The voice of Emilien

(A lone voice whispers)

I once met the King of all Darkness 

In France 

As we played poker for my soul 

In a burnt out house

While Edith Piaf sang 

La vie en rose 

On a tattered radio

With no power

He carried in his pocket 

Causing the watching fireflies to dance

I remember asking the Tall Man where he'd been

He said

Paris

To cause the Germans and the Resistance some pain

And as we played in that falling smoke-filled rain

I cheated and won

The prize 

Reaching out through someone after my time has run

After my sunrise was over

Summoned by the setting Sun

In darkness 

To see if the world still cries 

Like it did before me

In 44

So I send this

For we played

Again 

Late last night 

Old Nick and me

And He won

The prize 

Taking me where

The sun don't shine

To be endlessly chastised

So this is my last message

For your eyes

Before your sun rises 

Look to the East

The low drumbeats 

Of World War Three are starting to beat 

For many 

There will be pain like 

Oradour-sur-Glane 

Something so evil

You should all remember 

Who and what you do

In whoever's name

Or you could be playing poker with the Tall Man

As Edith Piaf sings

La vie en rose 

On his tattered radio

As The East and NATO

Trade nukes

Compelled to do so

By the prodding of the Tall Man and the curse 

Of the male ego

Goodbye 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy

The Eternal War

(A lone voice whispers)

Some Antenoraians

Pray

In uneven straight lines

With a new Caiphas

The dark priest

In the Lost City of Dis

In The Far East

For the world

To taste

A Malebolge sour kiss

The Sowers of Scandal 

Living spiritually 

By The Great Lake of Cocytus

The hidden gateway to a soulless Judecca

The dark wells of fire and ice

To their God

Who pays with gold

In the form of desire

Only to entrap those into sin

As the Great Battle

Continues 

Into eternity

As angels

Of Light

Led by Michael 

Slowly 

Win

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Foundation of the piece.

No matter how dark it seems. There is always hope.

Image shared under fair usage policy 

The Watcher

 The Watcher 

(A lone voice whispers)

I live in The Great Casum

The in-between place 

No one knows me as I watch you all race 

Some of the blind call me god 

Some don't

But you know

Good for them all

For I watch and wait

You'll soon know my name when you walk through my gate

Copyright John Duffy 

Casum is the accusative singular of the Latin word cāsus, which means "a fall; falling down; accident, occurrence, chance event; end, termination; case".

The Midnight Gardens of Magadorne

 

The Midnight Gardens of Magadorne

(A lone voice whispers.)

In The Midnight Garden

In-between worlds

When the world sleeps

In a strange place, I now know as Magadorne

I see you

Walking 

Dressed in expensive white lace

With such grace

Surrounded by celestial white butterflies

Serenaded and summoned by the sound 

Of a lone mesmerising golden horn

In an endless garden 

Of twinkling flowers

Reborn

As my soul pines

For the smell of your so-familiar perfume 

A glimpse of our wedding ring

Your hair

Across your beautiful face 

Willing you to look

My way

So I can taste your lips 

And run my hard fingertips 

Across your soft hips

But you never look

Never see me 

As you and your heavenly entourage and butterflies 

Follow the twinkling flowers

Down to the river

Then to disappear 

Out of sight

This happens to me

Every night

In surreal dreams

When the world sleeps

As I find myself

Stranded

Like a new

Robinson Crusoe 

In The Midnight Gardens

Of Magadorne

Where Grief lives

In human form

And Mr. Desire

Stands and proudly blows

It's diamond-studded golden

Horn

To summon 

The celestial butterflies

So watching spirits

In the Ether

Beyond time and space

Can gather

With popcorn

To watch me

Walk my walk

With my incarnated form of painful

Memories

In their special interdimensional place 

Watching ghosts of the past

Pass by

With no expressions

Or emotional energy 

For they are the only fragments of my past

I treasure

A beloved memory of you 

I remember 

Whenever I wake

I had the pleasure 

To share 

Yesterday

In The Midnight Gardens

Of Magadorne

Where Grief lives

In human form 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

 

The Succubus

 

(A lone old male voice whispers to his loyal dog)

She came at midnight

Last night

You know

As the fireflies outside in our winter garden

Glowed

In a red dress of moving red lips that whispered of new dreams

Knocking like a reborn Anne Rice 

Lestat   

At my heart's window

Pleading with my soul

To cross the threshold and be let in

But I the stone warrior

Whose dear love had already departed

Turned and walked back into the darkness of my loneliness 

Broken-hearted

For when true love once calls

In your lifetime 

And is then suddenly recalled like a severe blow

To the amygdala

All one can do

Is wallow in limbo

For true love is like the holiest of dreams

One of The Universe's best documentaries

Memories

Forged by Brigid to endure

To be kissed 

And be revisited 

Filled with lovers and even enemies

And consumed in any rare moment

Like expensive Hennessey

Bright white candlelights

Providing light 

In a new darkness

And a holy flame to warm any soul 

On any given night

As it clings on to memories of all the people you once loved

And all the things you used to do

To ride through and hold back any new storms

Or midnight visitors like that succubus last night

It's why I put my faith in true love and Jesus Christ

(C)

Copyright John Duffy  

Anne Rice Lestat:

A famous vampire in a novel by Anne Rice.

