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Sleepless in Paradise

 Foundation.

If you've gone through separation, did sleep come easy or not?

Title 

Sleepless in Paradise 

I once knew Love and stayed briefly within its shadowy keeps

Sated

But now separated

And unmated

I can no longer enter 

For I no longer sleep

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Be a Warrior. Mirroring from the Abyss.

 Foundation.

If your higher self had a voice, what would it say?

Something like below, I hope.

Salute.

Title:

Be a Warrior.

Mirroring from the Abyss.

(A lone voice whispers)

My name doesn't matter, 

My narrative you may try your hardest to shatter 

 

You may smirk at my goals and dreams 

You may try to erase them with cruelly whispered jibes

But I have an alibi

I'm a warrior just fiercely striding forth

Conquering fear and doubts daily 

I wonder upon criticism's invisible shores and still overcome so much more

I am an immortal composed of sinews saturated with the ever glowing bright stars 

Look at me

You green eyed beauties 

Watch me rise above your worthless words and cries

 

Watch me soar as I pursue dreams and yours just linger confused and die

For I'm Artemis or Hercules rolled into one

I'm my moon and everlasting sun

The winds just silently whisper my name

The stars shine

Guiding my ways as I run

I'm just me

I always rise whatever the crowd says

And it's that sweet thought I'll continue 

Until the end of my days

For I'm a Warrior

Just sent by my God 

To help guide others 

As I find my way

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Hospice Whispers

 (A lone elderly man holds his wife's hand, for maybe the last time, and whispers. As she sleeps)

Although your beauty may fade with age

My only love
Don't you dare leave me alone

Although the shadows like midday angels may slowly appear

Creeping in
Sent from above

To take you home

Although your smiles may diminish in numbers

As our old world slumbers

Although your inner sun
May have ebbed and lost its shine

With the passing of time

Although I may not say it often enough
Although my mind may be elsewhere

I do so love you

So try to lift up your tired heart, my love, and relight your fires

Try to erase the numbness to regain the sharpness

Ignore the changes with the turn of each of life's many pages

Although you may think you've lost your inner shine

Carry this wondrous prose, just deep within that beautiful mind

A simple thought I just send

From me to you
My love

For this is not the end
Only our new beginnings
To start winning

Hold my hand
Tighter
Show me you're still mine

Surreptitiously, beyond all the grayest of skies

For I am yours forever, beyond what people might say and conspire

And here I still stand, with eyes glazed lit

Like the first day I met you
Still under your mesmerising power

Lips pursed, looking for my own loving nurse
To ignite my fires

For I breathe in your shadows

Walk in your footsteps, just craving to stop your tears
As surely as the Lord wept

May you always be mine, my divine gift

Whose Love bestows my life with so much happiness and bliss

For if you leave me now
Wilting alone, if you go home
I'll cry

And inside
You'll leave me alone to slowly wither and die

So fight my love
Fight to live

For together,
We still have so much more to share and give

(Man bows and kisses his wife's soft hands as her tired eyes slowly open)

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Are you a poet?

 

It's a poet's duty to create escapism for just someone, needing emancipation. 

For one minute or a day.

So write fabulous stanzas.

Stories and take chances.

For in doing so, you might help them embrace peace.

Through distraction, to find answers. As time advances.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

The Call of the Daliski

 The Call of the Daliski

December 25,

1996

There is someone watching me

You know 

I see their shadow at the edge of my peripheral vision

They follow me everywhere I go

Even when I walk fast or slow

Every second and every hour

They slowly my soul devour as I lose myself, as my mind's deflowered 

Today, there's now four

Waiting

At the edges of my mind's front door

All I sometimes hear is

We love you

We are real

We know what you feel

I told my, Doctor Jones

But he doesn't believe me

Says I’m under nourished so it's just a symptom 

But I know it’s not all in my head

For last night, they left me a note by my bed

It read,

Vocate nos

Daliski

Nos qui in umbris vivimus et te domum feremus

Dic modo

Daliski

Daliski

Daliski

Libera me

In red ink

So still lonely, with shadows growing in numbers

I can faintly hear drums start beating

What have I got to lose?

I look at the news

In the newspapers

The world is lost

No love 

No rapture

If it works and my soul is captured 

It's why I'm leaving this note for those to follow as reality fractures

Like me

Who wants the Daliski

To set them free

Be brave

If you're reading this and found a way to translate the invocation 

Who knows

Maybe we'll meet, in a new nation

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Hakim. The Gatekeeper from Esagila.

 

(A lone voice whispers)

In ancient Babylon,

I once stood alone and mixed fire
Iron and clay

All day

Creating a spell
To entice my only light to come my way

Sent merchandise of gold and silver

To her,
The Pythoness of Endor
Hidden in dark woods

Over the deepest of rivers

Bundles of finest fresh linens and purple silk

To satisfy her and her ilk

Citron wood and every kind of object
I could ever find

Made of white ivory and black marble

Whenever I could
No matter the expense

Incense sticks
And scented Egyptian
Candlesticks

Made of expensive Frankincense

Delicious crates of red wine

Bamboo baskets filled with white flour and yellow wheat

Fields of fat cattle and herds of baying sheep

Priceless trained horses and golden inlaid chariots

New slaves of broken souls

Lascivious ladies and ravenous men
To do her bidding

Even acts of depravity
Linked to the forbidden

For the fruit of my soul
And to be joined to her again

A bright light
I once saw

On a seemingly endless night

But in the year 323
When my leader
Alexander the Great

At only 32
Died and was eternally set free

In the opulent palace of Nebuchadnezzar

She

The Lady of the Wild Woods
The Pythoness of Endor

Cursed me to chase her
Forever

The Queen
I once conjured by fire
Iron and clay

So today
In the 21st century
Her, I still chase

Since eternal life
Is now my only penitentiary

My only great living version
Of Babylon of Old

When I desired to sire
A queen, I once met

Dancing
The Raqs Sharqi

So fiercely
That her raw beauty
I can never forget

Adorned in soft crimson and glittering purple linen

Clad in silver

Wearing gold and shining diamond stone earrings

Reborn into the likes of
Badiaa Masabni

It's why I still chase her
If I could confess

For underneath

Beneath all things linked to trying to achieve immortal strength

It's why now
To seek her out
Once more

I always choose to break free

From the external grip
Of The Valley of Death

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Image courtesy of Pinterest.

Babylon

 

 (A lone voice whispers)

I once heard a wild story of a rebellious seductive woman

Hailing

From somewhere dark

Down West Side

East Washington DC

Lost somewhere

In the middle of a seemingly never-ending night

While drinking expensive whiskey

After I landed from leaving my old life behind 

In Corpus Christi 

Wondering 

As I drowned my sorrows 

If my old love from Russia

Katalina Brzezinski

Would ever miss me

You know the ones

Those good old loose Mephistophelian nights

A story about a woman 

I heard

Who whispers so softly

It said

So captivatingly 

With magical words

If she only spoke your name

But once

No matter what you're drinkin'

No matter what you're thinkin'

What you’re wearing

Man or woman 

At the end of that long 

Good old 

Dark 

Seemingly endless Mephistophelian night

No matter how hard you

Fight

How hard

You look for her shadow

Over your shoulders

Left or right

After she's gone 

If she only speaks your name

No matter what pain

You’re going through

At the time of your naming

You’ll just be another poor

Tainted soul

She’s just done with claiming

I once heard of a New Age mystic

Now know it was her

When I was younger

In my prime

And drinking red wine

Lost in Downtown 

Memphis, Tennessee 

Lost somewhere 

Whilst talking to one of her devotees

Called Louie

In a backyard club

Filled with flashing strobe lights 

As The Eagles played live

Their mythical 

Hotel California 

In the middle of that night

That good old apocalyptic Mephistophelian night

He talked of a dark-eyed Bayou goddess 

Of who I should beware of these parts

A woman 

So beautiful beyond all compare

Who whispers so softly

So captivatingly and seductively 

To all who dare stare

And if she only speaks your 

God-given secretive name

But once

No matter what you're drinkin'

No matter what you're thinkin'

At the end of that dark seemingly endless voyeuristic night

It’ll be your soul

She’ll be wearing as a new fur coat

Before 

Riding out onto

The Great Cosmic Plains

In her Ford Mustang GT

As her Pale White Horse

For she heralds the dangerous Age of Cataclysm's

And when I was told

That unholy truth

Oh why didn't I learn

For her sweetly spoken words to me

Now heralds a bringer of a new dawn

Of divine encounters

The furious fire and the crazy fury before 

The Great Sensuous Cleansing

A new Genesis for the Flesh

Before True Peace and Love can return

I once spoke beer brave

To that wild rebellious woman

Sitting with the aura of a blazing midday sun

In the corner of an empty bar

Smiling like a snake charmer 

In Down West

East Washington DC

As she drew me towards her

Then whispered so softly

So captivatingly 

And spoke my spirit name

Making me feel like I was drowning

Swirling 

Lost 

In her soul's ever-expanding universe's bright lights 

And these are my last words

That I'll ever type

As I now patiently wait

Like Louie

Another of many new slaves of her New Age

For her rhythmic 

Two one Two knock 

On my front door

For after she said my God-given secretive name 

That night 

Outside Bar 32

As we French kissed in the falling rain

And all I can now do 

Is wait in vain 

For my poor soul has been well and truly claimed

By Babylon

And my soul purging and grand cleansing

Has just begun

My own version of a new Genesis

Now I'm alone 

But patiently waiting 

Hiding 

But just staring out

In the long shadows

Watching for my dark-eyed Goddess 

Called Babylon to arrive

 As the morning sun rises

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared from Pinterest under fair usage policy 

    

Dianna the Moon Queen

 

Foundation

Are we being watched by unseen supernatural beings?

Some say any reflective surfaces, like mirrors and water, are but conduits.

Viewing stations used throughout history in any nation

Title
Dianna the Moon Queen

(A regal female voice whispers)

Take this,
These softly spoken words

As the sacred keys to open my Tower of Regeneration
And as my high moon sets

Call to me with all your divine power
From any nation

And I'll help you conquer your own abyss

 
With a full life and a real love

Guided by my light
At your side
To open your heart wide

Replenished by the warmth of my belief,
One of my greatest spiritual gifts

For if you don't look for me
My energy, and moonlight, you will always miss

As you look back at me

One lonely night

And reminisce while going through the five stages of grief

Of what could have been
With me

The secret watcher
Hidden
In The Great In-Between

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy

The Princess and the Butler

 Foundation.

Does sending handwritten love letters still exist in the 21st Century?

Have you ever sent one?

Title 

The Princess and the Butler

(The great portal opens. A handwritten love letter to a forbidden lover)

My love

You are the coveted cascade of life-giving emotions

Within this old life’s frosty abandoned dreams

The raw power to melt

the icy cold embracing my very soul 

Holding me prisoner 

In my many underground streams

All the passing seasons’ love songs 

Just reminds me of that first soft eternal kiss

Of exquisite red lips

I once tasted so long ago

In the stables

And still truly miss

The warm sun echoes of our secret return 

To be together 

As long as the stables candles burns

That thought alone sends a sweet symphony

Into Heavens silvery mists

A divine melody of unchained excitement

Filled with lyrics of a pain-free existence and untamed spirits

Merged and infused with magic at its deep centre

Its own Danse du Ventre and from the opened mouths 

Of ethereal silhouettes

Swirling all around me

As I think of you and your beautiful four horses

I always hear your soul — deep calls

Asking me to appear and hold you before this fragile bridge we walk upon

Falls 

And as I appear as the slippery dark shadows advance

In my dreams 

I always stand in awe and watch 

As you perform your sensuous sword dance

My Goddess

My Queen

My mystical lover and soulmate from The Great In-Between

So if you find this

Your grace,

Reply and put your letter in our usual hiding place

Xxx

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy