Mortality

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 Foundation of the piece.

A theme many don't consider until it's too late.

People taking people for granted, thinking they'll be around forever.

Title:

Mortality 

(A lone voice whispers)

My name doesn’t matter

Only one question matters

Who would you really miss

If you could only give them

One last mortal goodbye kiss, tomorrow 

Which one of your family

Friends or relatives 

All beloved folks in your Houses of Representatives

Would leave you wallowing in true sorrow?

For as true as the cock crows 

No-one is promised a date with Lady Tomorrow 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Have you ever been in love?

 Press play.

Salute.

Lucid Dreaming

I dreamt I was once a priest

And holding a sermon was always my calling

Especially to help those in the dark

Lonely and alone

Who feel like they are

Forever 

Falling 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Based on a lucid dream.

Vague details are below!

I dreamt I was in a gigantic church.

Like a football theater. Dressed like a priest.

Another priest introduced me.

Asked if anyone had any questions for our new speaker of the night?

A lady then stood up, reading her question from a book regarding sin.

I answered. 

Something like this to that lady and that gigantic audience.

Everyone sins at some level, for only one man was perfect. 

And if we show remorse

humility and a form of reconciliation with God again, for our transgressions 

We still have a chance to dance in heaven.

I went on to explain I have no formal training. Don't know hymns by heart but hear God everyday as I pray

Then the dream ended with the priest encouraging the audience to stand and clap.

Lucid dreaming is said, by some, to project your soul into other realities, you exist within.

Could I be a priest in another alternative reality?

Maybe it's true. 

Quantum physics are undoing a lot of previously unknown mysteries.

The strange laws of synchronicity might be at play.

A few years ago, I was asked to start my own online church.

Would you listen to one of my sermons 🙏🎈? 

Sending best wishes to my silent viewers.

Mr John Duffy 

Priest in another realm

The Nightwalker

 The Nightwalker

(A lone voice whispers)

They 

Call me Ramon

The nightwalker looking for her

The one who summons me with her faint calls of

Dépêche-toi mon amour

Dépêche-toi mon amour

(Hurry up my love)

And when I finally appear

She disappears smiling and whispers

Pas ce soir mon amour, laisse le grand jeu continuer. 

Cette poursuite passionnante est tout ce que nous avons maintenant. 

Ne gâchons pas ce rêve mystique de The Great In-Between.

Que la poursuite continue.

(Not tonight my love, let the great game continue. 

This thrilling chase is all we now have. 

Let's not spoil this mystical dream from The Great In-Between.

Let the chase continue.)

And then slowly glides like a vampire clad in black and gold

With long crow black hair 

To where I can never go

As I lament with

Tasanna

O, my love

My Lylak Queen

O, my love

A potent power of living

Breathing carnal sin

Born from the Babylonian bloodlines

Freed once more

By the Deep Well

To entice 

All in view 

Who dare pine

To be put under

Your spell

When you arrive

Like a new Cleopatra 

Dressed to the nines

In gold and diamonds

It's why I always wait

Like a faithful follower

Forever in the shadows

Hidden on the sidelines

For how can I win

Against such a goddess of potent sin

Elusive

So intoxicatingly 

Seductive

I feel blessed by Pāgānus

If Pāgānus was a god

For I'd walk the two hundred miles of

The Four Pillars of Zanzibar

To see your smile

Swim in the hazardous Pele Waters

At dusk

Just for a taste

Of your sensuous hypnotic musk

For obsession is a crazy horse to ride 

To dark places

Where low men scoop fire into their laps

Praying their clothes will not get burnt

As they wander 

Lost 

Like Bedouin Prince's

In the deserts of the mind

Walking the wet shores 

Of the Lylak

Looking forever 

For your silhouette

Never to ask for help 

Or to go back

It's why I wait

Here

In The Great In-Between

Fearful of abandonment 

Since the first day 

We met

For chasing a love like yours

Is like playing a crazy game with Diablo

Like Russian Roulette

Sometimes as I hear 

The footsteps

Of another arrival 

And when the Great Golden Trumpet blows

In that moment 

I always wonder

Is that your omnipotent power

With one kiss

Is one doomed to chase

And

Cursed to crave

To never forget 

To then ride to 

The wet shores of the Lylak 

To dark places

Where low men scoop fire into their laps

Praying their clothes will not get burnt

As their souls

Cry out in thirst

Dépêche-toi mon amour

Dépêche-toi mon amour

Hurry up my love 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

 The Nightwalker

Image shared under fair usage policy via Pinterest.

Tenebris Oculi (L) AKA Mr. Dark Eyes

 A long occult gift for the inquisitive

Tenebris Oculi (L) AKA Mr. Dark Eyes

(A lone voice whispers) 

To all the mysterious souls just lost beyond my second sight and long reach

Maybe even you

Who are perhaps my number 2 from a pack of 7

Hiding somewhere unknown in Father Time's long silver grass

Watching my every move like Loki the Norse Raven

Lying scattered across all the oceans and before all the greatest of Antarctic lakes

Below (אֱלָה)

Quietly reading this and trying to compose inspired poetry

Beseeching your inner mind's great portico to quickly open

And spill forth

Secretive words only once whispered long ago and spoken in the darkest of carved out corridors 

Celebrating the Festival of Karneia on the Fourth

By the Pythia to bathe within its spectacular potency

In ancient Apollo's candlelit yellow temples in Pompeii

In cold winters nights

May these channelled words find a way 

To weave a magical spell to beguile your own inquisitive mind and everlasting soul 

To be slowly opened up with Apollo's ritual athame 

Carving poetry with Apollo's knife into your deep mind many kingdoms 

Everywhere you go

For you to then find the courage to breach your own inner great gates

To finally find and drink from that mystical ever-flowing well 

Found in the centre of all things 

To know how infectious Apollo's power is

Beyond those inner great gates

By only the true believers like maybe you and the many seekers of the profound truths 

Found 

In linking expressive verbs like daisy chain necklaces

Seeking to taste whatever their spirits really desire and then hoping to hold their nerve

And make the return journey home

Filled and sated 

With smiling faces

Wildly mentally dancing to a new sound

Announcing the arrival of their life's only holy obligation

Like a true gift at Christmas 

To then write profusely 

Be it at midnight or throughout the long days

Recalling and narrating the many sacred strands 

And complex explorations of the many layers of human emotions 

From Love

Hate

Life and Death

And whatever else

That comes smiling or snarling their way

From those just hidden beneath all blue and green seas

The Great Old Ones

In the deep depths 

Of the Final Abyss 

Hidden somewhere in the fluctuating waves of the Fram Strait

A passageway taken by those who deep dream 

Seeking that rare gift

Somewhere in the deep of the Arctic Ocean

Seeking their own Beginning

A journey into the deepest depths of poetry also known as The Exposition

For within that setting

At that time and place

They build like master masons

Characters and plots to beguile the watching world like a reborn Dante Alighieri

An occult philosophical theory found in the foundation stones of music and stories 

Poetry

Awaiting to be consumed by a new Adam and Eve

In the form of a tempting rust red cherry

Escribe como debes No dejes que tus expresiones se conviertan en polvo.

Write as you you should. Don't let your expressions turn to dust

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Revelations

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

If we try to do what's right.

Salute. 

Have a great Monday.

Title:

Revelations

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

Have you ever really thought

How delicate yet courageously brave your eternal soul must be 

As it swims daily

Upstream 

Conquering painful struggles 

Day and night

Heartbroken dreams 

and encountering 

obstacles and people

As they come into sight

All frayed at the seams

In the deep sludge 

Of humanity's soul purging Black Sea

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

 

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