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Do long-deceased ghosts recite poetry in the spaces in-between?

It's rather strange seeing things you've created, sitting quietly smiling, on your bookshelf. 

Like all authors, we share an unusual gift. 

Of different degrees, obviously.

My baseline seems to stem from my beloved mother.

She was so into the unseen realm. 

A real mystic, so it must be a generational thing.

Is part of all we are, the struggles and dreams of so many fallen others?

Ancestors, lovers, family and friends.

What would you say 

If you could come back one last time

 After your final great spiritual fall 

Announcing to the living world, you still live after your end?

All my books are whispers I sometimes hear, and translate into words.

Do ghosts speak in poetry?

A lone voice whispers

In the darkness of sleep, an angel called Poetry appeared.

She whispered tales of how many would visit and pass on stories as I slept.


She whispered I was simply a conduit from the Abyss and with a parting soft kiss, she disappeared and then the voices appeared.

The following are all those whispers in the middle of the night, within a year or so, of those strange ethereal dreams.

Where strange unknown visitors suddenly appeared within my lucid deep streams.


Do long-deceased ghosts recite poetry in the spaces in-between?

And so it begins with voices in the dark.


As I sit lonely in my darkened room with my black Remington typewriter for company, in my mind’s eye a stage has appeared. 

All black save for a type of spotlight in the middle.


A figure has appeared and stepped into view.

Rugged, bearded and wearing a white shirt and a dark Mac with piercing blue eyes, he speaks.


My name is William, John.

Will you recite our stories to the world oh narrator from the lands of the living?


Who am I to say no, I whisper and so it begins.


William speaks, will you listen?


If you were worth nothing or rich beyond compare

I would still stand beside you and just try to love you



If you were scared frightened or just weighed down with life and all its baggage

I would gladly rush in to carry your burdens


If you were mad or just simply sad

I would quickly reach out with empathy overflowing with an electrifying passion to just embrace you in a hug of complete compassion


If you needed some love and light in the middle of a lifetime

I would just simply appear through inspired lines and prose to hold you tightly



Simply to remind you

All your feelings of guilt or pain are also mine


If you needed anything profound beyond my care or abilities

I would just try to simply love you


For ours is but a silent union dear reader

Free from physical excesses but entwined and spinning endlessly

Lost in the spiritual cosmos beyond time and space



Serenading our opened third eye

As we ride over landscapes of blue and green

Visiting newer realms unseen as two

Shall we begin?

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Here is the link to Mirroring from the Abyss

Copyright John Duffy 

Cato Speaks from the shores of Purgatory

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(A tired voice whispers from Shoel)

