I was born near Kansas

On January the first

In Nineteen nineteen

In Fairchild, Wisconsin

God, if you are watching

Please forgive me for committing a mortal sin

And send all love via my golden thread

To all my kin

Before I finally cross over

Deep inside I just wanted to say

I still miss you all as my soft tears still fall

Copyright John Duffy

A monologue from an old supernatural film project, I was going to shoot but due to covid, I had to cancel.

Imagine a surreal scene as a lone female, after whispering a summoning spell by candlelight.

Starts channelling the beautiful superstar who talks in mystical poetry.

The language of the dead.

 

The Carole Landis tragic love story revolves around her love of a married celebrity, who ultimately left her, and according to reports, drove her to taking her own life under strange circumstances.

Is this what she would say if she got a final chance?

Did I channel her through my obsidian scrying mirror?

As I move on to a new project close to my heart, I may share more of my eerie channelling monologues from iconic historical figures. 

The auditions for this particular piece was rather epic, and it's such an incredible shame, unpredictable circumstances intervened.

I may revisit this in the new future, God willing. Salute.

 

Monologue of Salvatore to his beloved Nicola

 

Will you only to me surrender and throw away

All those damn heavy old and foolishly cherished emotional suitcases

And tattered old memory-filled diaries and calendars

To then try to standstill at my very core

My secretive hidden enclave

In the complicated beating maze at its very centre

And seductively demand so many more

Wild willing exhilarating soul-soothing adventures

Would you proudly embrace a new profound life

Overflowing with unique experiences and never resent her

Bestowed by our Goddess

Our old golden mother called Love

As she breathes into us an unusual rebirth

To always lift our sometimes tired and weary souls

As she tries to teach us

To always find the humility and grace

To always take a sip of her fine exotic priceless red wine

To cherish her ambience and all its emotional resources

As we both get drunk on some of her many souls defining courses

And then to buckle up to ride smiling and carefree into the upcoming wilderness

Sated and joyous upon one of her many wild emotional horses

You, the untamed unruly one who'll listen as my soul pleads to confess

And I your forever suitor

Ordained and anointed by those in the shadows

Who if asked or pressed would simply answer

Like fate

Both your destinies have already been pre-set

Copyright John Duffy

A dash of poetry as I relax, inspired by a rather engaging film, I watched late last night.

Are relationships preordained, or are they simply fleeting experiences and fluid exchanges between two tragic souls?

Salute.

The Heartbroken Cowboy

(A lone voice whispers)

The last time I saw you in an old photograph you lovingly sent

I held it up close 

Perused and smelled your enchanting scent

But now you've gone into the long shadows and barren fields 

Filled with wild rivulets of opinions which sing painful love songs filled with discontent 

I sometimes in this great golden silence wonder

Where did that golden hair girl go to pitch up her extraordinary tent

Was it in an encampment surrounded by hypnotised writers

Who hang love-struck on her every word and follow her fantastic poetic depictions

Blindly pursuing wherever she went

Or was it somewhere even more secretive

Where grey walkers in silent gardens 

Gather at midnight to lament and watch the silver moon ascend

As they all huddle together looking to the stars for answers and then cheer in unison and embracing whatever is sent

It's a particular conundrum that follows me around like a wrist bound lover 

Or am I just its now anointed slave

Making me wonder about the impressions I once in the middle of living

Willingly gave

That once beautiful lady who's now probably surrounded by knaves who bombard her daily with endless blue waves

Did I through my quest upon the broken mountains

Like Roland Deschain of Gilead 

Make the wrong decisions which will haunt me forever as it haunted him like Jake

A complicated juxtaposition simmering barely between love and hate

Did I hurt her too much and it's now too late

Did my relentless mission to find sacred answers to life at the top of my own Dark Tower

Made me lose someone so beautiful and powerful 

As I walked past her blossoming Indian Paintbrush flower

I guess as I grow older and as my life gets colder

When eventually in a few years when I stand before God and as he reads my life's great work 

Contained in that occult golden shimmering folder

I can only hope and pray he doesn't say

I sent you someone so beautiful that your soul so desperately needed 

To help you live a good life filled with so much love and fun

Why did you walk away my son

When all you needed to do was just reach out and hold her

Copyright John Duffy

I rather enjoyed creating this raw and emotional piece. Watching old classics in Black and White from the early throes of film-making inspires such prose. Salute.

Hospice Stories

 (A lone voice whispers from the other side)

I kissed and loved her so damm hard with all my mortal might

That ethereal thing I once knew as Life

Held her real tight as I kneeled and prayed inside to the Almighty

That today of all days after the fitting of my syringe driver

I'd be all right

But when I looked up and opened my tear-filled eyes

She had slipped away like a clever thief in the night

Leaving me looking at Death arriving

With all his usual fucking pompous majesty

Singing and humming like a global megastar

Announcing his unwanted bloodthirsty arrival to all the other cancer patients

Who cowered in his sight as he slowly walked towards me and took a seat on my right

Copyright John Duffy

I always wondered what my late father felt after he was admitted to that ward. The dark energy. The silence. This whispered into being. He always said no one leaves a hospice alive. How sad it turned out true in just under three days.  

A spirit speaks

(A lone voice whispers)

If Life could speak to just you.
Would the conversation go like this?

To truly love
My beautiful child

Is to find an angel

Dancing in the bluest of early morning skies

To know intimately and revel within

Freely given joy and wisdom
Within its bright ever shining eyes

To know real happiness
My beautiful child is to embrace

All those subtle moments with family and friends

Before you suddenly die every day

A true wonderful narrative my beautiful child

To lighten up your own stardust filled night skies

A means my beautiful child

To rekindle trust between two passionate beating hearts

To once again re-enter the world and see through a once innocent child's eyes

As everything before you gradually unfurled

To eventually embrace the beauty of a perpetually ageing old hand

As the Almighty's bands constantly play

For it's through all those pivotal experiences

If you are willing to open up that magnificence

You'll learn to find
Love

A means to rebuild

To find a new shelter and start laying a new foundation

Alway's away from suspicious envious green eyes

Instead in a safe refuge overflowing

With courage and laid blissfully within someone's caring warm arms

For when all the pieces are maybe ready to be picked up again

You'll find the desire to begin and no longer hide and cleverly pretend

To believe you are not cursed forever

Sitting in the dark all alone

Inflicting penance on oneself, as you seek new avenues to walk down

To atone

Just remember
My beautiful child

That life

Your life is but a priceless gift and your time given is to simply cherish it

For those who chose to believe

They are truly illuminated for they simply know that

Newer adventures are always on the distant sunlit horizons

Just waiting for your touch

Hopes and dreams waiting to be breached and clutched

It's simply part of what
Life has to teach

You are here maybe
Some say

For three score and ten and my beautiful child

You will never call again

So before your own treasured part of your Life is run

Be sure to frolic

Take chances on people or places

Do it with kindness and compassion

Take risks and have some much-needed fun

Don't be a sad bystander filled with regrets when Master Death

Fires his eloquently loaded invisible black gun 

Good night!

Copyright John Duffy

Ode to the Soul

How delicate yet brave the eternal soul must be 

As it swims daily

Conquering painful struggles 

Heartbroken dreams 

Strands of Hate coursing in red veins

Grief and encountering love-torn people creating obstacles

All frayed at the seams

In the deep sludge of humanities black sea

Copyright John Duffy 

An ode to that deep inside, which carries and leads us, towards the light.

Salute. 

An old voice speaks

 

The Mage Speaks

(A lone voice whispers)

Hello dear reader  
My silent old friend

Have you returned to read my translucent hypnotic thoughts again

The one's I write here sometimes 
With my favourite black and white pen

Stories and poems collected from when I'm sleeping

When I listen to lost souls when they gather and slowly start speaking

Stories of how they miss walking in the rain

And touching their loved ones who still in the realms of the living remain

Especially now in 2021 with this virus

Lost in poetic visions we converse in silence

Walking through some streets
Filled with love or political violence

To narrow green fields or side roads filled with yellow cobblestones

As newly elected dictators try to run the old asylums

It's usually at three o'clock when those quiet friendly voices suddenly stop

That I then see a brief flash of crimson light

Lighting up the early morning night

Then they who shall not be named always appear
  
Standing on my right

Maybe twenty-five or more
Just hiding behind a shadowy door

More voices but louder 

Pleading and always talking without speaking

As I stand spiritually in the Astral Realms
Quietly listening

They talk of dark things I could never share

For if I did they said they'd haunt you too

Since they just love stalking the unprepared

I'll now go and no more disturb your sounds of silence

For even fools knows like cancer trouble grows

Hear these words and when they try to call

Knocking to tempt you up at three o'clock

Before the early morning cock crows

Like quiet raindrops which echo in white noise

As they hide hidden from view

From a strange place that no one knows

No matter how hard they beg or pray

Like the many fallen idols, they have already made

Use these words as flashing warning signs

That I send  

Before they try to get you to play
While pretending to be a friend 

Listen to these words as they are forming
And heed them as a carefully spoken warning

Those that walk like lost prophets
In between the many dimly lit subway walls  

In complete silence

Always avoid them like the plague with defiance

For they'll only bring damnation
From their secluded islands

Like seductive but sinister sirens

For they are mankind's hunters
Who stalks the living like Enoch's biblical giants

Who wants to license your soul to pledges and passports

Where there is no hope for guidance

For they wish to rule and be your new tyrant

As you are seduced by their old supernatural magic 

You now believe to be based on just science


Copyright John Duffy

Romeo whispers

 

(A lone voice speaks)

In the midst of it all

The tragic heartbreak

The ongoing pain and sorrowful stories to regale any sad Saturday night

I once smiled at the long list of offered assumptions

Personal assassinations and their much-cherished delusions

They clung on to like much-treasured gold

I thought I was a good man

I dreamed of finding a love-filled with happiness and in old age 

Grow together old

But instead 

Lonely 

I died

And now all alone 

Sent to sit here in bitter purgatory to reflect by the Almighty

For aeons

Besides a lone yellow candle for company

Which keeps back the darkness with its fluttering amber flame

I saw how I was buried

No carefully chosen music

All sombre with no real caring tears which cried 

Or heralded my earthly name

Well, it's one thing to know life but when The Angel of Death comes around

Quietly calling

Who'll shout and pray for you after your time is due

For before the end

Take these candid words from a friend who knows

And repent and be reborn into eternal glory 

It's how your story will live on as you transcend 

Or you too could be soon seated by a fluttering yellow flame 

Your only company

Which holds back the encroaching darkness

Here in these great dark lands

Known to the many and the lonely 

Cursed and into aeons 

Repeatedly calling themselves the Fallen in Purgatory 

Copyright John Duffy

A monologue from a faint voice. Conjured via my scrying mirror. Salute.