Poetic Memories

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Memories are the magical portals to glorious moments in life. 

This is a favourite portal, I still love strolling through.

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Like evocative poetry?

 Saul's monologue.

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Did you know Heaven has many names?

 

For my American friends

 It may be winter

 Storms and tornadoes outside 

But inside I hope it still feels like spring

This piece is for all those people so special

I can only pray their hearts still sings

Sending prayers and blessings to the USA

And just so you all know

I pray for you all to find hope that the better days are soon to come

Everyday

Amen

Copyright John Duffy 

Are you unconsciously drawn here?

 

A simple question on a Christmas Sunday?

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Have You Read Mea Culpa (L)

Poems of heartbreak will still sing soft lullabies down through the ages. Here's but another.

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Although you left me

One night for another

Leaving me forever to sit alone in the dark

Castaway to wander lonely streets

Always forsaken and painfully apart

Even though your golden wedding ring

Still adorns my finger

And tendrils of our beloved treasured

Memories still linger

Despite through stealing the heart

Of a younger stranger

Leaving me

Heartbroken

Feeling rejected and neglected

Like an adolescent teenager

Mea Culpa

It was all my fault

I just loved you too much

Copyright John Duffy

Memories

(A lone voice whispers)

I once walked 

Tripping through what I thought were LSD Strawberry Fields

Which seemed to go on forever

As the Beetles sang about free love

In good old Sixty seven

Danced with flowers in my hair

In the red hot summer of love

As I watched some of my old musical legends

Some now singing up in heaven

Janis Joplin

The Who

Joe Cocker and the legendary Phoenix

Jimi Hendrix 

Play Woodstock in Sixty-nine

When free love didn't cost a penny or even a dime

I was young ready and stayed alive

Listening to the

Bee Gees in the Seventies

Whilst overseas

I relaxed with a cold beer 

Watching Frankie And his two Tribes 

Go to war

In The Eighties

As Princess Diana 

Got married with all the pomp and expensive public festivities

Which soon would turn from incredible happiness 

Into an extraordinary dark place 

Filled with mental disabilities

I once flew a red kite in Cornwall on holiday 

With one of my firm favourite first ladies

Our holy Madonna

Listening like a brand-new virgin

On my new white Sony Walkman

As her wild music

Awakened rather Strange urges

All these magnificent memories

I'll forever try to cling on to 

Like a lovesick devotee

But now slowly falling

Like wind-swept golden leaves

From my ageing memory tree

They are slowly burnt 

As they are set free

It's a tragic thing

being that solitary thing

That not only I can see

As this dreadful forgetful disease

Tries to consume every single beautiful part of me

But my Memory Tree

Still has so many golden leaves to quietly fall

That I still live in hope that many will not be obediently recalled 

And in a willful celebration of that inner strength

And to you

Dearest reader

This is one of my last ever poems

While I have the freewill to still give

Remember me

My name is William World

The third 

From a loving family of 6 strong boys and two beautiful girls

Now sitting somewhere warm

In a nice care home 

In the middle of New Mexico 

As I await the drumroll of the Tall Man and his marching band   

The Collectors

To then go home to see the Silver City in the Promised Land

Where I pray and hope 

Somebody still remembers me

Copyright John Duffy

 

The last message sent to Arabella by Jacob

 

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(A lone voice whispers)

Two of the hardest things you'll ever face in your life

My viewers 

Wherever in the Great Other Side

You many reside

Is to find the courage to say "Hello

To the one you truly love

 

And then the profound strength to pay your respects 

To then whisper

"Goodbye 

And so it is with me after I died

For whenever I pause in these quiet tranquil moments 

Sat in here 

All by myself

By the moving rocks and lost in deep thoughts in this swirling grey smoke 

That would make any living person choke

Now I'm a citizen of The Great In-Between 

I sometimes still think about all those long hot Summers nights 

So long ago

When we once walked by the Hawaiian blue sea

Hand in hand

And we were totally unafraid to be seen

I still get drenched by the sweetest thoughts of you and me

Memories of a fierce love

Which must have shone like a lighthouse beacon for miles around 

Angels flying above ground 

Watching 

Must have felt it was a deep love 

Many could only dream of 

For it was so damn gorgeous and profound

Those old hot yellow city lights

I bet they still carry vivid memories 

Of an extraordinary time

Where we held each other's soft hands 

And everything seemed to be just alright 

But like a pale white vulnerable feather

Blowing carefree in the Four Winds

Crazy blustery weather 

I then always remember 

How you foolishly surrendered to the whims

Of the Dark Gatherer of all Mortal Temptations

And like an act from the Devils favourite playbook

Our intense love was viciously ripped from our carefully constructed cross of truth 

By slanderous accusations 

Spoken by jealous crooks

To then be slowly and tragically forgotten 

And following in turn 

Depressingly by so many newly enabled others 

Casually dismembered 

With their judgemental narratives 

Singing sad songs of

Theres no chance of Redemption

Now I guess when I reflect

We were like two painful characters from a dystopian fantasy called Twelfth Night

A terrible version of a classic Shakespearean Play

No one cares or even wants to remember

But I'll still treasure and carry those beloved beautiful memories everywhere 

Now I'm free from the clutches of life and all its complicated and sometimes crazy games

Of four footsteps walking in unison by the Hawaiian blue sea

Where I'll get ultimately drenched and soaking wet by the sweetest thoughts 

Of just you and me

Memories of a fierce wild unrestricted love

Which still shines so bright today like it once originally did

Towering all above the hot yellow city lights

Of a time we once held soft hands 

And the future seemed so full of auspicious things

 

Which resonated with so much bright red light 

Beloved memories of us entwining to make love by candlelight 

To keep warm throughout all those cold but soul-thrilling 

December winters nights 

When the world seemed so still and perfect 

And all the gossips and racketeers were carefully hidden out of sight

I still miss you 

My beloved Arabella

If only to just hear your lovely soothing voice 

In this neverending twilight

I'm sure it would push back this ever-swirling darkness and show me my own 

Yellow Brick Road to Saint Peter and Heavens welcoming bright white lights 

I'm so proud that I once found the courage to say "Hello

And now 

After all these years

I've now finally found the strength to let you go and say "Goodbye 

I'll always remember you as I ascend

Your one true love who stayed loyal until the very end

And one day when you too wake in the Great In-Between

We'll start over and make up

Yours forever

Your eternal soulmate who's once mortal name was simply plain old Jacob

Copyright John Duffy