Chanelling Plato

(A lone voice whispers)

Are you feeling low and haunted by a sense of something malevolent 

Following you like a second shadow 

Everywhere you go 

You could be so beautiful

You know

Inside and out 

If only you could be courageous enough to accept who you really are 

And shake off those so familiar feelings of despair

That seems to follow you everywhere

But are you brave enough to change

Family 

Friends

Lovers

Or even work

For to grow into the real you

To shine your inner light

To all within sight beyond fear

Judgment or condemnation 

Has always been one of the Universal Unspoken Laws

And that statute my friend with the curious eyes

Can help to dispel all those inflicted flaws

Reading these words in 2022 

In the early morning sunlight

Afternoon

Dusk or just past midnight

That old universal law is still totally irrefutable

But are you ready to understand and grasp it

For God gave you an inner light and it wasn't made to be irreducible

But simply to help guide you through all those long lonely nights

To help discover the real you

Copyright John Duffy 

The Poetic Tale of Mr Ebony

A lone voice whispers

 Mr Ebony approaches my secret libraries shadows 

Of lost memories

Which follow me around 

In the form of Charlie Chaplin

Carrying a battered old brown suitcase 

Covered in Do Not Open stickers

Stuck on its worn-out aged face 

Always behind me

Treading into the soft sands of my histories far-stretching shores

I leave invisible to the human eyes

Everywhere I go

Pale are the grieving trails

I leave

Filled with tree branches 

Where once beautiful memories

Now filled with grieving and hung like dazzling decorations

On Christmas Eve 

That reminds me

Painfully of years 

Mesmerised in the Misplaced City of Love and Trust 

A wondrous place

Where tender blue waves caressed the ocean before turning into ethereal dust

Where Mother Sea French kissed each citizen 

Like long lost lovers

  

How pure that time and sound was loved by me

Laid watching the diverse tapestries filled with moving clouds

By the sea

Visions of her hand holding mine

With her head on my shoulder

Telling me 

She'll love me forever

As Father Time got slowly older

But those once happy days are now so long gone

For Ebony approaches my shadows 

My priceless library 

Armed with his memory stealing Amnesia Gun

Hunting for long lost memories

Which dress like Charlie Chaplin

Always seeking battered old suitcases

To add to his endless collection 

He's pulled from so many silent screen faces

To then rip them open 

To then tread into the soft sands of their histories far-stretching shores

Once left invisible to human eyes

To wander through the path of the Pale Grieving Trails

And take broken hearts most expensive treasures

Once hung beautiful memories on delicate branches

Like dazzling decorations

On Christmas Eve 

That reminds him

Painfully of years 

He too spent

Mesmerised in the Misplaced City of Love and Trust

But now doomed to forever stalk and grieve 

Before he too dissolves

And is absorbed by the Universe

Just to be another form of brown rust

Swirling in its ever-shifting dust

Copyright John Duffy

(Image shared with fair use policy) 

Yavi. The Romantic. Speaks.

 

(A lone voice whispers)

Like a red rose 

I always climb high to the reach brightest of lights

Surging in all directions

Such is the driving thirst 

Searching in complete expectation 

In harsh conflicts and dangerous lands

Conquering each

Whatever comes first

I try to climb past all the watching marching bands

Stood in their many well-dressed lines

And like the red rose

I also grow in silence

Like the so very righteous 

Only finally announcing my inner beauty to those worthy

Of my time

Trust and loyalty

And finally like one of those rare and precious 

Virginal Red Roses of Cairo 

One of the most beautiful standard-bearers of all known flowers

I also have exquisite sensuous needs that must be deliciously deflowered 

So are you willing to stand in the pale moonlight

And let my thorns gently caress your inner third eye

As your soul salivates quietly and cries 

For a new form of seduction 

As we hand in hand 

Go to war

Challenging the world like it was a Francis Ford Coppola

Production

Copyright John Duffy 

The Mysterious Well

 

(A lone voice whispers)

There's a grand old well that I sometimes visit 

In strange lucid dreams

When Mother Midnight sweetly calls

My lonely soul out to play

With her golden diamond-encrusted whistle

For she is so uncivil

And all the silver stars gleam 

In hungry anticipation 

I always see the walls of the well 

As they seem to be crumbling away but never do 

All dull and painfully grey

As it sits like a tired old King 

On a tattered throne 

Made of brown leaves

Which surround him 

Like a sea of grinning thieves

Climbing like former lovers across its form

Wild Morning-Glory sleeps like a tired old soldier 

Surveying the corn

Watching Creeping Charlie advancing 

With a little shimmer and dance

When I walk the path of the One

To that well on the edges of time

When the moon is hiding and clouds look on 

Like drunken fools

When silence fills the very air

The dire aroma of loss and decay invariably arises

Once lost things always appear 

In all shapes and different sizes

Like a visiting country fair 

But nothing stirs in the cornfield before me

For nothing ever dares

And when I reach the mighty King on the Hill

The ruler of all 

Before I swallow my own red pill

And look into his gaping soul

All I can see is my heart's own watering hole

A darken wet place filled with now unwanted memories

I'm always drawn to

When my higher self loses its self-control

On its wet surface 

Lay old photographs

Undulating and floating images of

People 

Places

Chances and

Moments 

All moving in unison

In perpetual silence

As I watch and stare

A red and yellow flame eternally appears and they all burn 

Forming a sensational burning red heart

A stunning piece of spiritual art

And as I leave

Grieving 

Deep down inside

Walking lonely 

Like a soldier to a cold unwarranted post

Back to the shimmering Blue Portal

Waiting quietly to return me to the land of the living

Away from all these creeping bold ghosts

My mystical doorway home

So I can reflect and maybe atone

The King of the Hill always seems to whisper before I disappear 

Will you learn this time or will more memories

Need to go past the point of no return 

Before God blows

Calling you home

On his beautiful French golden Horn.......

                  .........

                              .....

Copyright John Duffy

Whispers from Beyond the Veil

  A lone voice whispers

To you

YES

I know who you are from in here

Look to those deep memories

For they are no longer cold graves that may

Cause you to weep

Try not to lose too much sleep on those

Who may lovingly still
Call me a creep

For what they do not know

 

I’m but part of lifes indulgent experiences

A tiny strand of all those thousand winds that Love blows

 

That rare bottle of
Emotional Tennessee whisky

Tasted in the heat of the moment 

All beautiful memories you may choose to help serenade you to sleep

The twinkling diamond in a dark storm-filled cloud

As it snows

A burst of blistering sunlight to warm your soul

Wherever you go

That gentle reminder

Embedded in one of our faded love songs

Whenever you open those dark brown eyes

In the early morning breeze

 

Now that I’m gone

For all I am now is but one of the soft stars

That shines so brightly at midnight 

A man from the South Side

 

Living now in the Great In-Between

 Speaking to you for the last time 

Before I make my final ride home

 

Don’t let regret and grief 

Be the only things
Your life forces you to eat

 

Just try to always remember me

The good times and my eternal love

 

Within every step, you take and with every heartbeat

 

It was always meant to be

It was always meant to be

One day in here

With the Lord's blessings 

When we are together

Again as one

Perhaps then

You’ll see

 

Copyright John Duffy

A lone voice whispers

 

A Tale of Grief

(A lone voice whispers)

Today

On the fateful fifth of March

Twenty twenty-two

I lost something so special

A moment in time now extinguished and placed in the long rundown grassy ruins 

With so many others

By the Great Grey Castle Walls

A place deep inside that my soul calls home

In the Great In-Between

A place I long ago pledged I'll no longer visit to look or be seen 

For that once treasured spark has announced its retirement

So I'll lay it to sleep near the safe blue zone 

Where it can sleep with so many others

Near my favourite Yellow Keep

A treasure of such irrepressible immense beauty but like all things beaut..........

