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

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

Like an unseen ghost
True Love materialised
Owned until the end

(575)

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Is this the most authentic and stripped-back version of life when you truly commit to another person?

To live, one must work.

Work for money,  
Work on being happy,  
Work on relationships,  
Work on staying committed.  

Or maybe you're still searching for that special someone to walk home with?

Title:
Commitment. #Senryu

We walked our way home,  
Signed up for a white wedding,  
To work to our graves.

(575)

(C) Copyright John Duffy

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

(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

Foundation.

Do you use images as a canvas to stimulate your creativity?


Title:
Whispers

(A lone voice whispers)

To the one I know with a secret, sacred name

And uses poetry as a means of expressing the beauty of appealing to people, with a common touch

Lying on her bed each night alone
Surrounded by glittering glass and silver

Looking at her computer or Apple iPhone

Every day we're together, in spirit, and one day God will save and forgive us

No matter how deep life's cruel knife cuts

The boy and the girl with the golden guitar, who loved each other too much

(C)
John Duffy

(A lone voice whispers)

Like a lone argus-eyed oblique tattered caliginous silhouette

Moving extremely cautiously in the severe, deadly silence

The Mistress of the Voices of the Dead

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

A rare blatherskite whose white emblem appears on the backs of

The Great In-Between black gull's wings

Who just love to gather in huge invisible circles above lost souls

Like earthly Starling flocks
To crow and sing

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

The seasonal bringer of red torches to burn at midnight

By kings
Princesses

Prince's
Peers and Lords

Red torches that would never go out

No matter even if they got soaking wet

When she stirs up her twin Sister Anxiety

To fight in all gathered
As she's summoned and ceremonially swept up

By her swollen army of mindless hordes
By their pleas

Calling to be re-masked and rebranded

With her new Emotions suit of self-resurrecting armour

Which her faithful armies seek

Full black and white leather and a two-sided blade, and a white candle

Always lit to dispel the darkness
As old or new emotions cascade

To help guide them
A new follower home, to atone

After they've been beautifully betrayed

And all their inner larders have been raided and waylaid

By a conjured blind colporteur

Will you grasp Poe Ravenscroft Marmosetts

Shadowy hand to then suddenly hear the summoning anthem

Proudly played loudly by her ethereal band
Like I once did

The forbidden one known only to the few by her real, unspoken name

Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

She of the steely green eyes
Who always appears from the West

With horse and carriages following her in straight lines

Stacked high with new black and white suits of leather

And carrying white lit candles and sharpened blades

For those lost
Thinking about all the ones who broke the sanctity of their sacred trust

When they were betrayed

Who now need a new armour made out of black and white leather

A white candle and a two-sided blade

After hearing and experiencing the traumas linked to the explosion

One of her emotional hand grenades

Will you too hear these hissed words

Accompanied by the shrill sound of her ancient bejewelled Shofar

If you her call

Surrender
Surrender

Will you summon me with your cries and pleas

The true queen
All the real honey bees seek

Will you stand and listen as my priestess

Amongst my unvoiced bannerman

The harsh-voiced Sangoma of the Netherworlds

Gathers and commands you to pull on my black and white leathers

Hold up your new white candle and a two-sided blade

And return with her to go to war forever

Near my unseen home in all weathers

A new soldier in an invisible army of the betrayed

A place where emotions no longer causes the Amygdala to get wet

For no known velleity can save you now

So will you follow I
Poe Ravenscroft Marmosett

Into the sunset to reach a new land

Hidden just beyond The Green Hills

In the West

(C)
Copyright John Duffy