Watered Down
Tiny mirrors, iridescent light
aged salt on my skin
Mother of Pearl
inlaid earrings reflect the
seashell skull MASK
I wear below the surface.
No longer able to carry
life's miseries and mistakes
the inevitable misfortunes
the chaos above
the crushing sound of the surf
I sink, no anchor
WATERED DOWN
my pulse dissolves
into the water and
rhythmic movement
Released.
No one can hear
my muffled screams
the silent anguish of age
the dark underwater shadows
We all live with
blacked thoughts
I have kept only to myself.
Diving headfirst
into the vast silence
I place each piece of hidden shame inside
the colored clam shells
I collect
between green seaweed waves.
One White, One Grey, One Pink
So....This is how Pearls are made.................................
Life takes its own eternity to create beauty
Kicking upward
I push leaving the
sandy bottom
tiny bubbles of rainbows
fill my lungs with freedom
I carry my handmade
human heart
I rise toward the filtered sunlight
there is no other choice
leaving this poem
Buried under the seawater’s door.
The blank field is a whitewashed wall
between
eyes and incipient thought.
A neatly printed line
emerges out of nothing,
fingers sleep
as they plant words in inky rows.
Meaning searches for meaning,
each symbol is a cracked seed
shed from a blacked-out window -
brain particles blindly seeking.
There is meaning here,
but it is as yet formless,
what is seen is slough and spillage,
mind-molt
struggling into an appearance
of notion and idea.
Now the word is flesh, a glossolalia,
a mute speaking in tongues, yet
breathless of any spirit.
At once the painted parody of self
is free to wriggle forth,
to sew and bind together
discernable images,
it must surface above the silent page,
lift up the emblematic
as the hammer-arm
of the insubstantial, until deciphered
by other necromancers
who then speak
for the dead-voiced word.
This then is the tipping point:
the space between sight and seen,
a place to speak into existence
the once immaterial
or surrender all coherence
to the un-lettered reticence of God.
there had been no warning on the flask
no caveat for self-inflicted poisoning
just a devilish delusion of filling the void
it was not the corkscrew that messed it up
but bottle to mouth resuscitation blacked out
all emptiness until surrender meant hope
Six feet high with a noose around my neck.
7 inches down doesn’t seem like a threat.
Manic episodes got me laying in bed.
Blacked out room to pretend I’m dead.
Impulses done by the thoughts in my head.
Anger raging on as I start to bend.
All these emotions made ten fold.
By the white little powder that will make me cold.
I don’t take drugs, the drugs take me.
To places in this world you’ll never see.
Can’t come down from the binge I’m in.
I won’t make it three hours before it wins.
Forget finding me when traumas to great.
Who am I to break down the barrier my minds put in place.
A .22 for a single bill.
I promise I’ll mention you in my will.
Why did I make it longer than you.
When more people cared about what you do.
Money going out before it comes in.
Getting in debt just fly again.
Staying up late, not sleeping at all.
Don’t want to burden you with the call.
Six hours now or seven minutes then.
I’m leaving this world it’s just a matter of when.
(A sad lone voice whispers)
My old love
Loved shaking her crow blacked hair
As old daydreams tumbled around her
Like autumn leaves in the air
On any given day or night
Dreams of divinity
Of God and light
Like the first thing you see when you close your eyes at night
Temporal spaces filled with familiar faces
Crooning like nameless mockingbirds
Under a watchful moon
Dreams of us as a pair
Regale my eyes with surreal memories of us
Everywhere I now look since
God closed that Crimson Book
Us entwined at sea
Surrounded by floating red roses as seagulls watched
Laughing like playful innocent school children
Free from all fears and good behaviour
But now the
Ancient Ones have called at midnight to remind me
“Those who once laid entwined in their sea as their seagulls watched
Will soon get a visit
From The Midnight Hunters from The Black and Blue Lodge”
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can't hurt me so let's draw a truce lock arms and go dancing under this year's 1st full moon. Giving all praise to my creator while you give praise to his creation.Yes! Once I was you drenched in black mind loss and blue. So blue Lucifer said it's time to meet you. Day to night, Night to day oh my gosh! Morning dew seeped through this smoke-filled blacked out room,eyes aflame feeling gloom so much mind
dragging affliction. Ouch! No jerking,
Soul intact,
My love for God won't be doomed
News flash
Huge bash
Big fight
Last night
Clyde's Bar
Bizarre
War zone
Chairs thrown
Snouts poked
Gals choked
Eyes blacked
Ribs cracked
Hair snatched
Backs scratched
Throats slashed
Heads bashed
Tossed stools
Blood pools
Ears chewed
Tossed food
Knees kicked
Knives pricked
Low blows
Stomped toes
Dames sprawled
Cops called
Clyde's closed
Foreclosed
Words hidden in the dark some night,
As flame's whisper on a Moon lit wall,
Faint echoes of a lightning bolt,
Lost in ink, trapped on the page.
