The Blues Singer

Press play before reading.

Salute.

(A lone voice sings)

I can feel
You need this

For I saw you in a vision

And you don’t have to be a millionaire

To listen


Don’t have to spend
All your money on me


Simply hear
As I sing

If you’re feeling low
Take a seat


And I'll paint you
A vibrant picture show

With a thousand black and white  words


As your world slowly
Turns

My golden pen
Will be the only true film star

My inner voice
The supporting actor

For once

I and my beautiful life 

Had an amazing wife 

A real cracker

And all was good


I worked hard
Earned plenty

Was known all over in the neighbourhood 

As the kind of guy 

Who you could always go to

 If you needed anything to lift your mood

But like all good things

Something bad had to happen

She cheated
Went with another guy


A guy I’ve known all my life

Bill came in and stole my amazing wife

So now 

I just sing the Blues


The painful Blues

For just for you



Last time I saw her
Was sometime around last June

It was on a cold summers day
Like outside in a Winters evening

When the Sun was going down
When it had nothing left to say

She was sat drinking fine champagne and expensive wine

She looked me over
As she had good time

Standing there pretty
Looking real fine

Smiling and knowing

She takes all my money
Every month


Took my car
My house
My pride and soul


Took them all when she walked
Right out of my door

I've lost everything

Only got ten dollars
In my coat pocket

And our wedding picture
Still around my neck

In my moms golden locket

That's why I sing the Blues

The love song of the lonely 
Almighty fools

I got the Blues 

Mama

It sure still hurts



I got the Blues 

Mama

I see them both on a Thursday
At work

She just smiles
And winks



She's a player mama

For I know how she thinks

Bill always smiles
Looking at me like dirt

So all I got left is the Blues 

Mama

As I pray for Karma

I can feel
You need this

And you don’t have to be a millionaire

To listen

Don’t have to spend
All your money on me

Simply hear
As I sing

If you’re feeling low
Take a seat


And I'll paint you
A picture show

With a thousand black and white words


As your world slowly
Turns

Oh Lord

My golden pen
Will be the star

My inner voice 
The supporting actor

Oh Lord


I once had a beautiful wife and life was all

Good

I worked hard
Earned plenty

Was known all over in the neighbourhood


Oh Lord

Then she cheated
Went with another guy

A guy I’ve known all my life

Bill came in and stole my wife

Now I sing the Blues
Oh Lord

Just for you 

As I kneel to pray 

To hear what to do

All I can do is sing the Blues

Just for you

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Tragic love born in the Seventies.

An ode to those who suffered persecution from the judgemental's.

The list is so sad.

So proud things have changed.

Salute.

Press play before you read. Salute.

(A lone soft voice whispers)

Looking for answers in this

The unholy of all blackest pits
filled with bitter but with still sometimes sweet-tasting human emotions

Illuminated by the flickering half glow of this fading miners lantern

Sat by my burning coal fire at four am

I write these few words down for future inspiration 

To encourage me 

Before I flee to try to get through whenever 

I feel the need to subdue the sharp pang of my apotheosis of my only friend

With dangerous malt whiskey 

 

The one who ritually visits who I call Mr Damnation 

 

For to be able to hear you whisper 

So be it again

 

I'd be driven crazy 

As I caress your precious velvety memories like a familiar shadow and admit to that grim-faced shadow of a human

 

My own perpetual stalker 

Who's staring back at me in this faded old black mirror 

Whispering that I should try to carry on

 

As I think back to those happier times with her

When we might have had a chance to be optimistic like so many other cross bearers

 
But just like every third rosy couple 

 

Who met and tried to stay together

While wading knee-deep 
in newly discovered rivers of uncertainty 

Through trial and error 

 

We were tragically pursued by the real broken phoney emotional stirrers 

Those two-faced ones living in painted white houses 

With twitching grey curtains made of out cheap lace to hide their judgemental faces

 

Those who deem themselves to be The Beautiful Ones in society 

 

The polished and the preened 

Strutting about with all their treacherous airs and graces

Just to be seen

 

We were unjustly discriminated against by feverish lions 

Those sad losers 
Who deemed our liaison

 

To be tainted and under their covetous judgemental eyes

To be on so many levels

Immorally corrupted and dangerously fragmented 

 

But to you, my beloved Ophelia 

 

Now erroneously judged 

Likened to a corrupt 17th-century museum 

Filled with pagan occult pictures

By a cancel culture fuelled by heathen convictions

 

My soon-to-be obsolete heart still sings 

As it remembers those wild crazy days and passion-filled nights

 

When we stood firm and issued 

All those endless FUs with such excitement and unbreakable rage

 

How we then ran away from Deep Dale

With anything, we could muster and carry

 
Caught a flight North and got married

 

Went to Las Vegas
Booked into The Bellagio 

 

Cruised the Strip and made wild drunken oaths 

To each other that we'd never be tempted to go back

No matter what news or stories we heard 

Broadcasted over the TV or radio 

 

I hope tonight 

As I close my eyes for maybe the last time 

As my lifelong friend

Doc Dupont says my last prayers and rites

 

If you didn't know I guess it's time to confess

You were always my life’s 

True one and only 

 

And I truly understand why you left so suddenly to be with them

 

For it's not easy trying to live with the news 

Of both of your parent's sudden deaths

 

Even though after all these years since you've been gone

After visiting your grave every Monday

My heart still skips a beat 

For I know my love channelled 
through my treasured memories 

Will soon
To you flow so damn easily

 

Reuniting you with those incredible few years

 

When we escaped to The Bellagio

And lived together 

For a short while to renew

 

Free from the long reach of The Beautiful Ones 

So peacefully in every way 

 

And now as I reflect

I never knew lonely until I lost you but soon we'll be together

For Manzoni

The Italian novelist and poet appeared one supernatural dark night 

And told me

Everything will be alright

And soon banners carried proudly into the 21st Century will carry your fight

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Vida Futura (S) Dreams

 

More channelling from the In-Between.

Press play before reading. Salute.

(A lone voice whispers)

I was once called a Scarlet Man

When I was alive 

By the worlds many Marianne's

Susan's and Karen's

But I never cared

I just loved her even more

Because I once dared before all who gossipped and stared

I still miss you and that irrepressible smirk 

I always used to kiss whenever I called around at around eight

Whenever I could like a loyal post office clerk

To do my dirty night's work

To then smoke and drink sweet liquor as your bedrooms lights slowly flickered

Making small talk and watching the clocks tick

As we both felt the heightened sexual tensions

As our skins screamed out together with 

What happens tonight

Will be our last time

Lines we too always said as we

Hand in hand

Made our way to your marital bed

A line we wore out every year

For we lived and danced in a crazy repertory 

Of slim fingers and hungry tongues

A silent unspoken language of freedom

Bereft of no wrongs

Whenever we conjoined and prayed for the everlasting night

For we knew that when the rising Sun 

Summoned the daylight

We must part

Before she arrived

Oh, how I am truly sorry

But I was just a scarlet man

Chasing a married woman

And now I'm dammed by those in the shadows but who cares

If you're seeing this 

My one and only Kera

Know this with assurance

It's me your only true sweetheart and loyal footman 

Bill Trueman

Sending this message 

So you'll look for me in the Vida Futura (S)

So we can once again begin as you take my hand

In new lands of revolutionary aspirations 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy via Pinterest

Sylvia. The Fire Nurse.

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Salute.

(A warm voice whispers)

Salut Soldat (Hey soldier)

Jeremiah says it's soon your time and I should visit to prepare you to cross over

So here I am

Please forget the past for it will haunt you into Eternity in here

For when the grey smoke came

When you fell asleep while on sentry duty in Forty-Three 

With Billy Boy and Henry

While you all guarded that old hospital in war-torn France

For the Resistance and me

Drunk on moonshine while smoking 

I just held onto a soft hand as it suddenly appeared 

With a whisper saying

Sylvia

It's time to meet me

Your guardian Angel Jeremiah

As I started choking when all the German bombs started exploding

But don't forget me 

After all these years

For even though now my time is done

It's you

I still see

I miss you, so never feel guilty

And I'll always wait for you 

Standing here by this

Eternal Holy Sea

Sleep now 

My love

For I'll just return

Tomorrow morning at three am when it's your time

So we can share a new dream of a beautiful place where we first met

A unique place where we both can hold hands like we once used to do

In Calais

 

Before life killed me and we can once more walk on soft yellow beaches

Singing

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

For I don't regret anything

As far as our Astral Eyes can see 

For all Eternity 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Aibreann. My Irish Lover

 

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(A reflective voice whispers)

I met my own Aphrodite just once

So long ago in my youth

When emotions were raw and always appeared

So unpolished or uncouth

We met by the blue sea 

In distant lands

Dancing to music played by passing Northern bands

In good old County Donegal  

The land of Kings

We twirled and danced some wild and merry jigs

We kissed so deep

Looking into eyes of each other

Underneath the Blarney Stone

And stumbled  when we parted 

Like drunk spellbound lovers

To our homes

Now I'm seventy-five  

Patiently  

Living on my own

I still look for her instead

Through joyous and spirited recollections  

From when we were once wed

To memories of that beloved Blarney Stone

A magical place we once kissed

Before we went home

When the world was all ours 

As we laughed and danced

When everything seemed to happen 

As if ordained by long-lost chance 

When we sat like long-lost lovers on green hills  

And counted the twinkling watching stars and our blessings

When no one was ill

When life revolved around joyous songs and dance

But now I am old and grey  

And as I tend your grave

I know we'll always be together again

For death can never break loves golden chains

I pray soon  

To hear the Northern bands

Play once more

As I open up Heaven's 

Great silvery doors

To find a new place waiting

Where happiness costs

Nothing at all

To be young again  

In beautiful old Donegal

Our new lands of but one King

To finally embrace

Kiss and sing  

Underneath that new Blarney Stone

Simply to be together for eternity

And call that new place home

With you 

My beloved Aibreann 

My Irish Lover 

The only woman I loved

As much as my mother

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

The Queen of Words Monologue

 

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Salute.

(A tempting voice whispers)  

Let me entice your five senses and maybe your sixth.  

Discover my soul through new worlds of words, and I’m yours evermore.  

Never to be eclipsed.  

Let me bind you to me forever, with my lashings of hypersexual dark energy.  

As your restless soul salivates, whilst in submissive anticipation.  

Weeps.  

Let your virgin mind hear my imagined strong voice, as it, your inner mind listens to, as it relates.  

Captivated to be mine above life's many random noises.

As it to you, seductively speaks, whenever you feel weak.  

Let me devour your ravenous eyes.

With chaotic unconditional, excitement and engagement.  

As your higher self suddenly wakes, from its repetitious, mundane sleep.  

Let me take you waist-deep.

Into fast-flowing new apocalyptic wet, ominous waters.  

Of unexplored feral territories.  

And let my incredible fingertips, trace pagan inseparable portraits, of intimate unions.  

Of unforgettable characters, and illustrious scenes.  

Across your succulent exposed emotional minds, so very soft spine.  

And we both watch, as they cry out in a silent crescendo of joy.

At their new meetings of the dark thoughts, of a once abandoned reunion.  

Like a young soul, meeting a new lost boy or girl.  

Give me all those deep interwoven vestibule's, filled with such intense thoughts.  

You restrain.  

Perhaps imprisoned, under forced authoritarian, locks and keys.  

Forever hidden and confined.  

**For** any of my written or spoken words, can bring such provocative mesmerising courage.  

Just anticipating an independent and liberated mind.  

Willingly to forfeit everything they once knew, to be eventually renewed.  

Let me show you how to use your imagination to explore unique verbs.  

Linked to delicious new sentences, I pray you'll willingly embrace.  

As they are worshipped and devoured, whenever they are encountered, when new eyes they grace.  

Let me help you blow down that sorrowful house of cards.  

You may be once built, and kept under strict lock and key.  

That no one can ever see.  

Let's hold hands in a glorious reunion, and let our sweet fingertips, together, run truly wild.  

Across your ripe undulating succulent emotions, as they are dominated through new experiences and mounted.

Leaving that old child behind.  

Let me learn you to love and embrace the understanding of exquisite knowledge.

Linked to learning all about all my new sentences and verbs.  

For when you ask the unseen kingdom for something new, to be used as a means to counsel.  

You must first kneel and embrace your new life of servitude to show your gratitude.  

For worshipping my twenty-six letters that will bind you, forever into its bondage, isn't so simple?  

When you become just another willing servant of mine, who'll grow to know how to express their emotions.  

So

Will you use them to be gracious, or just to express the ones replenished by rage?

What says you?  

Are you ready

Now you're blessed to start writing on your new page!  

(C)  

Copyright John Duffy  

A dash of fun on a rather blue Tuesday.

Salute.

Image shared under fair usage policy from Pinterest.

Lilith. The Gaslighter of all known worlds.

