Risk

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Spontaneous poetry

 A dash of fun on a wet Monday 

A lone guitarist sings

Are you

Are you

Picking pears 

From the poetry tree

Are you 

Are you 

Picking pears 

From the poetry tree

Expressing 

All you could be

Are you

Are you 

Walking through life's wild woods

Embracing all you could be

As you

Pick pears 

From the poetry tree

Sharing your love of words

For all 

Who could read 

To see

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Is your soul waking?

 

(A lone voice whispers)

Every day, do people look for a life-changing truth but has it become commercial

A new rehearsal by an old hidden hand

For that truth,

The real truth 

Is it hidden throughout the land

And is the soul indentured at birth to conform to its new norm

To never see it

But is the human experience 

Stripped down to its essential form

Does it have its own unique voice

Light and sound

A soul 

Not indentured to wander around self-blinded

If it pauses in a commercialised world to look around 

Not indentured to not

learning to read or speak its own inner language

For a lifetime of reading thousands of books

Will not give us the truth 

Some are looking for in a quest of soul reshaping 

We can only be guided by living life through better eyes 

Before we all die

And is that why you're here

Because you love writing or reading poetry 

Because it's your soul speaking and expressing its true inner language 

As it overcomes indentured barriers of fears

For some say the greater part of the soul lies outside 

Not inside the body

In a simple truth called soul waking

Experiencing all we meet

Before our time as human beings is retaken 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Have you undergone Metanoia?

 Press play.

(A lone voice whispers)

From love

Friends and many levels of relationships 

Sometimes destiny

Destroys us

To embrace metanoia

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Metanoia.

A Greek term relating to a profound, transformative change of heart or an intellectual conversion of the mind.

Memories of Lucinda

(A lone voice whispers)

There's a hidden secret room I go to 

In my cathedral of dreams

Whenever I sleep

Where a white candle burns

In The Great In-Between 

As Yesterday lives wild 

Fed on memories and crawls up and down 

The broken walls

While favourite ones 

Stand up tall

And in amongst the grey clutches of Yesterday 

There in the middle

Amongst the cobwebs and ivy

The weeds and bits of creeping moss

Is my old shrine 

To all I've lost

A long time ago 

That shrine once as white as snow

But now grey

It shines and gleams

With mystical glee

As Yesterday 

Crawls up and down the walls

Like a banshee 

Wearing a black shawl

In its centre

Made of now dull silver

On its table

Is a black and white picture left by Yesterday 

For me to remember

The only love who kept me stable 

Lost in December 

And as I pause

And Yesterday 

Feeding on memories 

Stop's climbing the walls

I hear her sweet husky voice over the top of my beating heart

It breaches the weed filled nooks and crannies

Cools my fast flowing bloodstream 

       

Then in that moment climbing through the atoms of that sparse air

Comes her perfume drifting 

From somewhere 

 

A much loved fragrance from the past

Filled with sweet moments as I remember I prayed would last

Then Yesterday moves 

And the scent is gone

The voice disappears

And in that room of no living creature 

Where I sometimes appear

To remember 

Yesterday's memories 

Which I hold dear

That white candle

in its centre

On that table

 

Burns brighter each year

On the 28 of December 

When I return to remember 

My beloved Lucinda 

Who I lost

One fatal day in winter

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Cataclysmic Dreams

 Foundation of the piece:

Have you met someone special, but circumstances prevent you from taking things, forward?

Cataclysmic Dreams 

(A lone voice whispers)

Sometimes in the early morning breeze

As the world is slowly

Waking and yawning

In deep delicious dreams

Dressed from head to toe 

In blue and green 

You come strolling in 

Wearing glorious white satin

Appearing 

Through a portal 

From The Great In-Between 

Walking in

Like a beautiful young Cleopatra 

My alpha and omega 

Where we then

Hand in hand 

Lay in a field of yellow hay 

As wild horses around us

Neigh and play

Looking deeply into each other's eyes

As twin

Eagles above us

Circle and play

As the watching the world goes by

Slowly 

Fading away 

Thinking 

Why are some circumferences so unfair 

That you can't have some fun

With your heart's true love

But only in dreams 

Before your real life is run

 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

The Eulogy Letter

 Press play.

What would your eulogy letter say?

Although I leave

Behind

So many to grieve

Please don't cry

For I have loved my beautiful life

And have no fear to die

For through faith

I know 

Angels with bright wings

With turtle-doves

That sing

Will find me

To guide me

Beyond the clouds of this world's largest sky

Way past Saturn Rings

For my heart is clear

And filled with all the wonderful things 

I hold dear

Like you all

My family and friends 

So hold on to your sad tears

This is not the end

For I have danced hand in hand with love 

In the early morning rain

And sunshine 

 

Savored its sweet taste and pain 

In my beating chest as my heart pined

Kissed and fought 

For peace

For the oppressed 

With all the many buttons 

I could find 

To press

So of me do not cry

For fear of death 

No fear 

Have I

For my God 

Now waits for me

Smiling 

Beaming 

In the shadows

By the silver gates

In the eternal green redeeming meadows

So take this

As my final kiss 

Goodbye

My eulogy letter 

For remember 

When you hear this

Trust me

Good friends and true love

Never die

And knowing

Loving and seeing

You all 

Has been my utmost pleasure 

And I can only hope and pray  

You'll keep doing your best in some way 

Therefore, in closing

Good night and

God bless 

Remember me

Just another loved one

Walking to find their salvation 

In the Holy Sea

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

The Calling

 Press play.

(A lone voice whispers)

Run to me

My only love

Through all of your life's wild woods

To reach my secret mountain glade

To where I'm stood

Waiting

Like a lone ash tree

Come to your destiny 

As I stand chanting 

In my circle of salt

Sending out spells in poetry

To enchant and call to you

Each night

Even when you prayed

A part of me still waits in those dark woods 

In the deep unconscious recesses of your mind

Just hidden in the green ivy and shade

Where your deepest desires are confined and waylaid 

Will you surrender and just come to me

For I will build inside you a new spiritual temple

With tender soft hands

A red beating altar

As its centrepiece

Filled with love's marching band's 

To absolve all your fears

So search for me

In those unconscious recesses of your mind

Just hidden in the green ivy and shade

Where your deepest desires are confined and waylaid 

To come to a new church 

To be baptised and ordained

Walk through all that ceremonial smoke that chokes

Past the enticing pit fires

Surrounded and lit by temptations

Many crowds of enticing chanting liars

When you hear 

Me calling

"De prisa, queda poco tiempo"

(Hurry, there is little time left)

"De prisa, queda poco tiempo"

To finally cross the wet sands and swim through the dark waters

To defeat 

Death

To reach my mountain woodland glade

Inside

Where we can finally dance freely in glee 

Amongst the deadly nightshade

And face the rise of the Full Winter Moon

Totally unafraid

Like Adam and Eve

As the rest of the world

Is falling

Manipulated by those indentured politicians and news presenters 

Who like to gaslight and deceive

Wearing expensive suites and dolman white sleeves

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Remember Me

 Remember me

My Elysee

In the low hours

When you are weak 

And have lowered

Your powerful barriers

For it's then I can only be seen

Remember me

As that tsunami of furious fire

That once reenergized you

In those dark years

When you were alone and tired

To be wholly free

Remember me

By looking at my picture

Your now favourite 

Black and white one I sent you

As my holy scripture

That you'll only need

Remember me when you are old 

Standing brightly as the early morning sun 

In the darkness of old age

Even though your beloved memories are getting cold

Before God turns your page

So you can fade away

To join me 

As the hours and seconds

Run away 

Remember me

So I may stay

In some strange spiritual way

To give you comfort

Until you too are recalled

To float away

Someday

Remember me

My poetic love 

So I can come to you

In dreams

Walking down to find you

Through the ethereal blue rivers and green

Underground streams 

To reach you to swim

Together 

Reunited

 

In the Holy Sea

Until the early morning sunrise

Remember me

As your true spiritual devotion

Who you never met in physical flesh

But one

Who wrote down 

In his pre-life road map

With his spirit guide

In another

Far away nation

"I want to meet someone so extraordinary 

Someone worldwide

Who will show me such poetic wonders" 

"That my heart will open up its velvety doors and ask to be possessed as it pleads to confess

Before I once more walk 

In these heavenly tides

Of the Holy Sea"

And then I suddenly met you

Mesmerised 

By all

I could see

So that's why I pray

For you 

Each night

So you'll remember me

As I wait here

Walking barefoot and alone

In the swirling tides

Of The Holy Sea

Waiting 

for the one

I once wrote down before I was born

Now known

As Elysee

The only one I'll ever need

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Peace

(A lone voice whispers)

In the lower levels of spiritual existence 

We once roamed

Alone and lonely

Forlornly

Looking for true love

And all its mysterious emotional energy

Hidden away 

In our empty homes

And like a red rose 

Blooming in a garden of thorns

I found you

Like a rare diamond amongst the coal

Blowing your triumphant golden horn

We danced

Sang and laughed together

And our happiness seemed forever

But Fate

That unseen handler of so many

From The Great In-Between

Intervened

Then you were once more lost 

The ever-expanding sea

 From dark shores

Had reached us and you were beached

Somewhere 

Between

Where and there

Between us

But

Regret is a grey smoke 

I will never breathe

Pain 

A tablet of separation

I will never take

For our life

Together although short

Will vibrate

Throughout my eternity 

Forever

For memories make a person once broken 

Smile filled with happy thoughts

Though unspoken

For pain and regret are always blowing like hungry

Vampiric seeds in the loose winds

Hoping to take root and grow in the garden of sad hearts

Which invite them in

Sadness found in regret and pain 

Should be cleansed by remembering

All those happier times 

For that's how I remain

Profound

For even though now

My old love and me

Don't share the same

Common ground

Like

Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson

In that famous Titanic ending scene

We'll dance forever 

Together

 

In my dreams

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy