The Watcher

 The Watcher 

(A lone voice whispers)

You do know that your spirit can become cumbersome

wading through rivers of physical, political and spiritual injustices that you are sometimes, powerless to fix?

And sometimes, beauty lies in a temporary surrender?

For in the end, if you meditate to embrace that nine-letter word  

And contemplate these two important points of view: 

Number 1

Being powerless right out of the blue can be just another bridge to try to cross in this life

A bridge to cross the surging rivers of people's karma below

And all you can do is offer help if possible and be gracious enough to accept this subtle fact.

Everywhere you go

For there is no point in fighting point number one without deep meditation before you act 

Since in the emotional anguish of your internal battle,

You could abandon the very fabric that offers you acceptance

Which could just be

Point number two  

 Love.

 Surrender again and embrace that nine-letter word

Surrender yourself to Love for Karma will offer little relief or respite 

On any given night

And always embrace that as long as you breathe, you can in time, change the future 

Even if yesterday stays, for your life is but a natural play composed of four stages

Infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood

And sometimes Infancy could return 

A feeling of powerlessness as you experience life as you age

But as long as we have tomorrow.

Hope beckons just like the other three stages of life

And as long as we have some form of Love, today could be glorious

As you once realise life is just a perceptual experience.

One just has to know, how to know how to deal with the differences.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Questions from The Ether

Questions from The Ether

(A lone voice whispers)

Is this why the modern world still needs poets and poetry?

To help the Illuminated be slowly renewed like a faithful servant of God clutching their rosary?

For can the power of poetry help carry you whenever your feet tremble, as you hear news of happiness or even tragedy?

Especially when tears stream down your face, for some say

Poetry can reinforce or shape new emotional realities. 

And a good book filled with heart-stopping prose or even a great poet like maybe yourself 

Can help light up in others

A divine hope 

A golden flame that can never be extinguished, even in the darkest moments of their anguish. 

To help keep those insidious shadows at bay as they find a new means to cope

I know we will all experience despondency at some point in our lives, and sometimes will feel lost, but one thing will always ring true: 

We will always return to our need for something to do or read, for a belief in a greater power. 

A force which can help us restore happiness, wash away tears, and try to make us feel whole again.

As it helps us explore a deeper understanding and appreciation of life, and all its immeasurable priceless moments. 

Some mystics say that poetry can help to enable us to reclaim those dire moments of darkness and remind us that those we love, including ourselves, are enveloped in good grace

Free from injustice, condemnation, pain, and suffering, but simply trying to achieve peace. 

For reading or creating poetry has always been the sweetest, everlasting song

That whispers or calls to every living soul, if they choose to carefully listen.

 

Regardless of their social or environmental positions or conditions. 

So have you heard it call to help you cross, maybe the Bridges of Doom?

From way over there

Seated in that very room?

(C) Copyright John Duffy.

Image shared under fair usage policy.

 

Are You Worthy of Being Remembered?

Foundation:

I recently had an engaging conversation with a priest, which inspired this piece. Salute.

Title:  

Are You Worthy of Being Remembered?

(A lone voice whispers)

You do know that there are two dates in all our lives that we either don’t remember or will never see, don't you?

Well, let me tell you.

Those two dates are related to our birth and, more significantly, our passing.

When we cross over, and hopefully rise to a higher frequency.

Those two dates are only separated by a dash, such as 1937 – 2008.

That little dash.

A mere stroke of the pen or a simple key on a keyboard or typewriter.

Carries within that small indentation all the adventures, dreams, loves, hopes, achievements, and so much more.

From sad, happy, easy or hard moments when you once ran freely through life's great gates.

Listing all those adventures, dreams, loves, hopes, and achievements could take forever.

So the question is:

Do you want to just be a simple dash in some copy written by a stranger on that inevitable morning?

A mere dash on a random newspaper or social media site, written by someone who is merely going through the motions? 

Or do you want to be more?

While the publication may include your simple dash when reporting the event, why not strive to be a vibrant crescendo of noise, reverberating around everyone like the chorus of magnificent sopranos?

Your life might ultimately be summarized by a stranger with a brief paragraph followed by random numbers. 

However, to those who love and cherish you.

Your family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers.

You can try to be someone they will always remember fondly.

So, will you try to increase your worth by doing more?

By being maybe more attentive, engaging, understanding, and empathetic.

Encouraging, friendly, kind, grounded, affectionate, patient, observant.

Welcoming, and so much more each time you walk in or out of a door.

“For you are your own magnificence. 

So shine a light so bright that it never dims and illuminates everyone whenever your name is mentioned!”

And always try to do and be better.

Before you meet the Tall Man, also known as The Soul Collector.

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Want to know a secret?

 

Foundation.

Some say the body rebuilds itself within a ten-year cycle but on the spiritual side, is that even possible?

Emotionally, can one ever truly rebuild one's old cornerstones?

Title:

Do you want to know a secret linked to life?

Haber amado en cualquier edad

Es haber muerto de tantas maneras (S)

To have loved in any age

Is to have died in so many ways

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Misha.The Great Elemental.

 

h

Misha.The Great Elemental.

Clad in her swiftly flowing white silk gown, adorned with golden hems, she stood on the ominous, invisible banks of שְׁאוֹל

With her black hair blowing.

On the unspoken grounds of Sheol. She whispered:

"Welcome to a collection of stimulating otherworldly prose summoned from the shimmering half-places where few truly visit or go. 

Welcome to The Great In-Between.

A gathering of light and dark.

An indulgence of supernatural prose to satisfy the inquisitive mind on any lonely, rainy or even happy day.

Wherever you might be. 

In this deceptively deep life, As you still run. 

Read on, knowing that those who watch with me.

Stand silently behind, hiding in these flickering shadowy spaces that also exist around you, even in your very bedrooms. 

And You

Yes, you have unknowingly summoned them all by reading these opening lines, drawn from the many dark halls of the Dragon Castle at Apollos Keep.

So, as we advance together to surround you, it is exhilarating to finally meet you.

Shall we begin with tales of light and dark, emotional overtures linked to morality and sin, and whatever else they've witnessed? 

Shall I whisper the low echoes that resonate from here to eternity within those alabaster grey walls?

If so, just repeat after me:

"So mote it be! 

Let us begin. With tales from you and your kin."

That line has been inscribed in the ancient books of life since the dawn of time.

From when God crafted the Great Cosmos around us.

Can you feel us creeping through the cautious corridors of your mind, as I pause and sinfully whisper this interdimensional rhyme?

You may dismiss this as a sensuous, strange dream. 

You may convince yourself it is just your fertile imagination. 

But believe me, it’s real, and you will come to see and embrace it over time, for you are now ours. 

From the Black Grimoires, stolen like a common thief from the Devil's Keep, comes an ominous parade filled with unseen angels.

As I invoke this spell to compel you to love us all as you sleep at night.

To dream of us when you rest and prepare for our eventual meeting.

I've cast your name into the Sphinx’s Mixing Bowl, and there is no one to blame.

So don’t question when your unconscious mind starts counting down the dog-eared days and slow nights.

Tossing and turning, restless and filled with burning anxiety and angst. 

For you are now ours because by just reading this, you have just sipped some of our Holy Communion wine.

By invoking the power of this, our interdimensional rhyme.

And joined our huge ever-growing chanting circle.

To be closer to us

The Hidden Folk separated from mortals and only accessed by those anointed 

to hear whispers, coming down through the Blue Portal

By us 

The Universes 

Old Watchers and Immortals

 

Who've you've just let in

(C)

John Duffy

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

Image shared under fair usage policy.

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