The End came like a flashing blade strike from a wonderfully skilled knight 

Clad in magnificent silver armour 

Like a true warrior

Woosh and it had vanished

Vanished to othér frequencies and soothsayer's

Beginner's

Beguilers and hellbent on pleasing creatures of the long night

Today isn't sad and meaningless

For I've seen a new bright light on in the distance 

And it has recently waved back whispering telepathically

Come

Challenge me and bring stories and that purple orb

Your Irrecha is safe with me

Your sense of Locca is the same as mine

Come see and maybe we can be happy in time

 

But a sad day indeed

Gifts of Divine Wish Power is an incredible thing but also really painful

As a visionary 

A mystic

Call it what you may

A voice said it would happen and look what transpired today 

A visit to the Great Grey Castle Walls

In the Great In-Between

To walk among fallen friends who no longer stand tall

Copyright John Duffy 

Saturday thoughts

Are we, poets

Writers

Singers and risk takers too charismatic

Ridiculously engaging or just totally enigmatic

Slightly strange to the straight card players and those obsessively

Who watch and read between all written lines

Driven by new compulsive urges

Of twenty-first century voyeurism

Or are we just old travellers from beyond the Great Green Hills of Avalon

Into this new age reborn 

To have some more fun 

Did our Guardian Angels

Collectively weep with profound joy 

When we all found our old calling

Do they still quietly hold our soft hands to comfort us

Whenever we seem to be depressed or in pain

Happy or just falling

We'll never know all those answers 

For they will only be revealed

When our time comes and we are suddenly recalled

We are not made of flesh  

You know

But simply old souls  

Eternally

Slipping and sliding  

Slowly discovering new kin

Scattered throughout  

Old Mother Gaia's mesh

Are you just like me

Another tiny beacon of divine light trying to hold back the infinite legions and hordes

Who endlessly weave  

Whilst trying to seduce and deceive

Reading from their current forms of modern leather-bound grimoires

Filled with black spells

   

They mutter and yell in the midnight darkness

Can you feel that subtle electricity crackling all around you

It's just the universe celebrating all you do

For it doesn't matter about your gender

Creed 

Colour or ethnicity

Just keep visiting that immense emotional well

The one you use as your Muse

Called your Emotional Reservoir

As you peel back the many layers

And just try to be the true you

Wherever you are

Just write poetry or something magical

Like you were playing a song on one of Princes

Many legendary Purple Rain guitars

And paint a hit record

With visually inspired

Compelling unforgettable words

To thank the Lord

That you have been blessed with gifts 

To delve into emotional energies 

Many avoid and leave unexplored 

Keep writing 

It may help someone lonely in a battle no one knows about

To give them the courage to love their life 

And ignite their seemingly neverending darkness

By doing something so soul-fulfilling and exciting

It propels them to new heights and helps to extinguishes 

Bouts of deep depression

Which constantly whisper 

Stop Fighting 

Copyright John Duffy

Are you sinful?

(A lone voice whispers)

All this talk of the End of Days 

Regarding World War Three and The Red Bear

Does it really matter in the end

For isn’t all this 

Just living one of Heaven's glorious plays

And aren't we all just born Sinful anyway

So we could learn as we found our way 

For in the beginning when your soul's Libido awoke 

And started a strange discussion 

With your hormones playing on percussion 

Did you walk like a curious Charles Darwin

Looking for The Meanings of Sin that your new urges found and loved

Now they wore its golden wedding ring

To dark unknown places and bars

Bedrooms and cars

Where you like Angels without harps 

Could gather in secretive groups to sing and drink before committing sin

Did you look through life's tall green grasses

Past as the watching eager eyes Strolled bravely through the masses

Looking to be seduced by new mistresses or masters

Of seduction

By their ever-changing winds of perception or subtle soul-changing rhymes 

Did you then ride your pale horse after committing a small sinful crime 

In the eyes of your version of God

Through lost timeless biographies of newfound emotions

Back home 

Like a promiscuous newly released thief 

Always seeking an open door to carnal release

Did you drink from the Matrix’s time machine

As the Cosmic serpent

Always invisible

Slithered around you and tried to seduce your mind

With romantic tales and stunning images

To climax to and to then be reborn by candlelight 

Refreshed 

A divine invocation 

A climax 

You wilfully welcomed

Into all your united nations

But do you now dwell in new lands of Gilgamesh

As you wallow in the damp sorrows and raw memories of ill-gotten sins 

Linked to the mind and flesh 

Like a modern lost Nikola Tesla

Lost in the folds of an unspoken Guilty unseen history

Overwhelmed  

Subdued with your life like a 

Yayoi Kusama's painting

In a dotted mess

But do you still quietly grieve for that old need for total impropriety and personal gratification 

Or even greed

Do you still pray daily for those old invisible fingerprints of a  God

To try to save your soul by interceding and showing you a new green door

For isn't everyone a tiny bit sinful though 

Forever trying to be good

But can anyone ever truly succeed 

For its sweet reach is insidious but so damm inviting 

For it constantly breeds

Multiplying

From sexualized television

Music books and films

And even dark delicious lascivious poetry 

Creating and stimulating such unwanted additive thoughts

Is there any hope for us all

Will we all stand in the long shadows and quiet bedrooms or hallways

Alone

With lovers

Family or friends

Minutes before the world burns and all its great cities fall

 

On one of these upcoming days

When those nukes politicians talk about

Descend

And as we watch our own red stage curtain close as our version of one of God's glorious plays ends

Will you hear these lasting thoughts as I will 

If I'm honest

For in that dire moment

What's the point of lying and being dishonest 

I loved

Liked 

Hated 

Berated and created my own Fate

Within all I could give

And I'm so proud I lived

Alongside sin for in the end

It taught me what I needed to know

To try to survive to win

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

(A lone voice whispers)

All this talk of the End of Days 

Regarding Russia 

Does it really matter in the end

For isn’t all this just one of Heaven's glorious plays

Aren’t we all just Sinful anyway

For in the beginning when your Libido awoke 

And started a strange discussion 

Did you walk like a curious Charles Darwin

Looking for The Meanings of Sin

To dark unknown places 

Where Angels without harps 

Gathered in secretive groups to sing

Did you look through ancient manuscripts

Books magazines and made treatises 

To seek to be seduced by mistresses and masters

Of seductions

By their ever-changing winds of perception or subtle soul-changing rhymes 

Did you then ride your pale horse after committing a small sinful crime

In the eyes of God

Through lost timeless biographies of emotions

Like a promiscuous newly released thief 

Seeking carnal release

Did you drink a whiskey and coke or another tipple 

From the Matrix’s time machine

As the Cosmic serpent tried to seduce your mind

With tales and images

To climax to and to then be reborn

Refreshed 

A divine invocation 

You wilfully welcomed

Into all your united nations

Do you now dwell in new lands of Gilgamesh

As you wallow in sorrows of ill-gotten sins 

Linked to the mind and flesh 

Like a new lost Nikola Tesla

Lost in the folds of guilty history

Overwhelmed 

With the need for total impropriety and personal gratification 

Or greed

As you still pray daily for the invisible fingerprints of God

To try to save your soul by interceding

Isn't everyone a tiny bit sinful though 

Forever trying to be good

But can never truly succeed 

For its reach is insidious but so damm inviting 

For it constantly breeds

Multiplying

From sexualized television

Music books and films

And even dark delicious lascivious poetry 

Creating and stimulating such unwanted additive thoughts

Is there any hope for us all

As we all stand in the long shadows and quiet bedrooms or hallways

Before the world burns and all its great cities fall

 

On one of these upcoming days

Copyright John Duffy

If Jesus could speak in 2022

  

If today

You feel so lost

And endure so much pain

In just living

If today

Everyone looks down on you

With unkind eyes

That seems so black

And filled with total darkness

That appears so unforgiving

If today

You swim against persecutions

Strong currents created by politicians

And dictators

And been labelled as

Homeless

Disabled 

Redundant

Too old

Poor

An addict

Useless 

Or just one of the many

Hidden 

Nameless 

Living below the rim 

In the shadows

And deemed to be unworthy of any Baptism of success

Because they label you as living within sin

Remember this

I too have felt your pain

Walked along those same dark long roads

I too have lived through and fought

All personal battles and wars

Until I got too bold with all I preached and knew 

Until I too was crucified 

Look up my life's story

It's still so well told

My advice to you 

Is simply this 

Keep up the belief

That it will be worth all those painful struggles

For in the end

Eventually, good things come to all those who truly believe

For in the end

You will find some form of happiness 

And when you eventually die

You will see God and he will embrace and forever remind you

He has always walked beside you 

Whispering 

Trying to give you so much strength

For you 

Him and 

Me

Have always been together 

For we were always forever baptised to be simply  

Eternal friends

Now say after me

Amen

Copyright John Duffy