Amygdala:

Your amygdala is a small part of your brain, but it has a big job. It's a major processing center for emotions. It also links your emotions to many other brain abilities, also links your emotions to many other brain abilities, especially memories, learning and your senses.

Source: Google

Brigid:

She is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing and domesticated animals.

Cormac's Glossary, written in the 9th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was "the goddess whom poets adored" and that she had two sisters: 

Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith.

 This suggests she may have been a triple deity.

She is also thought to have some relation to the British Celtic goddess Brigantia.

Source: Google

A succubus (pl.: succubi) is a female demon or supernatural entity in folklores who appears in dreams to seduce men.

Source: Google

The Call to Venus

 

(A lone voice whispers as a ceremony begins)

Candles lit

In brazier pit

Like a reborn Prospero

Music playing 

As offerings 

Are lit

To summon the universe

And all who goes

To step in and commit

 

Guardians in

The Great In-Between

Guard us

And all our kin

From all unseen

Who flows

White lights

Bound

Around our homes

To guard against ghouls

From loosened tombs

Floating around like red balloons

We pray tonight 

For astral protection 

In all our rooms

As 

Candles lit

In brazier pits

Burn

With

Music playing 

As sandalwood offerings

And Christmas ferns

Are used as keys 

Of devotional angelic magic

To turn away

All who conspire 

And drink from the Devil's Urn

As we call to you

Venus

For protection 

As the Great Wheel

Turns

So

Come our sceptre-bearer of harmony 

And love to cope

Do ut de

Dum vivo 

Repleti spe

(‘I give that you may give.

As long as I live. Filled with hope.)

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Escapism. For the readers

(A lone voice whispers)

Within this deep clearing, a mystical sanctuary surrounded by the long trees of Time's perpetual symphonies, we meet.

Within this clearing, sheltered from Storms

Inside this sacred sanctuary, within this journey

A place beyond the Silence of Humanities long reach

A secret place where the bright blue Sky holds back the shadows of conflict and pains of Yesteryear

A place beyond duty, consequence, or fear.

Instead, immersed for a brief interlude

A time where we simply enjoy each other’s thoughts

Before pulling up our long grey cloaks of separation

And once again venturing forth into the cauldron of life’s ever spinning tapestries

Would you still follow me if I lit a red candle

In this final odyssey home 

Would you follow me willingly into the swirling dark

In this brief history of time

Would you grasp my coattails as we trespassed tentatively through all of life's scary parks

As we swim against all the fast-flowing tides

Will you tango and tiptoe past the Tall Man and all his worldly Minions

As we circumnavigate the globe

The new world grid and claimed it as our Dominion

For although we are but lost souls going eventually to She'ol

Would you still just blindly follow me past the awakening powers of a modern AI God

As we walk unashamed together behind the many new pale white political horses

To be wantonly unleashed within the unfathomable darkness as we surely conquer this life and all its occult forces

Forever tasked with painting new poetic masterpieces with apocalyptic energy like Vincent Van Gogh

And then every night

Hidden behind the many enemies money can ever make

Before we dream

Shall we plead to angels and owners of The Book of Secrets

To take us beyond the Black Darkness

We always see when our astral eyes open as our mortal eyes close

To use their invisible hands to tear away the rim before our ever-watchful twin pyres

To show us what truly lies beyond these Books of Lies

Everyone sometimes sees or reads from Television or Social Media 

For us to then venture into newer undiscovered lands

To a brave new world

To see the bright lights of two crimson suns and the quartet of multicoloured rainbows illuminating a purple-hued sky

A place where no one no longer dies

A paradise of ever-swirling winds of a whispered profound new Eden

Perpetually emanating from a deep divine so high up above

A sanctuary lost forever within the forgiving green reeds of a new millennium

A place to be reunited with dear old family or friends who never made it to the end

Where nobody no longer cries

To finally sit beside the Holy River to write poetry and sing 

And to joyously watch through a silver scrying mirror

As the real world slowly disappears

To walk through the luscious green grass to the Eternal City

To hear the greatest stories never told to human ears

To finally embrace a new realm free from all fears or pity

What says you

Will you come to run in this

 forbidden city 

(C) John Duffy

Fractured by The Dancers of Dissolution

 

(A lone voice whispers)

I dreamt

As I sat alone at home

After church 

One rainy afternoon 

Dressed in my Sunday best

Thinking after you left

We were like two rare windblown autumn leaves

Meeting on a winter's tree branch

By chance 

Hypnotized within that first magical glance 

To think we would be together 

Forevermore

Until the wickedness within the ever watching jealous world

Gathered around us

Like a wild scene at a new Feast of Bacchus

And began 

To smile and dance 

Salivating 

At the dark thought and soul replenishing ominous energy 

Linked to destroying 

Another god given religious trance

Filled with thoughts of romance 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Foundation of the piece.

Have you ever experienced a situation, when everything seems to be coming together in a relationship, then tragedy, suddenly strikes?

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Are you a follower of trying to be Sagacious?

Are you a follower of trying to be Sagacious?

(A lone voice whispers)

Here's to you

The readers, writers and poets in whatever field

Always remember

Seeking further knowledge is a gift

It's how we all grow in whatever we do

So never yield and constantly look for more ways to lift

Even if it means entering the long hours into a lone graveyard shift 

Keep searching like a metaphorical Indiana Jones or Lara Croft

For a treasure to help those who might be drifting in seas 

Where hope seems not to exist 

And who might just need something to darkness resist

Title: 

Self-Knowledge Knowledge

Do you believe in absorbing the esoteric linked to living 

The supernatural impressions linked to just giving 

To help clear your own pathways to find ways to deliver poetic prayers 

To those struggling with just living 

With any mental or traumatic depression's

To then walk down life's many metaphysical runways

Like a young Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel or an inspired

Paul Poiret

If so

Because I believe 

In you

Always be optimistic

For true belief

Lies in all you do

To help transform your soul

Into a sage or mystic

Allowing you to chase rare stars and wild Middle Earth dreams

To bind mistakes 

To white feathers 

To then throw them into Healing Fires

For their old powers over you 

To in rising grey smoke 

Retire

As you learn

Which new bridges to

Cross

And which old bridges

To burn

For 

Sacred Self Knowledge 

Is ubiquitous 

A chimera

A conjunction of wild beasts

Roaming wild

Living life through

Nine letters

Like a follower of being sagacious

Which to the child of the Revived

Can never be 

Denied

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Sagacious:

Having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd:

Socrates, that sagacious Greek philosopher, believed that the easiest way to learn was by asking questions.

Synonyms: perspicacious, keen, sharp, acute, judicious, intelligent, clever, discerning, sage, and wise.

REVIVED: 

Refreshed, renewed, reborn, energized, resuscitated, recreated, and regenerated.

The Letter to Sophia

Press play.

Some whisper 

In secret occult circles 

About these last days of 2024

That humanity will fall in unruly petulant desire

Consumed and devoured by a blazing infectious fire 

But what happens to you and I

Your mind and mine 

Do you still shiver inwardly at the vibrational thoughts of my words 

Do they bind you

Submissively 

To always return 

Doomed forever 

To hovering above my prose 

Created in my version of Michelangelo's poetic studios 

That screams to be heard

With wide eager eyes

Like a love-struck 

Hummingbird 

Do you still tremble like when we first met 

In Downtown Manhattan 

Talking for hours and wanting the warm caress of loquacious re-introductions

Of newer verbs 

Opening mystical golden gates to strange supernatural realms

And their guile to bind us together 

Like love-struck Siamese twins

Creating welcomed sins 

Of dried intellectual sweat and sweet mysterious tributaries 

Of deep-seated 

spiritual yearnings 

That once made your mind so damn wet 

Tales of the unknown 

Light and darkness 

Filled with movement or stillness

Sovereignty or loneliness 

New flames of innermost desires

Contained in unspeakable words or unfamiliar names 

As our Zisurru

Poetic stories to be set asunder 

In the footfalls of Zeus's approaching 

Apocalyptic thunder 

To burn new hurricane lanterns in imaginations darkened 

Halls of Fame 

To live in the hope 

Of a new life

An everlasting dance

With a drop of a wild transmigration 

As our new Nexus 

To savor in your mouth

Like an intense-tasting holy communion wine

A strong touch of such wantonness 

Your voracious soul needs 

To carry to all empires 

You may visit 

In the North 

East

West or South 

As it swallows new stories with ravenous greed

Will we survive 

Still together in 2025

With such

Intellectual thoughts

You might still whisper and silently ask 

You and me 

Does 

Will it last

Vibrate in echo chambers and dreams whilst waiting

For the midnight call on 

New Year's Eve 

When we gather to sing pagan songs of King Solomon 

Counting down from 10

As we fight back the encroaching darkness 

With shining drunk Astral eyes as our Athame

Our sacrificial knife 

Inwardly praying to always believe 

Under the sharp eyes of the Winters Midnight Sun 

Which for so many lost souls 

We know 

She will still shine 

ever brighter 

As she quietly watches and grieves 

As they collect their angel wings as they are quietly summoned to leave

Who knows my child 

Everlasting hope and

Peace could arrive as one

So we could conquer this new normal and continue to rise

Or it could all go wild

And turn into a new dark nuclear history 

Where dreams and people 

Are consumed and defiled 

As good and evil 

Battle for victory

And apart we may have to survive 

On mean streets 

As quantum tattooed

Vaccinated slaves or unvaccinated exiles 

In a New World Order

Called a Fool's Paradise

Without

Any known borders 

But either way, 

know this

May your spirit guides 

Lead you to continued health and safety 

Across all fast-flowing political wars 

Water's

Famine or disorders

So in 2025

We can share our much loved algorithms 

In all our holy quarters 

So shall it be

What will be 

Will be

For we two are blessed with real eyes

Opened 

To see

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image courtesy of Pinterest.