. Poetry from The Great In-Between

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

The Voice of Daruda


The Voice of Daruda


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


Many of us in here

Just wonder


Is your social media an unreported captivating habit


Do you all just now suffer from Addiction Affliction


Is that the new drug of the 21st Century


And once you've had a hit

Are you just addicted to it


Be honest


Can you really leave your phone off for a day


Or do you just return relentlessly from the real world you inhabit


Always seeking Escapism with it


It seems to us

That this is the new drug of the 21st Century


Are you but unknowing


Prisoners imprisoned in this new technological penitentiary


Just driven and magnified by new friends and information


You are constantly told you need


Is this addiction the Twentieth Century’s ungodly addictive mead


Were you taken in by but a sip or do you ration with a quick nip


Do you deem social media a captivating habit


Do you wish you could sometimes forget the real world you inhabit


But are you just sacrificing something in return


Are you forgetting to really engage in real life


Do you consciously make a choice to constantly check for updates


From social media and all its ungodly platforms


As it slowly reduces your ability to see what's really going on


Are you simply letting social engineers manipulate you


Have you stopped going out that front door and seeing just nature or someone special 


Shouldn't you all visit Mother Nature more


Embrace family and more importantly


Live life


Some Mystics say for every smile you can elicit from other


It makes the journey lighter and helps the soul recover


Mystics say to give freely

For you have also known want


Mystics in here


Say to offer hope to those in need with nothing in return


It's how your soul teaches your consciousness to learn


If you can do all or some of the above


Maybe you and humanity can learn to live in love


You might still have jealousy and greed but with hope


They will be a dwindling breed


What says you


Will you sacrifice what the social engineers say you need?


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Path of The Broken-Hearted at Christmas

(A lone voice whispers)


 
I can still remember
The sad day she said

She didn’t love me anymore

As she threw away my wedding ring in the pond and walked

Right outa our door
That was ten years ago or more

At Christmas 
In 2000 and four

I still see her on the streets
But no matter how fast my heart beats

I can still see and feel that lonely dark place

Where broken souls fly
When their hearts are truly broken

And inside
They always quietly cry

She’s asked me many times to take her back

She’ll love me more this time
This time it will be different

But all I see when I look her over

Is Jack

Running his hands through her hair and kissing
Her soft red lips

I maybe broken
Cut deep with a sharp blade forever
But will I go back to her

Never

I’ll just keep walking the path
The brokenhearted take

And maybe I’ll find someone truly special this year 
To love all of me and help

To take away this god awful ache

 (C)
Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Foundation of the piece.

Christmas is not all joyful salutations for everyone.


Monday, December 23, 2024

Merry Christmas


 Merry Christmas if you happen to see these words.

Salute.


Twas the night before Christmas


When good people 

Put up green trees 


To try to still believe 


There is goodness in the world and it begins 


On the stroke of midnight 

On Christmas Eve


So here's to you

My friends and spiritual kin


Have a Merry Christmas 

And indulge 


In happiness with whatever Saint Nicholas

Brings us


With a bit

Of festive sin


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

The Invitation

 


The Invitation

(A seductive voice whispers as incense fills the air)

Sat within here
A discarded loop in time and space

Within this room

I see you all in the distance
Shimmering through

Like bright pink desert mirages

In your living tombs

Stood alone
In my magical circle of no rehearsals

Chanting Yaruba tribes
Ancient magical rites

Summoning up the populous of Godhead

So I the shaman can call to you

“When the living ground eats the breathing Sun, I will open the secret doors to take you home.

For eating and tasting words like a new, Grace Dent, at Lent, isn't for you.

Just write this down and burn it in the back garden on a piece of paper.

I'm ready,
Come and take me to the secret amphitheatre

Where the voices of the Serpent

The Beast
And God take to its stage

To showcase who they've taken home and played.”

To then write out your own name in the ruined temples books

Before you line up to watch

Before they return
And choose
Before you are took

And I'll call within a heartbeat

To take you East
To meet

Either God or the Beast

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 


Sunday, December 22, 2024

The Midnight Hunters from The Black and Blue Lodge

 



The Midnight Hunters from The Black and Blue Lodge 


(A sad lone voice whispers)


My old love 

Loved shaking her crow blacked hair 


As old daydreams tumbled around her


Like autumn leaves in the air 


On any given day or night 


Dreams of divinity

Of God and light 


Like the first thing you see when you close your eyes at night


Temporal spaces filled with familiar faces


Crooning like nameless mockingbirds

Under a watchful moon


Dreams of us as a pair

Regale my eyes with surreal memories of us


Everywhere I now look since God closed that Crimson Book 


Us entwined at sea 

Surrounded by floating red roses as seagulls watched


Laughing like playful innocent school children

Free from all fears and good behaviour


But now the

Ancient Ones have called at midnight to remind me


“Those who once laid entwined in their sea as their seagulls watched 


Will soon get a visit 


From The Midnight Hunters from The Black and Blue Lodge”


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 


Saturday, December 21, 2024

The Craft


 The Craft 


(A lone voice speaks to a crowd of poets)


You do know everyone has their own magical style 


A style filled with such wild illustrious promises and kaleidoscope's of such deep vivid depths


For in poetry

No stone is left uncovered, 

Ranging from life to death


Whispers of love’s wild explosive adrenaline filled triumphs 


Everlasting hope or altarpieces of self-fulfillment


Descents into darkness

Opening portals to dimensions of festive destruction


And at the core for the inquisitive 


The Red Flag

The smiling frown

Up or down 


The fire to ignite a curious reader's eyes to the soul 


That really matters

Is the what

Why and guile


It's quite simple

It's why everyone has their own magical style 


For there is no guide to the labyrinth of the mind


When you enter poetry's smiling black and white turnstiles


And line up to read or write


 With so many other groups of people who are still walking or standing still in history


In single file


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 


Image shared under fair usage policy 

Winter's Solstice


Winter's Solstice 


(A lone voice whispers)


Will you

Come all


Yes,

Yea and dance


For

In the deepest woods

In that old

Woodland grove


Something stirs


An electric emotion

Consuming the very air


Can you feel

Its pulse

And all consuming

Power


Would you attend as

An invited guest

With me

And dance


Go wild

And let your mind and soul

Be held prisoner


As they are

Slowly deflowered


Beyond all worldly

Fears

As unknown spirits advance


Would you still attend

As a guest of mine


To visit my dark midnight

Winter Festival


To communicate

And bind with the

Deep divine


To be totally lost

And absorbed in its

Yellow ring

Of supernatural lights


Which will

Swirl all around us

As we breathe in

Its ancient dust


To watch and wonder

At the

Opening of hidden gateways


Above us

And below us


A spell to be cast in dark skies

By illuminated souls


Between time and space

As we prepare and stand


Hidden from

The mundane

Human race


To see a new brave world

Soon ours to summon

And command


Where

Nothing but goodness

And love will fill our old

Souls


For tonight

We will dance

With our pagan ancestors of old


It's our time of year

As we will

This supernatural festival

To arrive


To embrace maybe painful

Embers and emotions

Of Winter's long past


That may have survived


To then

Embrace old Mother Spring

The goddess of all living things


As she slowly awakes

And begins to gradually

Materialise


A flurry of cold memories

Hidden in mystical snow

To beguile


Will

You dance


Beyond wet

Tears for people


We always remember

Who have died


As we may cry


For tonight

On this pagan eve


We shall live forever


For we baptised

To be eternal


And will never

Die beyond


All who can truly see

As their reawakened

Souls


Cry out

Blessed Be


Copyright John Duffy


Image shared under fair usage policy 

 

Merry Christmas


 Like paper boats

Floating in the Eternal Ocean


We sometimes

Come together


In the commotion  

And stillness of Time and whisper


Have a Merry Christmas


As we share the First Law of the Chosen


By expressing our devotion

To other

Travellers


In the

Eternal Ocean


Those from business

Friends and families who seek to assist us


To help them 

Not to feel unwanted

Or frozen


So this whisper is for you

In the commotion  

And stillness of Time


Merry Christmas 


(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Thursday, December 19, 2024

A 21st Century Question?

 

A 21st Century Question?


Do people still need real human poetry in the 21st century 


Some still ask as AI plagiarizes when put to task


To be the social connectors

The innovation and invitation 


To new or old, writers

Adored heroes

Thought leaders


To breathe form from the intangible into their quiet lives


For them to taste the twist and guile of the Mysteries Schools


Poetry in all its many magical ceremonial forms provides


For soon

Each and every quest will end in a visit to a lone watchtower 


In the mind


And when one is on the other side watching from those parapets


AI won't help 


Because only real created human poetry will help you once again remember


Through someone else's shared experience 


In rhymes


All those people and things you once loved


So you don't forget 

With the passing of time


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Was your Grandma wise too?


 

(A lone voice whispers)


One day, 

The rain will stop

People won't judge what you got 


One day,

The pain will stop

No more gossiping from the rooftops


One day,

All that will remain 

Is the peace you got


For the start of true love is an inside job


All these things 

My Grandma once said

Along with


Be you 

Like a raindrop in a desert


People will either love you or won't be able to find you


But it won't matter

What will matter is


You'll be a raindrop in a desert for just someone special 


And on that day

When it comes


Just keep praying 

The rain will stop


People won't matter if they judge what you don't got 


On that day,

The pain will stop


You'll stop hearing gossiping from the rooftops


And on that special day

All that will remain 


Is the peace you share

With someone who cares


For true love can start with just a single raindrop


Like finding your favourite book of poetry 


In a second hand shop


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy