Reverence

 

A piece that reflects a mythic, romantic invocation addressed to a woman who holds profound emotional, almost supernatural significance for the speaker. 

Blending myth, ancient royalty, and cosmic imagery to elevate the relationship to something archetypal rather than merely personal.

To shape the narrative:

When you first fall in love, your beloved other half can seem to be the greatest person in the whole wide world.

Have you met your own greatest person in the entire wide world yet?

Title.

Reverence

(A lone voice whispers)

There was something so extraordinary about you.

Cleopatra's inner circle would have wept.

Your inescapable power and grace rolled in like November's sea fog while sleeping kings and queens slept.

Like Midhir or Mab, from the Wild Woods.

You just understood where all my deepest secrets were kept.

In the great void where time and deep space intersect.

So this poetic artifact is for you.

The only woman who once opened me up like a can of worms and offered to heal me as her white ritual candle burned.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Reverence:

A deep respect for someone or something.

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Would you follow the Pied Piper of Agartha?

The Pied Piper of Agartha is a mythic, symbolic, and evocative piece that invites readers into an alternate space—a spiritual refuge for sensitive, creative souls oppressed by the modern world's chaos. 

It blends fantasy, philosophy, and lyrical imagery to create a haunting invitation: a call to rebellion through kindness, creativity, and escape into a deeper, greener, hidden realm.

 Foundation of the piece.

Do you sometimes wish to escape the hectic noise and low vibrational energy in the world today?

Title.

Would you follow the Pied Piper of Agartha?

(A lone voice sings within a whisper.)

Would you willingly follow me - Into the Green Hollow?

If I pulled back the veil - And showed you a way in.

To get swallowed.

To escape to wild worlds of verbs and contradictions.

With love and laughter, singing and whispering—like loose chord progressions.

As the old world recedes into the distance.

To escape from your weary grotto of - 

Penitentiary Existence.

To unite in the Green Hollow.

With others.

Poets.

Singers.

Writers and all good folks—who are the last line of resistance - Against a world subjugated by darkness.

As kindness.

Compassion and love are no longer viewed - As a pièce de résistance.

So So

Would you willingly follow me - Into the Green Hollow

If I pulled back the veil and showed you a way in.

To get swallowed.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Can you remember your Transformation?

 

A poem exploring that your Desire awakening is not simply a moment in youth—it is a psychic transformation, a personal myth. 

It asks the reader not just to recall an event but to confront the moment they became capable of deep passion and self-discovery.

In essence, it's a poem about the birth of desire, expressed as a spiritual, emotional, and artistic metamorphosis.

Where the text reads like a lyrical meditation on visceral awakenings, framed in almost mythic, spiritual language. 

Blending romantic nostalgia, mythological allusion, and literary reference to elevate a personal experience into something archetypal.

So the question is, can you remember your Transformation?

(A lone voice whispers)

Do you still remember your first encounter with your libido? 

That wild exhilaration, a deep dive into the unknown.

Your own emotional Armageddon, climbing the Hill of Megiddo.

That first exquisite kiss leading to home base.

As ecstasy consumed your whole psyche and invaded places William Butler Yeats would have loved to write about.

Using such romantic, lyrical phrases.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

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Have you been resurrected yet?

 

A deeply metaphysical meditation on love—its arrival, its violence, its healing power, and its spiritual significance. 

Blending imagery of weather, kingdoms, resurrection, and emotional upheaval to portray love as both mysterious and transformative. 

One where the tone is contemplative, almost prayer-like, inviting the reader to consider love as a force that shapes identity and memory.

Title.

Have you been resurrected yet?

Is love like ethereal raindrops tumbling from a hot, unseen spiritual sky?

When you least expect it?

Does it reveal itself when two kingdoms suddenly clash and collide?

Mundane worlds.

Imploding and unraveling.

Given birth beneath infinite clouds of clandestine assignations.

Can our happiness.

Smiles and lamentations.

Sometimes drown.

Swept up within its dark seas of astounding revelations?

But do we crave LOVE to still get wet?

To bathe within its stimulating waters of repudiation or salvation.

All the while embracing its rough spiritual fingers.

Of life-changing rehabilitation to heal our old ways.

And to help us find a way to forget painful memories.

As our soft cheeks get wet through our second resurrection.

Our first being birthed.

Here on Earth.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

    

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Are you undergoing reincarnated love?

 

Foundation.

Some old mythology says we are bound to find our twin flame or soulmate before we are born.

Our true other half.

This journey is simply repeated until we do.

No matter who we end up with.

To become whole.

Could old myths be true?

(A lone old voice whispers)

I write this for you to see in this lifetime because I couldn't find you, and my earthly time is nearly up. 

My beloved Mary Lee.

I know you were born to meet me. On the twenty-sixth of November.

A date I'll know forevermore.

As I look back.

Like now and remember.

For we shall be together. In The Great Nevermore.

Sharing conversations and sweet kisses:

Even after Death visits,

And offers you a drink of his sacrilegious dark wine. To end all your beautiful days and glorious time.

I just know we shall be together, like twinned pilgrims. In an eternal quest of hide-and-seek.

Set forth in the silence, by a long-remembered God.

Lost somewhere in some surreal time stream.

But together in insane spaces.

In-Between.

And as the soft, capricious winds of Heaven.

Change and dance like a wild Anna Pavlova. Between us.

Creating a moving sea of love between our two pulsating souls.

We shall know. In that very instance.

Holding hands.

Together, like first-date lovers.

In the universe's golden dust.

That we can sing and dance together,

Forever.

And be joyous in each and every form. For ours is a love story. Beyond the norm.

A love story that will forever survive.

Composed in golden italics and kept safely on gilded shelves, with so many others.

Written in Enochian Archives.

Stored beyond the Great Pillars.

In a sacred tabernacle.

By the pale blue Holy Sea.

Our Eternal Sea.

This I know because before I was born into physical form.

You were written. Into my history.

By my spirit guides, God and me.

The woman I'm bound to always love and try to find.

Whenever I'm reincarnated into mankind.

The one soul betrothed to me.

By an angel called ADOEOET,

He who sings like a bird, who once whispered 

Meet your true love. My beloved Mary Lee.

So see you in another lifetime. Your forever twin flame with no name.

Whose loved is buried so deep no matter how many times this incredible thing called life:

Tries to bury me. 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

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Cogitation

 

Depending on your age or having a busy schedule, have you forgotten your younger years?

A poem about contemplation, nostalgia, personal history, and the human tendency to forget the beauty of earlier life unless we consciously revisit it. 

Encouraging the reader to slow down and cherish their memories—both joyful and painful—because they form the foundation of who we are.

Title.

Cogitation.

(A deep thought whispers)

Have you ever sat under the sun and paused for a minute, to looked back over your life's many old pages?

Remembering how you once ran, with whom, and at what age?

Or have those old memories turned to dust?

Treasured moments shared with beloved family and friends. 

Even young and old love?

Moments of misery compounded by giant moments of victory.

People you once trusted, now resigned to your own pages of history?

So, I'll ask again and use this as a prompt within this prose.

Have you ever paused under the hot sun?

Sat in the shade and looked back at old memories, as they replayed?

Remembering happier times when you were having such fun?

The best ones, with maybe even those you miss, who are no longer around, as those incredible memories are eventually found? 

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Cogitation: The action of thinking deeply about something; contemplation.

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Babylon

 

“Babylon” is a mythic, dark, and symbolic poem about a man who believes he has been spiritually claimed or doomed by an otherworldly femme-fatale figure named Babylon.

She is not just a woman — she represents temptation, obsession, spiritual corruption, and transformation.

The poem blends reality, memory, myth, and hallucination to show how desire and despair can consume a person until they lose themselves entirely.

This is a poem about:

A haunted past

A wandering soul

A seductive supernatural presence

The surrender of one’s identity

A descent into mystical obsession

The collapse of self leading to rebirth. (“a new Genesis”)

 (A lone voice whispers)

I once heard a wild story of a rebellious, seductive woman. Hailing from somewhere deliciously dark.

Down West Side, East Washington, DC.

While lost somewhere in the middle of a seemingly never-ending night.

Drinking expensive whiskey.

After I landed from leaving my old life behind in the army, 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. 

It's there I heard a story about a voodoo woman who whispers so softly, which said she hooks you 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 long 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 similar New Age mystic.

And now I know it was her. 

When I was younger, in my prime.

And drinking red wine, Lost in Downtown 

Memphis, Tennessee. 

Lost somewhere, 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 wild night.

That good old apocalyptic, Mephistophelian night.

He talked of a dark-eyed Bayou goddess. Of whom I should beware in 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 red and black Ford Mustang GT as her Pale White Horse.

For she hails from 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 herald a bringer of a new dawn.

Of divine encounters.

The furious fire and the crazy fury before The Great Sensuous Cleansing.

A new Black 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.

And 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.

These are now my last words that I'll ever type.

As I now patiently wait, like good old Louie.

Just now, another of the many new slaves of her New Age.

Waiting for her rhythmic, two-one-two knock. On my front door.

After she said my God-given secretive name that crazy 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 the crow-haired goddess called Babylon.

And my soul-purging and grand cleansing will soon begin.

My own version of a new Genesis.

Now I'm alone but patiently waiting. 

Not hiding but just starin

g out in the long shadows. 

Watching for my dark-eyed Goddess.

Called Babylon to arrive.

As the morning sun rises.

(C) Copyright John Duffy

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Are you an Imajician?

 

Are you an Imajician?

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you visited the Wetlands of The Great Imajaca?

To the Others, called Imagination, and got drenched.

 A wild and sometimes dangerous place, The Mundane plead to peruse and use, but through social conditioning:

The fear of standing out in the rain and anxiety linked to feeling and experiencing newer visceral or sensational emotions. 

The Lands of The Great Imajaca may lead them to.

It may as well lie at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. 

(C) Copyright John Duffy

It's quite a deep piece.

Many I know personally aspire to write but are held back by what their peers may think.

The anxiety they feel linked to looking inside themselves through introspection.  

Using their imagination to create instead of posting already created memes on social media.

Imajician is simply a play on magician.

In this case, a conjurer of words.

An explorer into the wetlands of the human experience.

The dark and the light.  

A place many writers, maybe like you, visit, for

 you too are a magician.

Salute.

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A piece from The Covid Years

It is 4:33 a.m., and with this lockdown disrupting my sleeping patterns, I create stories.

Want to read one?

**The Old Seer**

(A lone voice whispers)

When I was so much younger

I once met a stranger while passing by a white picket fence.

A delicate, beautiful, complicated femme fatale 

Who waved and, in time, devoured my every breathing moment

Carefully taking down all those old erected barriers

With gentle, soft fingers

I used to protect myself with

Whenever I felt threatened 

And needed a strong defence.

We laughed carefree like young lovers.

Exchanging stories and tales of adulation

Eros would have been jealous of

In the middle of one wild night

We even created a safe white room where we 

Could stay 

Praying silently whenever we sat alone in our deep thoughts

Of each other watching Angels

To stay forever entombed

In that very white room, as the blushing  bride and groom

A place where Father Time even seemed to stand still and watch for 

We were so happy

But as time quickly passed, I got older

And my once-strong body got frailer 

Voices that have always followed me

Since I was willed into this maze, we all walk

And dare call it a life

Whispered

Let her go

She needs new flesh and blood to make her warm

To feel love for the rest of her life

Don't be cruel and deny her.

Something tangible to fill that deep void 

You might leave when you die

Someone to take that suitcase of broken emotions and dreams

You once carried and upon new, strong shoulders

Bear the heavy load

So I listened as I always do

Since they introduced me to her so long ago

Underneath her painted windows

By those unforgettable white picket fences

In these long days of the 21st Century, those voices seem to get louder as I get older. 

Whispers that have always guided and protected me

Now sung

She needs freedom to fly from this white room you've created

They whispered whenever I dreamed

She now uses a seemingly unbreakable chain of longing to stop herself from leaving its penitentiary.

They spoke

A lonely, golden-haired orphan girl, I loved

I tried to release them back into the real world

For I couldn't be her own West Side Story's

Tony

For in time, I knew I too would soon die

And she

Still standing alone 

Would have to pick up that heavy suitcase again

So as I stand here, where I always go 

At ten past midnight in the deep recesses 

In my mind, after a sip of mead

I just look up at the twinkling silvery stars across this great blue ocean

Between us and standing under that familiar old

Lampost of forever treasured, beautiful dreams

I can still see her beautiful smile

Dark seductive eyes and dressed in white lace

And hope she forgives me and knows this

I will always feel her deep love and always taste that thing 

I know I will, in quiet moments, miss

When that date comes, I know I must soon keep with my friend the Lord

And it's my time to die

That soft, invisible kiss I once shared with my teacher

Lost in precious moments in the Heartbreak Hotel

As we played love-struck under the goddess of love

Mesmerizing spell

It's been a while since we last spoke

I knew she would experience hurt and painful emotions

Would pour out of every inch of her skin

Is this the price 

I must now carry in trembling hands and tear-filled eyes

When before the Lord I kneel, asking for forgiveness

When he asks me about my worst mortal sins

Shall I tell him

Setting someone free to be all they can be

As they lay in someone else's arms

To give up love for someone to be happy 

Until their time is also due

As I doom myself to wait by the holy river alone

For I know in this new rebirth we can be forever happy 

For we are but soul twins

Now, as I sit alone in these early morning lights

Typing and fighting these old, broken emotions

Which always washes over me

I hope she finds someone new soon

To hold her

As I was once told to believe 

I was simply sent by God to help her see

And open her soul again

Is that the price of being a seer?

The cost of a broken heart 

To see the real truth in all these sad minutes, now we are forever

Emotionally and spiritually apart?

Copyright John Duffy

Only read if you want more love and understanding in your life.

 

A poem written like a ritualistic invocation—a short ceremonial prayer calling on natural forces (“Air,” “Land,” “Night,” “Day”) to bring love, understanding, and protection to the reader or speaker. 

It blends poetic imagery with spiritual or symbolic language.

Themes.

“Power of Air / Power of Land”

Air and Land (Earth) are two of the classical elements.

They symbolize:

Air: clarity, thought, communication; Land/earth: stability, grounding, safety.

Calling upon them suggests seeking mental clarity and emotional grounding.

“Hear my soul's holy writs.” “Holy writs” means sacred writings or intentions. This line expresses, listen to my deepest desires or inner truth.

“I pray for love and understanding, so come my way.” This is the core desire: to attract love, compassion, and deeper harmony with oneself or others.

“Power of Night / Power of Day”

Night and Day represent opposites—shadow and light, unconscious and conscious, and feminine and masculine energies. 

Calling both means invoking balance and wholeness.

“Hear what I say: I summon thee to protect me. So be it.” 

A closing affirmation: asking for protection from all directions and solidifying the intention with “So be it” (a ceremonial equivalent of “amen” or “let it be done”).

The P.S.—“By “reading it silently, you've summoned…”

This is a playful or mystical flourish.

It implies that simply giving your attention to the words activates their intention—reflecting a common spiritual idea: “Energy goes where attention flows.

The poem is a poetic ritual meant to feel magical.

A symbolic call for love, understanding, clarity, grounding, balance, and protection

A reminder that focusing on these qualities can draw them into your life.

Only read if you want more love and understanding in your life!

(A lone voice whispers after lighting a white candle. The invocation ends with the blowing out of the candle after the last line is recited)

Title.

The Prayer to The Elementals. Candēla Meditation.

(A lone voice whispers)

Power of Air, Power of Land.

Hear my soul's holy writs. I pray for love and understanding.

So come my way. Power of Night, Power of Day.

Hear what I say. I summon thee to protect me. So be it.

 (C) Copyright John Duffy.

P. S.

You do realize by reading it silently, you've summoned more love and understanding into your life?

Energy goes where attention flows.