Did you know your soul can become so weak

From stumbling knee-deep through familiar streams of injustices

That you are powerless to fix each week

And that sometimes beauty can only be found

Lying in the total surrender to that magnificent thought

Since in the end

You can find happiness in all the weary battles you've previously fought

If you're prepared to accept two crucial things in your heart  

Number One

Powerlessness has always been a friendly stranger 

In unvisited parts of people’s karma in life

Only if you're brave and gracious enough to accept it

For there is no point in fighting it

For in the intense emotions of your internal crusades

You can abandon the very softness

The substance that offers you 

Self-acceptance and a chance of spiritual salvation 

To break free from the singing Dark Angels in the Black Parade

The other is Love

Reconcile yourself to looking for Love 

For waiting for Karma to visit the Outsiders who plague you 

Will offer little respite

No matter how long you stay up and pray hard 

In the middle of each lonely night

Look instead to create magical monumental moments 

For as long as you have Memories filled with incredible grace

Such as one of God's many lieutenants

Days of yesteryears will always appear and stay

From reflections of adolescents

Parents to Descendants and even dependants

And no matter who might have crossed over lifes threshold into here

The Great In-Between

You'll always be able to once again see their beloved face

Because as long as you carry Hope deep in your soul

Tomorrow will always

Like a priceless piece of art

Try to find a way to put together whatever previously fell apart

So as long as you have some sort of Love

Family or Friends 

Even anything curious that makes your soul sing

Then today of all days could be simply glorious

For the most beautiful things in the entire World cannot be touched or seen 

But only felt within your beating heart

Never for one second stop believing in miracles

They happen every day

In some strange way that's why you're still reading this

Hopefully under a warm sun

For you are approximately 100 to 300 million to One

I know for I've seen the biological sums

Sometimes, people are really beautiful, not in looks but in what they do

And I can see you're one of those rare beautiful people 

Who exudes real glamour through Kindness and her many other sisters

Compassion and Empathy

So here's my prayer to help you manifest your destiny

Repeat three times as you wake before walking through your life's busy gates

To be happy in my Life 

I will expand my happiness and rejoice within every single moment 

For I'm born every single morning 

From the deep sleep of rebirth

And what I do then is what inspires others 

Here on this Earth

Lord 

Wherever you are

Or whatever you are 

Give me the strength as I walk towards you

Surround me with love and light 

To help me and others get through our darkest nights

Until I see you again

Watch over us all

Amen

Copyright John Duffy 

The Goddess Saraswati, Speaks!

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The Goddess Saraswati, Speaks!

(A lone voice whispers)

Hey you my beloved 

Take me as a symbol of your need for release

To replace your hatred instead with a deep love

For where there is Injury in your life

Look for me 

High above

When you feel Doubt

Have Faith and don't give up like Faust


If Despair appears like an unwanted friend

Remember my sister

Hope 

To help you cope

When Darkness suddenly seems to slide in 

Trying to destroy everything

Let Heaven's Bright Lights arrive to absolve its sin

When your Life becomes or feels Unhappy

Smile and always try to remember these wise words

To sing

We are all heading home 

Swimming or wading in the Holy River

Knee-deep in channels of our divine role

Praying whoever we worship will forgive us

To help pardon our soul

Before we enter its beautiful gardens


For with inner forgiveness

We are reborn to eternal life

No longer a sinner

But free

From all the burdens of our choice 

Of Medusa's sharp emotional knife

For I 

The 

Goddess of all Fairytales

Bring this to you

For I'm beyond

What your occupation

Status creed or gender

Entails


I just want to retrace what your heartbeats regale


Your age is a pale horse
I never want to see


I just want to hear your hopes and dreams


Will you risk all for love and spiritual glory

To live an extraordinary life


Will you sit with me

In this Summers and Winter's solstice 

 To reinforce this

To reflect on your admired memories of life

 

And tell me all your treasured stories 

Whilst trying to smile to try to find the courage to again look 

Past all your mortal doubts

And disturbing grey rain 

That still brings you so much internal pain

To then dance with me in feverish ecstasy 

As happiness revisits all your inner domains

To become a smiling passenger 

On one of my fast-moving trains

Free and with no limitations

Ready for pleasure beyond refrain

Will you soar with me
like two golden eagles

Above fast gossip whispering campaigns
Free from Darkness as we break its chains

Just welcome me in

So we can begin

Copyright john Duffy

Saraswati (Sanskrit: सरस्वती, IAST: Sarasvatī) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning

Memories of Living

Do the dearly departed recite poetry in the dark?

Do I sometimes channel them as I hear their words? 

This came through. 

A deep American male voice of about....well who knows!

He speaks. 

Can you hear him?

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(A lone voice whispers)

Have you ever lived in a wounded ritual

It’s a lonely world in here and I still miss my best friend and lover

Justine

My old lifes wounded ritual

For I once lived in the late Sixties in the Deep South

As I travelled between Georgia 

All the way up to New York and southern Vermont

This is my short story and heartbreak 

Just spoken and channelled through another’s beloveds mouth

My memories of the Sixties

I always wondered why we were summoned 

And petitioned so cruelly by so many blasphemous names

Were we really that cursed by nearly all we met

All over those great plains

Why couldn’t we just live and sit together peacefully but bravely

Just like any other pair of the world’s greatest reunited long lost lovers

Instead of just racing blindly from judgemental villages 

Towns or cities

And sometimes having to hide in old badly beaten caravans 

Parked on overgrown green fields

Aren’t we all born free to walk under a warm summer's sun

To embrace the winds of emancipation 

As it blows gracefully under our feet

To be firmly told by good mothers and strong fathers

Never to surrender with your dying last breath

That's why we always ran 

Never to be caught for we were brought up to be arduous 

To never feel defeated enough to yield

Although we were doomed to a fast-moving life of constant running

Like a wild mystical stag

Followed blindly by his beloved deer 

In the unexplored depths of society's chaotic forests

We always trespassed carefully though

Throughout humanities deepest of woods

Always trying to keep one step in front of the hate-filled hunters

The commoners

Self-professed royalty

Politicians 

Or police

Ice queens and kings

As we ran throughout all the ever-changing seasons 

And all the many hot conflicting excuses used as their justifiable reasons 

We had our good times though since we always used to slow dance

Sometimes mentally to a lone Motown tune like

You really got a hold on me

By Smokey Robinson and The Miracles 

While hidden within secretive motel rooms

You know the ones

Those with soft music playing only two could possibly hear

The cheap wallpaper 

Filthy fans to cool the hot air and the badly worn beds and cheap wooden chairs

I still sometimes sing unconsciously to my beloved dear 

Who still runs around my glorious inner sun

And in this great silence

Just wonder where does she now constantly run

In the end I guess

We are all the sums of our wounded ceremonies

But you sometimes have to be true to who you are

For your life can’t be lived 

If it’s just verbally or physically torn apart

To live in freedom is something you must never forsake

For true love is sometimes so deep

It's just too instinctual

Always whisper this to each other

It’s my only advice

We'll face this world

The cruel names and the fire and ice together

Whatever our fate 

For God so loves us so we will never break

It’s what we  used to pray and say back in the day 

Whenever we cried or felt degraded

 

When I used to kiss and softly whisper in her ear 

When that Sixties summer sun used to bow down to bless and baptise us 

With its life-giving rays

But just like invaluable memories 

Appearing like a midnight hallucination

Walking slowly back into the encroaching dark shadows 

I always think of my beautiful red rose just forever lost to me 

In this new life of ever-growing hostile and dangerous contentious green meadows 

That the living can never see

I still will wait by St Peter's gates

For my beloved

My lifes only true love called Justine

Before we were separated and I was tragically destroyed 

By those filled with evil self-opinionated hatred

Copyright John Duffy

Memories of Lola

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 (A lone voice whispers)

Like an unpeeled entity
She stood courageously before me

Layers of unspoken truths
Hiding all her unexplored depths


All those silent moments
Where she smiled or wept

As I gazed and wondered
At this beautiful woman
Before me

Really paused and perused

Thinking about all the
Past experiences

Her plights and purple waves of emotions

And all the sad times

She may have allowed
Herself to be used

I reached out with tentative fingers

Let my hands reach her
Soft skin and let them linger

And as I took her into my
Naked arms

I too remembered

Aren't we all but living onions

Layers of life's many
Extrusions

Secretive shields

We use to protect ourselves

From showing our true
Vulnerabilities

But when she gazed deep into my dark eyes

With that beautiful transference of spiritual
Energy

I knew she was the one
Who was my own reducer

The only one to peel
Back my many hidden layers

To walk through my dreams

And feel my fears

As I too embraced and wiped away her soft tears

We were only together

Like husband and wife

For twenty-two years

And then the Lord came and called her home

And now as I sip my Greygoose all alone

In the quiet hours of
The approaching dawn

Sitting here lonely
On our old farm

I can always remember
My dearest Lola

And the first moment
I held her

In my naked arms

I'm so glad she still visits me

Here in low hours

When I find the courage and strength to walk through that mystical turnstile

To call for her in

The Great In-Between 

For even now though we just hold spiritual hands
As we meet with a soft smile

Before once more

Taking our nightly stroll
Through Memories Park

I always just remember her

 

As the most beautiful lily

Floating in the blue rivers 

Of my inner Nile

Copyright John Duffy

If Breaking Up was a Monologue

 

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(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 restfully 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

Transformational sky

To fly so high

I know I need 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

To climb in all my hidden tributaries, and swim

Maybe, but I reckon we'll never know

So I'll let go of my metaphysical claim on you

As you must do me

But you may call down someday in the near future unknown

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 in the mind

For this love we once experienced in the darkness 

Beyond the light at midnight

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 love with all forms of suffering

And love in action is occasionally a brutal and tragic commodity

Whenever and forever described in relation to true love

As if in poetry or wishful dreams

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

Copyright John Duffy 

The Voice of an Angel

 

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A lone voice whispers

++++++++++++++++++++++

We who have lived and walked for more than a thousand years 

Invisible amongst you all

The ever-growing and changing masses

We who have heard and tried to answer 

So many heartfelt prayers as we are called 

Answering invocations spoken in the long shadows 

When pain

Suffering 

Emotional anguish or grief suddenly strikes 

And convinced many to try to stay the course 

And be part of living this lifes wonderful dream

Whenever they felt doubtful 

By offering them silent counsel and spiritual advice

To always remember

As things seem to fall apart at the seams

No matter how magnetic 

The seductive pull of dark temptations many seductive forms

How green their own grass is whilst they still live 

 

For they have so much more which to share and give 

We've held soft and hard-working hands

Consoled the young and old and tried to comfort

So many crying silently 

In the painful mazes of their own darkness 

Its unspoken number is truly unfathomable

We've appeared in many forms before so many others

In the dark and cold 

The sun and light

Sent by the Almighty on High 

To try to nurture and encourage those who cry

In day or night

Endowing them with a higher power to always find the strength and courage 

In rekindling their inner flame 

Once lit so long ago by a sacred golden candle 

As we first heard and learnt their soul's secret name

To stand back up strong and be willing and able

For we're indomitable

Angels sent to bring hope and peace 

To the inconsolable

Bringers of so much inner serenity 

For God is our strength and ministry 

One that speaks of everlasting mercy and promise

No matter how dark your worlds

Many changing political landscapes or forests 

My favourite name is Archangel Gabriel

And if you find one of my billions of white feathers 

That I sometimes leave

Especially for those heartbroken souls 

Who in these sad times

Linked to Covid 19 grieve 

And need to once again 

Be encouraged to believe 

That their beloved is in a better place 

As you live through your limited mortal life

Just pick one up and keep it really close

For it will bring you harmony and tranquillity

To carry you throughout all those morose 

Long cold winters or hot summer nights

When you need a new belief or phenomenon

Whilst seeking to conquer or accept 

Your physical or mental vulnerabilities 

To help you carry on

Copyright John Duffy 

If chronic pain could speak

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(A lone voice whispers)

Will you please courageously save all your sad tears 

To just welcome me as your majesty 

When I decide to come your way

Do you still want me to hurt you 

When I call to play

Can your tired eyes feel me slowly coming with my marching band 

As they all line up behind me grinning and drumming 

As we slowly creep up your tired spine 

And venture like Alexander the Great 

Into the deeper recesses of your mind 

To gleefully open up all the blackest of doors 

To the darkest of sleepless nights 

It's never too late though

Faith never said you had to walk to me bravely 

Like a poor victim all alone 

Over all those green hills before you start eating 

All those deliciously medicated pills

With no one to help as you fight

Are you strong enough to break through the Dark Zone 

To release all those painful secrets

Tonight

Or will you choose to live a life based on a false alarm 

One that rings whenever you feel my soft touch heralding weakness 

As I tempt you to take more of your endless pharm

My advice to you

Pray for hope to help you cope

Surround yourself with a great circle of family and friends 

For I'm one of the hardest to love

But still, I'll test you

That's one thing I can guarantee 

For I push all known mortal hidden envelopes

As I try to keep you in the corner 

Struggling on the ropes 

Whenever I call by and decide to make you try a drop of me

Just you wait

I'll soon call to visit 

You'll see

Copyright John Duffy 

Do you need a Pagan Prayer from the Book of Secrets, in 2022?

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(A lone voice whispers)

May the powers of Apollo 

The God of Music 

Arts Knowledge Healing Prophecy and Poetry 

Mesmerize and provide catharsis 

For you, as this life, you silently follow 

May the Goddess Athena fill you with reason wisdom intelligence skill and peace 

Wherever you wander upon life's many emotional beaches 

May the upcoming Full Buck Moon infused with blessings sent from the Mistress of Helios 

Empower you to conquer all challenges 

With self-love and strength 

A new power to proclaim boldly in the darkest of all nights 

I can do this right 

May the powers of your Ancestral Kin 

Those familiar voices which still sometimes visit to whisper invocations of hope 

To still guide you as they all resonate deep within 

So you can reach new plateaus 

For happiness to truly begin 

By all the 

Power of the Purple Flame 

From The Unseen 

Just behind The Great In-Between's veil 

To all the watchful Elementals 

Deities and Old Gods 

By the healing powers of Above and Below 

May this ancient blessing empower you wherever you go 

To never be held hostage to any forms of jealousy 

Hatred 

Judgment or the many layers of Sin

So be it 

Copyright John Duffy

A familiar figure comes through to push back the darkness in 2022

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(A lone voice whispers)

 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 labeled 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 

I

Have always been together 

For we were always forever baptized to be simply  

Eternal friends

Now say after me

Amen

And RISE!

To look at the world and all its many seductive temptations

 Straight in the eyes 

And say

No!

Copyright John Duffy