Blacked-out lines reveal the soul,
Truth emerges, stark yet bold,
On the tounge, new words take hold,
Meaning found in what’s not there.
Through the void, stories bloom,
From the edge, a voice, square room.
Paper Man
After work as a to-do list in a jewellery store
Paper Man got drunk on wine a lot,
so a lot of what was said to him
he forgot.
His paper wife kicked him out of their bedroom.
One night he came back so drunk he blacked out
and fed himself into a shredder in the spare room.
Having partied all night on a yacht
and then fallen to sleep on a cot,
how strange it all was
when I woke because
on the cot on the yacht I was not!
On a tropical island was I,
looking up at a beautiful sky.
Asleep by my side
I saw the tour guide -
a charming and gorgeous young guy.
I’d blacked out when a storm sunk our boat,
but somehow with this man I did float
to this nice tiny spot,
Like the guy, it was hot
and from civilization – remote.
As it turns out, the man knew all ways
to survive, and we’d been there for days.
Well, days became years,
but I’ve got no fears.
For the man-mate I’m with never strays!
I didn't notice that the lines had appeared.
Tendrils of color stretching across my pale skin.
The blacked lines from a tight grip,
Handprints made a map of the lines I crossed.
I started to think they appeared because I didn't hold my tounge, or maybe because I didn't speak up enough.
Because I'd done the wrong thing, or I hadn't done something at all.
I looked at the black and blue handprints spread across my white skin,
And in the lines I started to see a barcode. A price tag.
As if this hurt determines the price of my faults, or what I am worth to the world.
It took a long time to understand that I was only seeing what I was worth to me.
I didn't notice that I was becoming more aware.
And you didn't notice I'd had enough.
My asking to be treated well came as a shock to you,
And I'm only shocked it took me so long.
Fingertips touch the polaroid photo
my smile is transformed to teardrops;
Locked in a box for so long
I’d almost forgotten that moment;
It wears a crease but not badly damaged
maybe now I can bear the scar;
Traveling instantly back
will finally not give me whiplash;
Frolicking in the bygone reflections
dappled with beams of history;
Perception stood suspended
out of touch with time moving forward;
Emotions transform into a slideshow
each image a sliver of me;
Erased permanent branding,
an edge blacked out with magic marker;
Encased indefinitely in a frame
it’s okay to place on the shelf;
Lighting up at life’s snapshot,
I let the past revisit my mind.
IM sorry is what you said when you made me cry.
IM SORRY is what you said when you hit me and
blacked my eye.
IM SORRY is what you said when you punched
me in the head.
IM SORRY is what you said when you saw me in
that hospital bed.
IM SORRY is what you said when you realised
my pain.
IM SORRY is what you said when you hit me once
AGAIN.
IM SORRY IS WHAT YOU SAID WHEN YOU DROVE ME
OVER THE TOP.
BUT IM NOT SORRY I LEFT YOU TO MAKE THE ABUSE STOP....
Admit you lost track
under a blue fever moon
Buckle your seat belt
The hysterical,
the shrinking curse
Chew dog food, gum
it sure smells delicious
Constant tinnitus
Burn aromatic herbs
Dangerous situations
with sparks from the mains
A threat to the electricity pylons
they are blacked out
The street was familiar
as one's own pocket
Mysterious disappearances
Even not Stephen King
understood what had happened
She donned her wafflestomper shoes
and strode towards the distant hills:
a walk was sure to cure the blues,
to dry her tears, forget the bills.
She spent the day enjoying life
and realised she would survive -
although no longer called his wife,
no need for death; she'd stay alive.
Returning home, her head held high,
she saw her ex and blacked his eye.
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