From Gaslighting To Freedom

(A lone voice sings)

Did you know I was

Going to really truly leave

Just another of life's seemingly 

Many lost souls

Full of indecisions

And strange decisions

But 

When constantly pushed

Full of new wisdom 

And newer transitions

Oh 

How I bet you wished

You hadn't pushed all

Those buttons

Told me strange stories 

And convincing lies

Said it's your imagination 

You're seeing things 

That aren't there

To help me make

Those seemingly unconquerable 

Decisions 

To finally find

The real strength to 

See-through the mists

Maybe now that I'm free

I can grow and bloom

 

Those old chains are now 

Truly broken 

And I'm no longer living 

In your own

Medieval

Inquisition 

I’m now free from your

Gaslighting

No longer unhappy

Or constantly fighting

No longer delusional

But walking with happiness and peace

Reunited

My futures bright

For I’ve seen the light

You’re now never welcome

For

With this song

I cast you out

Copyright John Duffy

Inspired by the endless number of sad shows I've viewed on Netflix, as I recovered. Salute.

Question for an inquisitive mind

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you ever stepped inside

The cleansing purple transformational circle of emotional fire

Some call it a mid-life crisis

Some a new awakening 

And been absolved of all your worldly sins

Been burnt metaphysically and spiritually 

To be purified of nearly all your old personal whims

Are you now baptised and reborn to live past twenty twenty-two

Past all the seas of relentless fear trying to drown you 

But still drinking warm new Costa coffee

Swirling just lost down lifes seemingly never-ending routines

Do not fear the future but now chase all those old dreams

Which you still unconsciously nurture

For you can create your own version of heaven and then still serve her 

Are you still on the road seeking new stories as they are quietly being told

Are you into emotional music reading or just deep poetry

As you still walk under this life's great old oak tree

Are you glad to be alive

Well, here's to you

Keep finding the strength and determination to always rise

For whatever you're enduring

Just remember to be proud 

You still have a chance to find true happiness because you're still alive 

Because God built into you all the tools 

You'll ever need to help you survive

For the next twenty-five 

Copyright John Duffy 

Dare you READ the BINDING SPELL?

To the new muses reading these lines.... 

Press play.

Can you feel me 

For within your mind I now walk

Can you can hear my sweet voice as I now talk

Can you feel me slowly creeping  

Like a new force 

Through those cautious unexplored or unvisited emotional 

Corridors of your mind

As I pause invisible by your side and shamelessly 

Hypnotise you to 

Whisper this binding rhyme

For You are now mine

So says King Solomon

You may pass it 

Away as a sensuous 

Strange wet dream

You may convince yourself 

It's only your fertile 

Imagination 

Sending impressions from a deep place where I've broken the seal

But believe me

It's real

And you will see and 

Embrace it in time

For you are now mine

So says King Solomon

From the hidden passages

In my Black Grimoire

Stolen like a common thief

From the Devil's Black Keep

I invocate this binding spell

To force you to love me as you sleep

So dream of me

Tonight 

Just past midnight at a quarter to three

Until we meet

I've cast your name

To be petitioned and burnt

Into the ritual cauldron and now there's no one else

To blame

Don't question yourself when you unconsciously start tasting my name

And counting down the dogeared days

And seemingly endless nights

Tossing and turning

Restless and filled with angst

Until we meet in the Great In-Between 

When your soul

To me is summoned 

To take flight 

For you are now mine

So says King Solomon

So be it

Copyright John Duffy

An old Coal Miner speaks

  Press play. Salute.

(A lone voice whispers)

I leave this

My beloved painting by my old shaking hand

Now I'm ninety-three

For my children and grandchildren to see

For soon I'll be with my wife and their mother

My beloved Annabel Lee

A painting so they can always remember

That I've climbed into all sorts of dirty pits

Starting so many years ago

When Ma gave me my first snap box and sent me to work in late December

When at fourteen  

I got one of my many work permits

And since that first day, I've scrubbed for hours

To clean my decent hard-working soul

To be healthy for my family before I went home

After spending all day and night

Just digging deep for black coal

I was born just before gas was crowned as king and all generations went into the pit

Like all baptised to do so before us  

If we were forced to admit it

Men and boys who we soon knew forever would be our kin

Going into the light or darkness to earn a few bob

Following all our own fathers and grandfathers

When our time too came  

  

When they asked casually over breakfast

Are you, ready son

And we all replied over hot coffee with a silent nod

Remember me

My name was Samus O'Mally

From Gods Country  

In County Donegal

Where we chased the mad black stuff like it was our lives bounty

Those courageous strong Irish men

Who like me when we heard the call

Willingly sacrificed our brief lives

Chasing fools black gold

So all our families could eat and be insulated from all weathers 

But particularly the cold

Until it, 

Black Coals ghost

Finally stalked us down wherever we lived and hid like a wild hyena

Rewarding us with a fatal kiss for year's of servitude and service

With a black medal in the lung called after something so tragic 

I now know as emphysema

To then stand watching us all silently but bravely 

Fight its deadly embrace as we all grew old

Coughing up blood like we were living in Hiroshima

Forever now just tainted like so many others from brave fathers and mothers

For foolishly chasing the glories and stories linked with mining black gold  

So their families could stay warm and conquer the cold

I'm just one of the lucky ones who through the Lords blessings

Managed to grow old

Copyright John Duffy 

If Mr Grief could speak

A lone voice whispers in the dark at 3 am.

I'll never kneel to pray no more 

Because I won't idolise anyone this way anymore

I can't hold back my souvenirs of fears any longer

Though my tears still stain this grey uniform I dutifully wear

As I continuously look for a new sanctuary to rest

So my soul can repair 

I've got to take all those heartfelt condemnations with me

For with you

I've smiled

Shouted and screamed in joy to last for a thousand years

Constantly pushed to live the illuminated man's hidden underground dream

But what I wouldn't do now

Just to be with you

I know I must neglect all those painful memories

And try to go on and find the resilience I need

To let you go free

Just like a midnight lantern

Filled with good wishes and introduced into a New Year's Eve

To step away and shut that badly worn door

And let my existence go on like Adam

Who once loved Lilith prior to Eve

Before they went outside the Greatest of All Gardens 

And all his first love for her

He silently always grieved

Would we be better off if I had pulled all my barriers down

And let you in so totally and in all my hidden tributaries

Swim

Maybe

But I reckon we'll never know

So I'll let go of my claim with this

My final kiss under The Great In-Between's neverending mistletoe 

But you may call down someday in the near future unknown

Like a rolling stone

In the falling rain or snow

For this painful love we once beautifully shared

Will keep us safe throughout the blinding of the heart

The silence of the mind

For this love we once experienced in the darkness beyond the light

In the greatest of schemes

Will go through a new phase of rediscovering

Rewriting our tragic love story like a modern-day

Fyodor Dostoevsky

For humanity is sometimes incredibly

And intensely in lust with all forms of suffering

And love in action is occasionally a brutal and tragic commodity

Beyond all forms of cognitive psychology 

And only sometimes can be painted in words 

For love in motion is like a beautiful boat sailing through poetry

In a wishful dreams

For true love of any kind is never low key as it seems

Copyright John Duffy

Monologue of the Eternal Watcher

My dearest 

Are we like the mythical Adam and Eve

Lost and walking upon grey shores

Of a lost planet that constantly grieves 

Hidden in deepest of spaces in-between 

Our deep neverending love holding us knee-deep

As if buried alive if we could be seen

In a sacred place beyond the grace of living beings

Where we'll witness the birth of nebula's

Stars and rediscovered Old Gods

A new Atlantis filled with wild pagan beasts and jealous old men

We will stride beyond the reach of the Masters of the Masonic Temples

As they line up in black cloaks chanting amen

Whilst erecting their secretive light barriers 

As we part the soft pages in our own Books of Pleasure

To be perused and used at our inquisition and leisure

We will watch the fall of the empires of man

With the rise of the Hidden Hand

The Brotherhood of the Cosmic Red Serpent

We will lie upon the yellow sands of time

As the new version of the Great Crucifixion begins

To see and smell the visceral sights

Palaces may burn and be aflame before us

A new vision of an old-world consumed with corruption and sin

For as we watch we will know

We are riders of The Great Red Dragon

Once foretold

For we are the mythical Watchers

Who never grow old

We who collect the Universes hidden stories

In time to be simply retold

We just reborn as poets or writers today

No longer citizens of any known countries

Just sent again to take part

In the greatest of all unforeseen plays 

From The Great In-Between

To nourish inquisitive minds

Which are perpetually hungry

For enchanting new stories 

To help carry them through the long night

As they search for internal peace and redemption 

In the hope to ascend and earn eternal glory

Copyright John Duffy

 

Do you believe in Spirit Guides?

  **Do you believe in Spirit Guides?**

(A lone voice whispers)

I've lived

Once loved and cried

Indulged in primordial urges and died

By the sharp

Sword of Damocles

No less

For a thousand years

As I fought emotions like a transmitted disease 

For I'm immortal

And I've mixed and fought with so many souls

Some with a kind heart

Fierce spirit

And a willing mind

Some so corrupt they would sell you out

For anything, they could find

I'm the wild untameable Thunder

In a storm-filled Autumns sky

The gentle breeze overflowing

With Spring's symphonies

Of baby blackbirds that cry

The scent of luscious

Winters mornings

Filled with a dash of mildew

The peace and tranquillity

Submissively reflected

in a serene Summer's sky

As whispering clouds

Jostle for kingship and quietly float by

For I'm eternal

Don't you see

Born from unexplainable storm clouds

Just beyond your sight

Baptized by giants hands in The Eternal Fountain

Heaven's white lightning 

Upon Heaven's illustrious deep mysterious mountains

I'm just one of many fragments resting deep inside 

Until you sleep

And then we all walk hand in hand 

Through all your keeps 

To speak and exchange words of wisdom

To seduce and advise

As we together conquer dark dreams

Whilst lost and vulnerable Before the early morning sunrise

Walking together bravely 

Only to then awaken 

Fresh and revitalized

To traverse this dangerous life 

sometimes soul-draining horizons

Filled with so many corrupted spirits 

Who just love to criticize

You'll see me sometimes

By your white picket fence

Standing alone in my grey coat of Salvation

In the swirling mists of

Time

Sometimes you'll hear me in the hidden Alabaster corridors

Within your mind

For I am part of your

Higher-Self

Bestowed to you by an almighty power

My only task

My penance

My treasure

Is to stimulate

Encourage and fortify

Within ever-quickening

passing seconds and hours

Behold

I am forever yours

As you are mine

And together we go to war

Every day you breathe

To rage against the Paradigms littered amongst the ever-eroding Sands of Time

If in me you

Do believe

Your spirit guide 

Just one of the Lord's many appointees 

Who's tasked to never leave

Copyright John Duffy

 

Jerome speaks

 

I will be sharing some voices, I sometimes hear, whispering in my deep dreams.

Am I a medium like my beloved mother?

------------

Jerome speaks

When I lived

So long ago 

Depression followed me 

Like an old friend

From the wild

East End

Standing always close beside me 

Like a second skin

In the dark

When I tried to raise my lonely old spirit

It just whispered familiar old lies

To keep me on its rusty old swings

To stay

Forever lost 

Within its endless bare parks

When I smiled at the world

And dared to raise my head

Above its grey concreted parapets

It just said its old prayers

And filled me full

Of my favourite

Well-loved and cherished regrets

But now that I’m

Dead

I now know

A sacred secret

You must fight the darkness

It’s a shame

Death has took me

To finally know this

Find someone to love

Just dip your toes

Ankle deep into life and get thoroughly

Beautifully wet

Remember

Life is exquisite

Beyond its veils of self-perceived depressions

You just have to regain

Your faith and self-belief

And trust in the process 

For as they slowly rise

You will remember that unspoken truth

And gradually forget all those once worshipped lies

The one truth

whispered to you at birth

That you might have chosen to forget

I only have a lonely voice in here

But its message is simply this

Enjoy all aspects of your life

No matter hard

It gets

You were always born free

For you don’t want to take anything

Into this afterlife

And suffer for eternity

Endlessly spinning within its dark depths

Like me

Copyright John Duffy

 

Memories of Clementine ti

 (A lone voice whispers) 

Within whiskey filled nights with a lonely cigarette alight

I always slowly sip malt liquor and think of you

From the first day, we met that smiling old vicar

To all those crazy nights we used to argue and bicker

And as the golden hue fills the deep shadows of this old room

As the moonlight dances like familiar lovers around my ever-rising smoke

I still miss your voice as time passes and memories flicker

A gift or a curse some might say

Tainted with the Devil's masterstroke

From downbeat days to euphoric sensuous nights

You were always worth the risks even though we used to fight

And as I sip and remember all those highlights

As I sit and slowly watch star-filled nights

These memories of gold conquering this creeping cold

From childhood to adulthood

When you were all mine

My baseline

Chalk line

But always my own Shrine Of Decline

But still, I remember and still, I ride

Sometimes there are things in life that always come back

No matter how hard you deny it

Or where you hide

With me, it's cigarettes and twenty-five-year-old malt whiskey

They always help centre me when these old faded blue eyes go misty

When I reach that old familiar place inside

Where I stand naked before this old line

Which always whispers

Does she miss me

Copyright John Duffy

The Sonnet of the Lone Guardian Angel

 

(A lone voice whispers) 

Some walk alone

seeking salvation

Others in groups seeking redemption

Through a silent breath, they all sing the same songs

A convergence of emotions to redo old wrongs

A joining of minds to continue the journeys

Emancipation has always been the lone cries

Voices echoing in the darkest of nights

We hear you and you are never alone

We see you

We are always by your side

This life has never been just a one-person ride

We are always with you in those lonely dark nights

An invisible hand to hold just hidden from sight

Keep your faith in yourself and whatever maybe

The sun will shine just you wait and see

I was bestowed at birth to only you

By your Almighty old friend

To help you in all that you contend

In all that you do

I am a secret friend who nobody sees

To inspire all that is deep awaiting release 

I visit nightly when you are asleep

When the world is quiet and you no longer weep

I walk in your deep dreams and we link arms and converse

We speak in all languages where nothing is terse

So if you have a glorious dream

If you wake up and still feel emotions and empowerment from a person unseen

It's simply me

Your guardian angel in life's twisted labyrinthine

Copyright John Duffy