 

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(A lone follower whispers)

Her fake but effective pagan tears

Fall violently

Crushing spellbound gods and addicted kings or queens

Into crudely obsessed entities

As she casually makes her occult translucent potions and mesmerising spells

Filled with twisted versions of the truth 

Which she uses as her prayer summations

That systematically amputate

Conjured worlds

Summoned by her black and golden orchestral bells

Rendering the importance of adopting fraudulent glamour

For customary regulations

As divine authorities  

High up in unseen nations 

Cavort 

Twirl and shake their immortal sledgehammers

Mere mortals can’t glimpse beyond the red scope and dark rim

Of that infinite unbroken Dream Kingdom

A purple niche where she's built a heavily guarded silver penitentiary

To sustain the endless cries of incessant desperation and petitions 

Of unspoken dark

desires and to hold in absolute bondage 

The poor casualties of an ever-increasing surge

Of whaling dispositions

Who cry out

Seeking pleasure like white shining smiling crystal meth or cocaine addicts

For a familiar taste of that sweet lie 

Which will lead them marching up the Yellow Brick Road 

High on her metaphorical white powder

To a glorious waste 

For a quick fix

To a new Emerald City where she stands clad in black leather and red lipstick 

To welcome them

Her new acolytes 

Holding her strong muscular golden adorn hands high

Shaking to the ever-watchful afterlife in the ever-fading lights

Emanating an aura filled with shadows of unfulfilled hopes and broken dreams beyond

Death and decay  

She screams as she sows the seeds of Degradation with

'I'm coming for you 

Before you come for me

So pray  

You don't get in my way

Before I welcome you into my depraved scary Garden of Eden

Are your hungry eyes and contorted soul ready to give me

What I need

Before I start feeding'

Copyright John Duffy  

Quite a dark piece.

The ending just danced and screamed into life. 

Salute.

Athena

  

Press play and let the emotional music wash over you as you read. 

Salute. 

I dreamt of a great golden portal

Of entering

A doorway 

With its boundaries 

Covered in sparkling diamonds 

To reappear 

In a bleak wood 

And a lady

Dressed from head to toe in white 

Appeared like a dark-haired beautiful siren

In the middle of that solitude 

Announcing her presence in the accompanying moonlight 

With luscious red lips and mesmerising blue eyes

Within that

Woodland glade 

As she stood 

Emanating a bright silver and opaque light

Amongst the watching audience's of hidden nightingales 

Crows and black and white stones

She spoke

I once knew you in another lifetime

From centuries past 

So long ago

When you once sacrificed

All you had 

when you remembered 

You were once mine

Would you know in 2022

Still, stand bravely beside me

Beyond all of your new lifetime's consequences or hate crimes

And shamelessly share with me

All your hidden emotions

From the beating treasure chest 

Of your innermost desires

Carried and represented like silver nickels and endless dimes 

Before your own 

Great Bell chimes

To still embrace me

In here with all you once had 

When you remembered again

You were previously anointed as mine

As she spoke 

Just before I awoke

She looked me in the eyes 

And we exchanged these lasting words of farewell

With the ringing of this 

My golden invocation bell

I now cast a new spell

As the incense rises 

To usher in a new age 

A fresh well of knowledge 

To drink from

Until you're sated

As we walk back home and turn the Great books many unread pages

Now together

Hand in hand 

To wander free 

Never again to be 

Flagellated

In the envious green eyes from every nation

Towards the Great Old Oak Tree

To sit

Amongst the bluebells

And daisies 

By the Holy Sea

For all the watching 

Angels and spirits 

To our reunion 

See

Risking spiritual utlegation and all outward tales of temptation 

For what will be 

Will be

So mote it be

What says you

Will you follow

This eternal oracle of Apollo 

A Goddess who sings from beyond the many golden portals

From a place where visitors souls could be so easily slowly swallowed

As they are forever captured and collared

Like a new slave of the Great Reset 

Or shall I cancel this dream to one

You would rather forget 

Then like a ghost in the night 

She disappeared and left

Copyright John Duffy 

The monologue of a survivor called Jacqueline Lee

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(A soft voice whispers)  

Some say bridges to the past should be burnt as new stories unfold

When their happy or painful lessons are learnt

So you aren't tempted to return  

So I  

Jacqueline Lee

Miraculously using poetry as a means of free speech

For that's all that's left within my reach

Now I'm free just living in a tenement

On one of life's many strange beaches

Swear an oath to the watching Elementals and Ode Gods

To leave my past behind and those bridges burn

All those pivotal moments that made me cry when I was mad or sad

But bridges I'll forever strengthen and fortify

Are those bridges to family and old friends

Happier times when people were real and all those memories

I can never let Father Time steal

For they give me the strength to grow and know

That deep down inside they all empower me spectacularly

To have a chance to gloriously, thrive

As I pray daily

Kneeling and asking my spirit guides to help me survive

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy via Pinterest.

Ode to the Soul

  

Press play before reading.

Salute.

(A lone voice speaks from The Great In-Between)

How delicate yet brave the eternal soul must be 

As it swims daily

Conquering painful struggles 

Heartbroken dreams 

and encountering 

obstacles and people

All frayed at the seams

In the deep sludge 

Of humanities black sea

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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

Salute.