Have You Heard Them Call

 

Foundation:

Have you had a lucid dream before?

Well, I often have recurring lucid dreams.

Sometimes featuring strangers I’ve never met. 

In quiet moments, when I’m awake, I can’t help but wonder: 

Are they standing in crowds, waiting for me to dream and return?

Some vengeful / Some happy?

Title: 

Have You Heard Them Call

(A lone voice whispers)

In the dying embers of consciousness,  

At any given midnight,  

Or in the soft amber glow  

Of a silvery day,  

Right before the blackbirds  

Or crows  

Come out to play.  

They

The Night Rulers of such lucid empires

So dim yet always so well-lit,  

Stand patiently waiting  

Along my many unseen paths 

In strange, mystical lands of contradictions.  

Dressed for adventure or flight,  

Always smiling with bright eyes, 

They look my way, 

 

Adorned in black and white,  

Luring strangers like me  

To their incredible, radiant places.  

To swim,  

Talk, or stroll,  

Carefree  

Within our dreams.  

Or to wade through red rivers 

Hidden in the Great Fissures,  

Out of sight,  

Where the invited  

Can kneel and pray  

When summoned  

With these softly spoken lines  

In Latin:  

Esto sicut servus  

Donum in somnio  

et estote parati ad nos  

Maiores et manes  

Exspecto et  

Stans  

Ad flavum et rubeum litora  

Magni Inter (L)  

Come be like a slave  

In our gift of dreams,  

And be ready for us,  

Ancestors and ghosts,  

Waiting and standing  

On the yellow and red shores  

Of The Great In-Between.  

So be it

(C)

Copyright John Duffy  

Image shared under fair usage policy  

Renewal

(A lone voice whispers)

In the wind,  

In a gale, or at sea,  

Evoked by angels at daylight,  

Awoken by devils at midnight.  

And just broken  

In between.  

I once wandered like Dante,  

Experiencing heaven and hell  

Simultaneously,  

Like a shadow being,  

A Djinn.  

Unfolded like a rare, old-world map,  

Cold and lost as life's winds destroyed all my sanctuaries.  

I once used as cover while my broken heart recovered.  

But today,  

On December the fifth,  

The third day after you left,  

I feel resurrected and reincarnated like Mephibosheth.  

For, like in all relationships, holding Death's cold hands while you once wandered isn’t real death:

  

Only a tragic play.  

Yet one can feel burnt at the stake,  

Like the family and servants in a play 

Written by someone known as Shakespeare,  

Called Macbeth.  

(C) Copyright John Duffy

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Gothic Poetry

(A man clad in white speaks to a shimmering female shadow. Leaning on a horse)

Alone in this place,  

Unable to touch you and watched by the Mighty Dogan.  

Overhead, hiding above you

Shining like a rebellious and calculating Archimedes, 

 

I still search for the whole you and the Purple Flame 

The light that will help to guide me home.  

To you.

My red rose of Cairo

Before the Great Dogan warriors appear and try to defeat me,  

The Malachi, 

 

The legendary stalkers of the Black Forest who climb high into the Quantum Spaces

  

In the Great-Between, 

 

To reach the golden threads  

And enter dreams unseen.  

To cause confusion and delusion.

  

That’s why I'm still searching for the Purple Flame,  

A secret Philosopher's Stone known to burn the portals to the Quantum Spaces,  

Before the Mighty Dogan and his armies  

Of the Malachi  

Use their unique access to try to enter your soul's secret places.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Consequentia (L)

(A lone voice whispers)

Like the Sagittarius A* Black Hole, at the centre of our own known galaxy.

Does getting older make you slowly swallow more and more former memories? 

To wallow in bygone years spent with family, friends, lovers and enemies?

Like this Senryu below looks at the weaknesses of human nature.

Found in all human semidocumentaries?

Breathlessness Desire 

Adolescent Memories

Old age consumes all

(575)

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

The Monologue of Jack

 

Foundation.

Do you try to stop what you are doing when inspiration whispers?

The Monologue of Jack

(A lone voice whispers in Caerphilly, looking at the rain. Reading aloud with Henry watching)

My love

I wrote this for you last night as the Shadow People gathered in our old bedroom and watched.

In the End.

  

When the wind screams like a banshee and the lightning strikes, 

 

My love for you will grow stronger and will never stop.  

When the rain comes, filled with our still-wet memories of our mistakes, 

 

I'll walk through it all to wash away the pain, no matter how long it takes.  

When the Darkness, which in these familiar shadows 

Now creeps and whispers, like a voice similar to the one in Isildur's Bane

"Take this, do that." 

I'll remember your aura emanating bliss and your deep love for our Henry,  

Our ginger cat.  

When the photographs cause my tears to fall,  

I'll remember how often you picked me up after every fall.  

When the day dies and the night says, "the world is no longer watching.  

You can now cry," 

I'll whisper back.  

"In the end, we'll grow closer still;  

Ironclad without flaws or loopholes.

For no boundaries or limits can stop what we once had.

Two of life's most vibrant travellers.

The Princess and her sidekick 

Me

Jack the Lad. 

(C) Copyright John Duffy

The Sacred Hollow

 

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you been subtly conditioned to overlook your true potential? 

Does a voice sometimes whisper?

Whether in sleep or in daylight? 

Open your tired eyes wide and reach for the stars. 

See how far you can go. 

Cast off the chains of conditioning 

That appeared as you grew older. 

Be courageous and break free from what you’ve been told. 

Mould a new mindset before you become set in your ways or too old 

Setting an example for future generations to follow, 

Before your spirit returns to The Sacred Hollow. 

(C) Copyright John Duffy

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Fluorescent Memories

 Foundation.

As the sudden rise in cancer grows, a piece relating to the emotional trauma it leaves. 

Grief is such a painful journey we all must make, someday.

Title:

Fluorescent Memories 

(A lone man looks at a shrine in his bedroom and quietly thinks aloud, as the family cat watches)

I still miss my love and her bright brown eyes.

Her incredible wit, her beautiful smile, and her outrageous ability to light up any given room with just one look.

Those painful, fluctuating memories follow me like the ghosts of the Goryō.

They return, biting like a shiver of tiger sharks.

Akin to my own Gospel according to Mark.

Everywhere I go, now that she's gone, when I'm suddenly reminded of her.

And how she was martyred on the grey cross of life, paying the sacrifices it takes to make love work.

Before cancer arrived, and double-parked. 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Goryō refer to Japanese spirits, often the ghosts of those who have sacrificed for a cause.

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Has this ethereal visitor called by yet?

 

Foundation.

Has this ethereal visitor called by yet?

Like an unseen ghost

True Love materialised

Owned until the end

 (575)

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Soul Searching

 

Foundation.

Do you have a twin flame you are bound to look for and love, searching over many lifetimes?

Title: 

Soul Searching 

(A lone voice whispers)

I used to search everywhere, but now I just travel North 

To somewhere in the US

In the middle of a small city

Stand on a windowsill I finally found and watch

Watch my twin flame

Called Mary Jane 

Dancing and listening to her favourite vintage Motown music

Sometimes, I appear as a House sparrow or a yellow butterfly 

Just watching and waiting until we are reunited again

But I know our memories will be wiped before we take human form, to make our search more interesting 

So my last line is:

If you see a bird or butterfly watching you 

It could be your soulmate hunting

Who's been searching for you through time 

After its bell

This time around, has finally been chimed.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

**The Monologue of Charlie Boy**

 

**The Monologue of Charlie Boy**

(A friendly voice whispers)

Am I charismatic?  

Engaging, or just completely enigmatic?  

Or am I simply an old traveller from beyond The green hills of Old Avalon  

Stepping into this new age reborn?  

Did my guardian angels weep with joy when I found my new calling?  

Do they quietly hold my soft hands and comfort me

  

Whenever I feel depressed, in pain, or like I'm falling?  

I don’t have all the answers, for they will be revealed  

When my time comes and I am recalled.  

I'm not just a man of flesh, but an old soul slipping slowly, discovering new kin  

scattered throughout Old Mother Gaia's mesh.  

Am I just like you?  

Another tiny beacon of divine light, trying to hold back the legions and hordes  

who endlessly weaves

Reading from their leather-bound grimoires  

filled with dark spells meant to deceive?  

I'm so glad to meet you.

  

Can you feel that subtle electricity I'm sending through these words? 

 

For it doesn’t matter what your gender, creed, colour, or ethnicity is; 

 

Just try to write or sing with authenticity 

 

And use whatever means to express your soul's lucidity.  

For we are all different,  

different in a good way.

  

When our true selves are revealed to come out to play.  

So here’s to you, wherever you are, in whatever towns or cities.  

As Big Frank once sang in 1969

  

Keep doing it your way 

For not everyone can live a benedictine life

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.