The Love Gambler

 Fragments of an unusual dream from last night.

A strange conversation between two lost souls, it seems.

It makes an interesting monologue, though.

Oh, the joys of visiting, Lucidity City!

Salute.

Title:

The Love Gambler

(A lone voice whispers)

Did you once truly love me

Like I loved you

For I need to know

If we were once 

A

We

Or is it still just another darkly lit daydream

Illuminated by shadow birthing white candles 

I habitually cling to 

In my self-imposed darkness 

One where we find true happiness and togetherness

Buy a house

Have four children and sit happy in contentment 

Did I claim a part of your once unapproachable soul

As you once preached

A place

Where now 

No one

No longer knows

For it's beyond their mortal reach 

When on that sad but memorable day 

In Los Angeles

You quietly told me 

Standing by The Four Ladies of Hollywood

To go

Was I just a childish

foolish dream to carry you 

On a crimson stretcher of unrequited love

To safety

Beyond some deep emotional pain 

You were going through

Am I now just discarded 

Like a drained paper Costa coffee cup 

Since you said your unbearable goodbyes

When you embraced

On that fateful day 

Before we went to Los Angeles

All your family and kin 

Sweet backstabbing lies 

Will I rise up to face any upcoming storms

Within these winds of change 

I feel like soft and sharp feathers on my skin

As it blows over, my prayers of positive new horizons 

Watching me standing

Like Ulysses

Here at the beginning of the world's many awakening United Nations

Or will I fall like one of The Watchers

Headfirst into the blood-red snow of self-flagellation

But as I pause and look back at my once thought complete life

Like the doomed wife of Lot in The Book of Genesis 

And meditate over its sad unique highways and unrequited byways 

I hope 

Deep down 

They are replenished with self-growth 

With blessings from a man who once died on the cross

On a hill with others

in Golgotha

With a roll of these lucky soul-transforming 

Black and white dice 

Called Transmigration

I now toss

To avoid the musky scent and dark gifts of Self Damnation 

Which could turn me like Lot's wife

Into a pillar of salt

Brought from Hell's mythical vaults 

To me

By a black flying albatross 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.

The Broken

 

(A lone voice whispers)

With reflection
In this
The midnight hour

I light a white candle
For the one

Who once held me
Under her miraculous power

Driven by loves
Powerful painful desires

For us
Two of The Almas Perdidas

(Lost Souls)

Maybe like you
One of the Left BeHinders

Who wallow and wade through griefs tiring wailing waters

With a brokenheart
After love says 
Farewell

To then become new drinkers
From Depressions deep well

Praying love returns
With a ring of a lone red bell

To see true love
Once more and say

Stay
Please

Please
Don't go away
And melt my heart

Stay
So we are now

No longer
Torn apart

But like all pilgrims seeking the reach of God
In their own particular way

We know that red bell will no longer ring

We know our hearts will never heal or sing

So we live
In a living version of Purgatory

Dying with each breath of decay
We take

As we watch and wait for our call

To join others
Now living beyond
Purgatory Great Gates

Enduring the greatest of falls

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

lmage shared under fair usage policy.

The Silver City

 

I can still remember when we waited all night long 

Last October 

In winter

As a lone blackbird sung her early evening song

Sat holding hands 

Together

Before our time together 

Splintered 

Watching Luna ride her white chariot across the night sky

Sally

Your palliative nurse had dressed you in white and gold

Brushed your hair

Applied light makeup 

As a surprise 

For when you 

Woke up

We gazed for hours

In total silence, 

Looking deep into each other's eyes

Before we said our final goodbyes

Of only

I love you 

As your Midazolam tired eyes closed 

The hospice was cool and quiet

And the stars shone even brighter 

In that moment

The twinkling lights in your brown eyes

Went out forever 

And you laid cold and high

Due to continuous subcutaneous infusion 

And in all that following confusion 

When I cried

Holding your soft hands

Finally 

Realising you had died

Swimming in and out of the clouds

Like grey smoke 

Came a noise

Like a deep voice 

That made me choke

It said

Don't cry for the dead

For in the seconds they say their final goodbyes 

They wake again

In a new place

Where there are no more hospital beds

And people no longer die from poverty 

Cruelty or bloodshed 

But meet old loved ones

Like newly-weds

So take this from me

The communal processing officer of the now dead

Those that pass wait blessed by God's Head and with family and friends

In a Silver City that never ends

So dream easy

Stop crying

For those now dead or soon to be dying 

In dreams, they can soon visit from The Great In-Between 

Then the voice stopped as a shooting star shot across the now black sky

I asked Sally if she heard that voice or noise 

She looked intensely at me for a moment 

In that now quiet room and said 

Yes,

I thought it was your wife talking 

And that made me laugh

Laugh every day even though it might seem strange to strangers 

For in that second, after that loud voice 

I heard my Samantha say

Live well my love

Enjoy every moment of your time

Travel 

Spread hope and compassion 

And when you're ready

Laid in a hospice bed

Like me

Wear white and gold

The gold being our wedding band

And in that very last waltz with Death

When you take your last ever breath of the living dust

I will take you home to the Silver City where there is only love and no pity

Filled with people you can trust 

So I write this note

As I leave for Italy 

Here in this café for someone like you to read

The dead l

ive on forever

Waiting to be reunited 

In The Silver City

If you just believe

Beyond the realm of the living dust

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Are you a poet?

 I think I already know the answer.

Keep writing for someone, somewhere needs to read, what you're writing!

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Reflections of an old Coal miner

(A lone voice whispers)

I leave this

Behind

My beloved painting by my old shaking hand

Now I'm ninety-three

For my children and grandchildren to see

For soon 

I'll be with my wife and their mother

My beloved Annabel Lee

A painting so they can always remember

That I've climbed into all sorts of dirty pits

Starting many years ago

When Ma gave me my first snap box and sent me to work in late December

When at fourteen 

I got one of my many work permits

And since that first day, I've scrubbed for hours

To clean my decent hard-working soul

To be healthy for my family before I went home

After spending all day and night

Just digging deep for black coal

I was born just before Gas was crowned as king and all generations went into the pit

Like all baptised to do so before us 

If we were forced to admit it

Men and boys who we soon knew forever would be our kin

Going into the light or darkness to earn a few bob

Following all our own fathers and grandfathers

When our time too came 

When they asked casually over breakfast

Are you, ready son

And we all replied over hot coffee with a silent nod

Remember me

My name was Samus O'Mally

From Gods Country 

In County Donegal

Where we chased the mad black stuff like it was our lives bounty

Those courageous strong Irish men

Who like me 

When we heard the call

Willingly sacrificed our brief lives

Chasing fools black gold

So all our families could eat and be insulated from all weather 

But particularly the cold

Until it, 

Black Coals Ghost

Finally stalked us down wherever we lived and hid like a wild hyena

Rewarding us with a fatal kiss for years of servitude and service

With a black medal in the lung called after something so tragic, I now know as emphysema

To then stand watching us all silently but bravely 

Fight its deadly embrace as we all grew old

Coughing up blood like we were living in Hiroshima

Forever now just tainted like so many others 

From brave fathers and mothers

For foolishly chasing the glories and stories linked with mining black gold 

So their families could stay warm and conquer the cold

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy via Pinterest.

As Above. As Below.

 

My early morning post relates to the courage to embrace who you really are.

Many avoid doing so, and must fall endlessly in the void, as they trespass through this life.

Title:

As Above 

As Below 

Do devils and angels huddle around their monotone radios and quietly listen

As silent prayers are expressed and confessed

While waiting to help the weak 

Corrupt or the oppressed

Do Devil's eyes glisten

As young and old fools gather 

While devious deeds are goaded and corruptions sweet pills

Are simultaneously swallowed

By some as they quietly suggest

Do Angels wait to be invited in 

To bring more hope

Instead of sin

For those needing something else special 

To cope

Do they all stand around wherever they are

With some praying and some laughing to see 

Who'll win the bet

Do we all involuntarily shudder 

Caused by this complex life we contest

While we carry invisible tokens of our inevitable unseen guests

Linked to the good and the bad

The path may twist

As you stroll through its ever-changing strange roads

The toll booths may still need its payments in kind

The unearthly radios may relay your lamination's and prayers

But just walk on beneath their jubilant stares

They can but wait above or below

Until you get there

This life was never meant to be a paradigm

Filled with the realistic or fair

It all depends upon the attitude you wear

In all weathers 

When the clouds break and the bright lights herald a touch of a new dawn

Embrace all you are and why you were born

To help others

And yourself

And try to only listen 

To those angels with wings of white feathers

Not those 

Whose red eyes glisten 

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Being a Storyteller

 Some people sometimes ask me if my works relate to me.

I just answer:

A Storyteller

A realm of deep mystery

For the inquisitive 

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy 

The letter

 

Foundation of the piece.

A writer sending a love letter overseas to a love he has never met.

Do love letters still exist in the 21st Century?

Have you ever sent one?

The letter to Sophia 

Is it nearly midnight

My love

I can only hope those invisible tears aren't falling again 

As you dream of me

And making you numb

Is it supernaturally quiet there and do the streets beneath your darkened bedroom windows

Run empty and do all sinister shadows stand up straight 

Naked and bare

As you enter these narrative black gates

Does the seductive scent of a new escape with me from an old oblivion

Follow you everywhere

A new Heaven together 

Above an old Hell

A welcoming haven for us to hide within

Rolling like twin stones in its long sensuous green grass

Hiding from judgemental society within its long shadows

Except for the beating

Of your heart

And the vibrations of your breathing

Can you hear any other sounds

For I have seen you dreaming of me

In my sleep

Felt your beating heart and tasted the soft sounds of your breathing

Again and again

Do you still dream of us 

Been together 

We

Some class as forbidden

For we are wild untameable horses of obsession and yearnings

That needs to be experienced and ridden

Do you just crave a sweet taste of my red wine

With your soft red lips upon mine

Shall I whisper your name to the four winds and claim you in rhyme

Will you give me all I need

In time

For I know the sweet visceral taste of us embraced in fields of green

Will forever linger like a divine tasting honey

And our minds

Merged

Will cry out in elation

Reaching deep realms 

And keeps

So I just want to know

Will you send me something in return

As I wait inside these wrought iron old gates

In these so real lucid United Nations

For if you do

I will rush to you

In spirit 

Through all the falling raindrops

Like Paris to Helen

Caress your soul before all who stop to see

Touch you wantonly spiritually so you will never want leave

It’s what I believe when I close my eyes

Beyond the sacred old ruins of Gilgamesh

Beyond the grey skies of Emersha Amu

I just can't see you

With my eyes open

Only when dutifully closed

In prose

It's then I can truly worship 

And hope you feel my reverence

Touch you

As you caress my thoughts in rhymes 

For I need you

Like a moth to a flame

Like a living being

Needs a name

I am weak for you

My Goddess 

My eternal wisdom in the overgrowing darkness

Let me drown forever

Lost and spinning like Helicopter seeds

Tempestuously in your deep pools

Hypnotized forever within your dark eyes

As I stumble

From the stroke of midnight to early sunrise

As I wait for your letter

Let me feel your

Every drop of pain in words

Pain from old situations that still lingers and burns

So I purge them away with my own cleansing rain in return

For I am your own rain

For this purging rain has always been foretold

It has just lain with the old Crone in the deepest ancient unvisited woods

Waiting for the right moment to awaken and be understood 

Like now as we are finally ready

 

To enter that old wood

Listen

Do you hear that

Noise around you

It’s me just calling

For I can see you in my silver scrying mirror

Any time

Any place

In the middle of the day or night

Beseeching or taunting

Or just teasing with dark promises of unknown deep pleasures

Do not be afraid

Shy or inhibited 

For our ancient souls know

No set boundaries or red tape

No laws or treaties

No teachings

For we are untameable

Indomitable and wild

For we are truly free 

In here my child

You now know how to access my realms of In-Between

You now know where to go

Where I’ll meet you by these wrought iron old gates

In prose

This is our underground stream

A secret no one else knows 

Even when they dream

We’ll meet here ecstatically

In love letters

Like the blameless who are but truly pure

And we will lay underneath the indigo umbrella of the stanza falling rain

Expressing love with abandon in those new lands filled with no more pain

But tonight and tomorrow is but a long way away

Before you get my letter

So when you do

Do you still want to go beyond these wrought old iron gates to play

To lay blissfully under that indigo umbrella of expressions and get totally soaking wet

With lines and verbs

You will never forget 

To French kiss in deepest desire with literature and Walt Whitman

To relight new fires and put out old pyres

Before you get tired

And retire

If only I could carry your hand from your world into mine

But it only makes it sweeter

Only makes it more cherished

These delicious exchanges whilst we are apart

For we are just living masterpieces using written metaphors as our communication

As our refound old art

I know your heart may still be ravenous

Your mouth still parched

Thirsty

Your arms may be empty and forever still 

Reaching 

But my Goddess 

I have you to myself every night in those mysterious dark swirling isles

I receive

Just through those wr! ught iron old gates of verbs

You send

In lands where we will lay

Underneath that indigo umbrella

Where it always 

Always

Still rains just Love

Whatever the outcome

And hopefully 

We no longer feel numb

Whatever may come

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

 John Duffy 

I am The Crow

Press play.

My secret name comes from Babylonian mythology

Where it never used to snow 

Are you lonely and want to escape to my Chateau 

Where the buffalo and elk hide in time

In its long shadows

Just look in that bathroom mirror 

Light a red candle and whisper

Come for me at three

Yuyu Hakusho

Take me through time to Babylon 

To your Chateau

Where it never used to snow

Show me what's behind this world filled with so many 

Visiting corrupt bordellos

Their last picture show 

Take me willingly 

For I have a deep desire to really know

And I'll come 

Like a flying crow

From through time

From my archipelago 

In Babylon

Where it still doesn't snow

If you're ready like a domino 

To fall to the floor 

When you hear my footsteps 

As I open up your bedroom door 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Need inspiration?

 Press play.

Universal Change 

The world is changing so fast and tomorrow, hopefully, will be better than today or yesterday.

If your self-belief lasts.

Did you know the Lord, whatever your faith, gives you three things to survive in life?

A bright electromagnetic light to lead others out of the dark

An invisible shield 

And a metaphorical sword

The light is your bestowed unyielding belief in doing something good

That lays within you

In every single sinew

The shield

Is your faith magnified to be the cornerstone of your belief in the goodness of your light

And the sword is the strength to use the light and shield to constantly try to defeat and dispel the darkness 

Whenever it appears, 

If it follows you 

No matter where

You're stood 

I’ve obviously just created this just to inspire you to keep moving forward, with positivity in your life. 

Regardless of your fears

Instead of wallowing in deep pools of fast flowing soul tears

I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but universally, shouldn’t we just try to inspire each other, and others?

Instead of using negative narratives?

Have a wonderful upcoming week and keep those three things close 

For you'll never know when they are needed the most 

Salute.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy