Are you a magician?

 

Foundation.

A few lines whispering about the mesmerising power of writing, poetry, or art—in any form.

Using carefully orchestrated emotional sleight-of-hand that soothes the mind, simulates the heart, and invites introspection or reflection. 

A strange form of magic not based on a foundation of illusion, but built up through empathy.

Title.

Are you a magician?

(A lone voice whispers)

Is a writer, poet, or artist just a conjurer of emotional imagery

Creating something special 

for those in life, who need a spot of self discovery 

To maybe stimulate their memories by reading or seeing a new ministry 

And for a brief moment, while lost within lines like these

Freeing them from their own form of self captivity 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Have you faith in 2025?

 

Foundation.

A creative reflection on hope for the future.

In the ever-growing era of reliance on technology, is belief in something greater than ourselves, diminishing? 

Have you faith in 2025?

(A lone voice whispers)

Even though

The night is mine

Like the doe

Who hides behind the bushes in the nighttime

Every breath you take, every step you make

Even if the moon no longer rises or the sun goes out

I will try to be by your side

If you lose hope, with nothing left to cope, I will try to be by your side

If your life seems empty while others seem to have plenty

Pray for me to appear to wipe away those tears, for I will try to be by your side

If you need time and space to clear your mind

If you need to feel pain to be reborn again, I will try to be by your side

If fate brings you SAD gifts, like seasonal affective disorders

From all known states or borders

Or people filled with and preaching hate

Call to me, and I will try to be by your side

For your life is but a brief whisper, a quick ride in the Ether

A tiny dot on the great ethereal map

A made-up wheel

Created by the Babylonians and Egyptians, that can steal all you feel

So know, your life was never made to be lived alone

Driven and ruled by a ticking time wheel

Call to me to atone, and I will be by your side in a flash 

Before your world turns to ash

So the Keeper of all Sacred Keys 

Can welcome you home when your time is due 

To a wonderful land where you're never alone 

But with all your family and beloved friends, as all animals roam free

Just remember to call to me so I can be by your side

I'm sure you know my name which is Faith, whatever your race 

For I'm also a child, sent to guide

All things in the Ether, which collide 

Even the sinful who have lied, but more so, for those whose souls have cried

Just call to me. 

For faith in something you can't see will constantly try t

o provide

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

The Wastelands of Shibboleth

 

Foundation of the piece:

Does devotion and an otherworldly melancholy—but not despair—still exist beyond all we know?

And the does the power of love and memory, even when flesh fades. Even though simultaneously mournful and hopeful:

Inspire those we love who watch and hopefully wait?

What do you think?

Title:

The Wastelands of Shibboleth. 

(A lone voice whispers)

These nights are so long 

Now that I've crossed this dark sea with the child of Erebus

Singing the Coming Home Song

"I'm bringing them home Your Honor. For in life

They can go no further 

So we're all coming home to you

Our spirits, father, to a land undreamed of”

But I sometimes wonder, do you still miss me

My only love

As I stand beyond the third rock 

Now that I'm pain-free

For I'll still love you as long as the Hurrian Hymn is played 

Even as long as heartfelt prayers are made

To the peaks of the highest snow-covered mountains 

And into the deep depths of Agartha hidden fountains

My soul may be unreachable

And out of sight every night

Brought about by our Lord and Grace

But always remember I'm here

Just waiting in a pristine white room in a unique place

Where through my obsidian scrying glass

I can still see your beautiful face

By sun and moon, rain or shine

Fire or candlelight

To love you is all I now have 

To carry me through these endless nights

In these Barren Lands

To remind me, you were once mine, even though I've taken my last breath

When Death Messenger Charon called

I'll still love you through all the tragedies

As Thane of Glamis loved his Lady Macbeth 

For sometimes faith in love is all you can use

When you have nothing left to lose

So when God made me take my last breath

With a wave of his hand, like Nero of Rome

So I can hear the child of Erebus

Singing the Coming Home Song

I made his messenger Titan promise

That I'l see you better than ever, even after death 

When you too join me here in Shibboleth

The Wastelands 

Filled with those no longer wearing flesh 

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Have you been seduced by the Principalities?

 

Have you been seduce😍d by the Principalities?

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you really paused and looked around

Looked hard at what you found 

Will you too wake up to the hidden powers seemingly influencing society

Resist being controlled or distracted, and take a stand for truth, justice, and the preservation of humanity and the Earth

For when the hidden Principalities, the dark rulers of the wickedness of this world in high place, cast their spells

To draw you deeper into their flesh and blood, version of hell

Through telephone obsidian scrying glass or social media 

Using AI

When the hidden Principalities try to confuse and use you

As old plans are discussed, in their new dark lands of Kus

Will you fall overpowered into their traps without a fuss

Or rise up empowered from the dust

To be never devoured, unlike some of the world's many political cowards

But endeavor for peace and justice, tranquility, and bliss

Freedom and the ability to address whatever you choose to profess

I can only pray you choose to rise

For the soul of the Ancestral Mother cries

Her world is on the brink, and all could end within a nuclear blink

On any given sunrise

So do you pray for hope, to try to find a way to help those deemed others, and the Ancestral Mother, cope

Or will you too? Like so many 

Warm and fed. Stay seated on the fence 

Until they come for you to join their endless ranks of the dead.

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Ephesians 6:12 states: 

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Hotel Las Mythos

 

Foundation.

Are you a stylist—who likes entwining metaphors, even mythology, around a vivid blue maypole—using poetic, realistic, or speculative literary fiction? 

Hotel Las Mythos

(A lone voice whispers)

Mythical or real landscapes

Heros

Villains

Engaging characters

The Good to the Bad

The full spectrum of society under the house of the rising sun 

Some walking

Some always on the run

Are you too in the writing business, for creating just something is always so incredible it can never be outdone?

Especially painting surreal or real imagery 

With your self-signed Gatling gun?

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Channeling Randolph Carter

 

Have you come across H.P. Lovecraft before?

Randolph Carter is a legendary character often appearing in Lovecraft’s eerie, occult atmospheric works—with mythical invitations, unknown realms, and imminent life-changing situations. 

He represents a dreamwalker stepping into cosmic darkness and engaging forces beyond the boundaries of reality. 

And of course he loves poetry. Maybe he's just like you?

A profound storyteller.

Channeling Randolph Carter

 

(A lone voice whispers) 

  

At the Most High Temple, on the unmapped mountains 

  

Once climbed recklessly by illuminated souls such as Nostradamus or Louis Bellefontaine 

  

To meet the neverending sensation 

  

The imperceptible incarnation emitting that magnetic pull and lull in the falling rain 

  

Which haunted their every waking second and vivid day dreams

With its unwarranted invasion 

  

Who many contemporary colleagues 

  

Then viewed as touched with a trace of darkened Lilith Madness 

  

For when the Mighty Dagon

The mythical beast of the Deep North Sea 

  

Heard my calls for knowledge and wisdom 

  

Sent blowing like paper boats

Sailing through the world's silence 

  

Of the vicious violence in the Middle East 

  

Overflowing with prayers, spiritually charged with erratic need 

  

He, too, sent me a personal invitation

Which would lead me into a new age of transformation 

  

To the lonely place where I lived by the raging sea

Known only to a select few

As The Shadow and Key 

  

The Dagon, an invisible invader of the human thalamus 

  

The Dream Walker 

Whisperer in the darkness 

  

Came to me in Kansas

At midnight  

With lightning and thunder announcing his sudden arrival

At the Shadow and Key 

  

It told me deep occult secrets 

Only kept in the heavily guarded vaults

Beyond the Blue Door of the Marianas Trench 

  

Sealed by incarnations and potent harming spells, to deflect the Broken 

  

Seething and entrenched with dark dreams, seeking only revenge 

  

It spoke of red wars and red rivers

Broken dreams

Torn minds and souls 

  

Power-hungry controlled pawns used by unspoken things like it 

  

Supernatural creatures 

 

Which create their new forms of piety by handing out subliminal lyric sheets 

  

So they can keep the hypnotized singing their war songs 

  

It warned me of a lady in blue 

  

A shadowwalker who would soon call to the Shadow and Key 

  

And offer me glorious pleasure as we lay entwined by the sea  

It said chose wisely for the red wars 

  

The red rivers of broken dreams and torn minds and souls 

  

Would soon need someone strong 

  

To lessen the blows from those pulling the strings 

  

For the unseen monsters in control 

  

Someone to soothe their pain by illuminated prose 

  

And then, with a crash of white lightning 

 

Striking the fireplace clock

Right in its timekeeper's small face 

  

It was gone 

  

The Mighty Dogan told me a time and date 

She would arrive 

  

Idh-yaa, or to some Quum-yaa, Cthulhu's Mate

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Image: Google.

Desolation Row.

 

Foundation.

A poem that takes one on a twisting journey through an emotional rollercoaster to hopefully reach rebirth. 

Examining the trauma of lost love, the ache that loiters, ending with the resolute mutual human perception of seeking redemption.

Breaking up with someone carries such trauma. 

Have you too walked on Desolation Row?

Title.

Desolation Row.

(A lone voice whispers)

Did you know Love and sorrow are one? 

This I know now. 

For even the sky needs the winds, rain, and snow. 

Just like some of Mother Nature's mesmerizing things, Which can never be outrun. 

Have you too walked on Desolation Row and felt them both? 

Rode in those two crazy boats?

Wore one of their red or gray housecoats?

Clinging on steadfastly from love to sorrow, coast to coast?

Filled with wild desires and hopes?

Powered on relentlessly.

By a hot or cold silent knowledge, feeling like a surety bond.

Of a strange fire from the Great Beyond?

But like baby seeds, dreaming of birth, praying for the sun's blazing fire to grow.

Waiting deep below within the Earth.

With a heart dreaming of a new spring.

A new rebirth.

Are you still waiting for those hidden golden bells to ring? 

To start of freedom, sing?

Or do you still wear that gray housecoat and just die inside every time? 

As you think of them.

While floating metaphorically alone.

Into the fading blue like a white feather, blowing lonely in the cold winds.

Beneath a heartless sky?

Which always seems to be standing, smiling, and watching in all weathers.

Only to then melt into the early morning sun. 

For all things, all said and done.

What is it to escape needing? 

When you have no loved ones or tall tales to be spun?

But to try to find freedom in a new kingdom.

One that rises and falls with the tides of mortal new hellos and old goodbyes.

If it could be seen.

For when you've walked in those shallow rivers of silence to endlessly die.

To taste its sweet musk of defiance as you inside cry.

You too might sing like me. 

Oh Hosanna, Oh Hosanna.

For to reach the mountaintop, you too shall begin to pray to climb. 

To take a sip from Absolutions ceremonial silver cup.

To try to put on love's red housecoat once again.

For when you reached rock bottom in relationships.

The only way is

 up.

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Painting by Filip Petrovic.

Shared under fair usage policy.

Do you like supernatural poetry?

 

Foundation.

Do you like supernatural poetry?

The Invocation of Xo

(A lone voice whispers)

Within these enticing words is a manifestation of magic from me.

An incantation from my higher self.

My spirit.

For you to take to the crypt.

Beyond all your eyes can ever see.

Ven y quédate conmigo.

For within these magical words, I sign my secret name within this poetic invocation.

Deeply into your hypothalamus, sweetly and slow.

Ven y quédate conmigo.

To unconsciously follow you like a little hobo everywhere you go.

Ven y quédate conmigo.

I've cast this now you've read it as our own individual spell.

To allow you to carry me within your each and every cell and breath.

Until our deaths.

Ven y quédate conmigo.

So I can see you grow from spring to the last winter's snow.

From above and below: 

Ven y quédate conmigo.

You’re inviting me in, whether you know it or not.

Ven y quédate conmigo

Admit our love. 

So this won't stop.

Merge with me.

So I can help carry you through any rain or teardrops.

So say after me mentally as you read this:

Ven y quédate conmigo. Come and stay with me Xo.

And I will come with the beating sounds of your heart's rhythmic drums.

Just say really low.

Ven y quédate conmigo. Come and stay with me, Xo.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Translation:

Ven y quédate conmigo. Come and stay with me.

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Apocalyptic Dreams

 

Apocalyptic Dreams

(A lone voice sits remembering August the sixth and whispers)

I will see the old system break. 

I will see those condemned by fate. 

Walk and cross Diablos Gate as the sky turns gray. 

When ash-filled clouds roll my way. 

In the heavens, high above, as the last horn blows.

As something heavy rises from its throne.

I shall watch like Nero once watched Rome. As angels pass by, guiding the good home.

Before the bringers of chaos, plant seeds in the minds of those:

Who secretly pleads to be sown. And when the red rivers and black seas pull back. 

As the storm clouds prepare to attack.

I shall shout in that falling rain. 

"Where are you, Saint Michael, the angel of peace?”

As I bow my head low in defeat. 

Hoping to hear a choir sing and golden bells ring. 

But if nothing appears and I hear a sound like a soft whisper from Death, I will go lay with the many other slaves. 

Played like fools, using secretive tools to subdue.

Across all airwaves from secret enclaves.

And smile as the first rocket lands in the sand near our houses. Soon to be our graves.

Knowing no one shall win.

Especially those marked by sin.

Who meet in secret in their conclaves

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.

The Golden Thread

 

Just thought I'd share this audiobook I wrote and produced after my beloved sister crossed over.

It's based on a dream I had after the church service.

One of the greatest questions humanity asks is, “Is there life after death?”

Have a listen; it might help you if you're grieving.

It's only 45 minutes long, and tell me what you think. Salute.

The link is below.

#love #relationships #grief 

The Golden Thread