Brigid

Brigid

(A lone voice whispers)

Spellbound 

As no more fields are ploughed

Lost in a Cretan labyrinth of the unspoken and untold

Stumbling like a blind man or woman through love's now empty barren playgrounds

As Winters long reach starts to unfold to breach Autumnal walls

While wild valley blackbirds and starling flocks 

Scream and call out in unison at the lack of the rising sun

About the impending icy cold as they fly in the autumnal equinox

With Death lingering

Around

Like black mold

With bony fingers

Rattling without a sound

Awaiting Wintersonnenwende

As daylight recedes

Like one of the Devil's Island 

Condemned 

Spring

The Exalted One,

 

Awaits for her rebirth in a green pod 

Created by her beloved 

God

Trapped deep beneath the cold earth

Lost in a Cretan labyrinth of the unspoken and untold

Before once again 

Being released to

Rebuild the pillars of the earth

With her rebirth 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Wintersonnenwende translates to “winter solstice” in English. 

    

 

Creativity

 Press play

Foundation of the piece:

Do poets write, regardless of an audience, but just for the privilege of eliciting a response, in just someone?

Title:

Creativity 

(A lone voice whispers)

Is poetry like hearing drums 

Announcing your stories which must be spun 

Even if only

Your readers

Numbers 

Are just

1

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

The Monologue of Mr Grief

 

 

(A lone voice whispers)

Some people I know 

Like to wear their hearts on their sleeves

And smile at the world

Wherever they go 

It's so much more courageous and revolutionary 

Then I can ever conceive 

I like to keep mine under deep cover so it can recuperate and try to breathe

From all the subtle Kübler-Ross wars, I've recently endured 

As I seek a means to quell all these tragic sensations which must be cured

For I know deep down they need to run their course 

As I lay tapping my feet listening to the bustling wind as it blows yonder 

I always ponder 

The why's and the what for's

The means and themes of all that depressing pain that eventually follows home 

Each time that so delicious memories' tablet I delicately swallow

For I know

Things will never be the same and I take my hat off and bow 

To all those who suffer in silence but smile 

Wherever they go 

As they wear their hearts on their sleeves 

For to little old me

It's just a crazy concept and one I can never believe

For inside now I'm without you

I'll just wander in solitude

Living on my own and some nights when I'm sat alone

In our old home

Sipping lemonade and gin

Thinking about the last time I saw your beautiful face 

Touched your soul as we rolled around playfully

Wrapped up together in twenty-five minutes of sin

We thought would last forever

Until illness came creeping in and called you home

I'll forever just grieve

Walking around

With my heart hidden

Carefully 

Under my sleeves

Copyright John Duffy

A secret one named Yato Norogato Speaks

In the eternal battle between the Light and Dark

To defeat the metaphorical slugs that surround you and wait so quietly and patiently

In black uneven lines  

Who pine

The slow but sure followers of a second eternal Father called Darkness  

Who hides behind the worlds worst headlines 

Trying stealthily to invade your Circle of Happiness

You must use whatever your Allegiance as an unspoken Magical Charm

To protect your Angelic Stillness

By wielding your Devotion as your Salt Circle

In an unbreakable Sword of Conjured Silver

To hold back the Dark Hordes

Imbued with your Virtues as your Mighty Defender

To protect your Family  

Friends

Hopes and Dreams

For at the Core  

Stripped bare

That's all  

Whatever your calling

That's been already planted as a Trinity of Divine Seeds

Within us all  

That we'll ever need

In which we can trust  

Before we turn to dust

And return to the Universes never-ending cathedrals

Of ever-expanding atoms

As we are once again forced to kneel in submissive acquiescence

When Death visits and we are then crushed  

  

 

(C)  

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy via Pinterest.

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