Evoked Poems

Dreams were lost

This is the moment; 
Those dreams were lost! 
These yearning hearts are faraway! 
To skip the worries that we chat freely; 
But in this hurried world, it's all forgotten. 

A photograph, 
A faded hue, 
A whisper that I sent to you. 

The air is cold, 
a hollow space, 
where echoes of your laughter
Chase The fleeting moments, 
lost to time, 
A silent, 
broken, lonely chime. 

I'm sure! 
At first sight, 
body shivers; 
eyes tear up; 
soul weeps! 

Ohh.... ohh.... Hmm,
I truly miss you, my soul!!

When will faces meet again??? 

The sun goes down on hurried days, 
Lost in a lonely, misty haze. 
I search for you in every crowd, 
This present grief, a heavy cloak, 
From every memory I've evoked.

Blue Bindings Aloft

I no longer trust the vows of marriage
For years, Vikings have built mystical Runes.
We once soared forth in golden carriages.
Now every dawn returns our dreamy tunes.

A faery, I remain in vibrant flight.
A mystic born with Stardust and Cosmos.
My flight dreams transcend the mind's starry night
To realms where big truths and visions arise.

Handfasted once beneath the ancient Oak
Amid unwinding breaths of whispered wind,
Now freed to ride the cosmic tides evoked,
Ascending where the Celestials began.

No human heart knows where I am flying
With defiant fantasies unflinching.

Pete Seeger

Is a picture worth a thousand words?
Is it the same with a song?
Is it worth a thousand pictures?

Who can deny the powerful images
evoked from Songs of Struggle and Protest –
a forte of common humanity?
A song can paint optimism, commitment, and a desire 
for peace, freedom, and the right to live without
…Your Millions, Mister.
A piece of art sings in the minds of thousands.
It shouts injustices to the skies in loud color
and questions Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
in broad strokes.
A government of placid leaders who
Turn, Turn the other cheek and project calm and concern.
Ask your children,
What Did You Learn in School Today?
Lord, save us from ourselves.
From My Muddy Stream all the way
To My Old Brown Earth, I see inspiration and admiration for nature.
I see the waste and cry to the skies, God Bless the Grass!
There is strength, passion, and nonconformity
in picture and in song.
The one should affect us, touch us, stir us,
and fill us, Step By Step.

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

Endorphins

Starting to think that love isn’t real
Something we say, not something we feel
Frivolous rhymes soften the blow.

A ruse evoked by the brain, 
Chemical explosions alter and addict.
Life forces fuse like hot metal,
But cool so fast they become brittle
Tolerance builds, chemicals fade, and the war begins
Perpetual battles for small doses, proving our love true

For some, the doses are enough
Anniversaries with digits next to decades
Others see error in choice, but crave the full effect.

Why do my chemicals always remain?
Maybe my brain is broken like it is with booze.
The cryptic off-switch eludes my fragile heart
Maybe love is real, and it only exists in the broken.

I know what you must think. What if it’s you?
Does toxicity spew from my pours?
Am I the retardant for chemicals adored?
The answers compete with love’s lack of existence.

So now I dwell in my new home,
Between rocks and hard places,
Grasping hope with sad faces

SHOT STORIES

ONE OLD HAT AND FRYING PAN

Our life is like a book of endless short stories..
filled with a myriad of highs and lows.
Stories we will write today stretching as far back as our memory goes.

One of the wonders and beauty we possess…as every day we age
is how easily a memory can be triggered…opening our book to a certain page.

Sometimes it a thing, a word, a photo…a melody…
and before we know it our book is opened to that page in our memory.

Today before my morning walk…two memories awoke…
both of them unplanned.
Stirred by Deborah’s dad’s old fishing hat 
and her mom’s cast iron frying pan.

I stopped and smiled at the memories evoked
and since there were more memories I wanted to see…
I asked these two memories if they’d like to take a walk with me.

So as the three of us walked this morning 
with the stars shining and the wind whistling through the trees…
I perused through a few short stories in the book of my memories.

What a beautiful walk we had this morning…
and to think it all began…
with memories awakened by an old fishing hat
and a cast iron frying pan.

Lightning

I traveled 50 miles,
To listen to the screams of skies,
And to feel the pounding of droplets,
As the sky showed me its demise.

In its fury it banished the stars,
And under the lighting it poured.
The pain it evoked showed the scars -
That its rolling thunder had scored.

I fled before it arrived,
A beauty too destructive to meet.
But it chased me to my home,
Where I admitted defeat.

Precious

#Precious
Day in and day out,
In my window,
my eyes lay low,
like a lion on its prey,
awaiting only to quench my soul
with your luminous glow.

Your drizzling laughs,
consistently sending shivers down my spine.
Wish you'd peep into my stomach
whenever you toss your eyes to my direction, constantly provoking the butterflies in my stomach, to run amok.

Shut my eyes,
clot my earsdrums,
in your distance my heart reverberates,
tie my tongue,
for my soul screams to your aura,
less these streets hear whats not meant for their ears to consume.

From a distance fell so hard,
bruises on my heart awakes
whenever I lay my eyes on you,
like demons in my spirits
evoked by your purity,
Owe it to bow to your parents
for slipping a goddess out of heaven,
without God's knowledge,
right into my vicinity
#Poetic_ink

She Cried

He took her there most days
They rowed out to his small yacht 
They sat and drank take away lattes
She just cried a lot….

She was so full of sadness
Tormented by relentless fear
So very troubled
Her mind clouded and unclear

She liked it on the river
It gave momentary relief 
Life seemed a little clearer 
Though be it only brief 

She saw them in the distance 
Hoped they would come her way
Unbelievably without deviation
They were there without delay

Swimming underneath the small yacht
In water so clear and blue  
So close they were touchable 
He cuddled her and said,
“This is just for you”

The dolphins swam away….again without deviation
A direct path into the open water
She knew in her heart those majestic creatures
Had sought her…

The emotions they evoked in her 
Mere words cannot describe 
With heart and mind now smiling 
She sipped her latte
And just cried….

Remnants of Despair

I still remember your easily smiling face, poetry spilling from your lips
Singing joyfully at the dead of night, not a care in the world.
Oh how I miss your face when it was alive,
When it was not hardened, frozen, 
unfeeling.

Was it God’s love what drove yours away?
For what reason does the Sun rise; rousing this cold star?
Was it for this the bullets flew? Was England worth
Stealing your innocence away, carelessly, flippantly,
selfishly?

Our country is filthy with ignorance, the front clean and pure,
Snowy white feather mocking, girls giggling gallantly,
Surprise when I snarl, stumble back; shocked.
The Soldier's uniform staves off the dove, 
its curse.

Desperately lingering in your gaze, I search in the abyss,
The most loving part of you asleep, or dead.
Nothing I can do can make it stir, still I reach for you,
Ragged, scarred skin, they’re only remnants of your service,
my dear.

The jolt of terror evoked not from your maimed face,
One side ripped, gouged of recognition, eye mangled,
But from the other, undamaged pupil unmoving,
Emotions missing, heart agape, your brain stone,
Empty.

The Dance of Jealousy

I saw them dance the Second Waltz, so lovely, so fine,
Oh my Lord, how my jealous heart did despair and pine.
On the terrace, in the dark of night, moonbeams shone bright.
Curse them, a perfect couple that evoked a great sight.

One, two three and a twirl, oh what a delicate dance
I stood, looking in envy, mesmerised in a trance.
Would that magic music finally pause and take her
To a comfy seat and I would take her as my fleurr.

Hold her ever tight, and face to face, we would engage
In a soft whisper, kiss her soft ear, 'twill be our stage.
But no, they danced on, oblivious of my green face
The terrace was their dominion, it was their birthplace.

Jealous I slinked home, abandoning her forever.
I will not see her again, neither now or ever.

Placed 1st.

ABSTRACT POETICS

ABSTRACT POETICS
 stored
  images
conscious
      of gaps
  of rhetoric
&  inspiration
of
instinctive
clichéd speech

inner
 explanation
 is  evoked
 resembles
&appeals to
 to the ear
& then
    to mould
at
a later
stage

My Aborted Baby

Crepuscular rays filtered through the trees:
Tall black cypresses around a dark shrine,
Evening grim bells toll as I feel the freeze,
Conscious the tomb covered with rambling vine,
While nocturnal butterflies just decline.
I could not help utter a maze of sighs, 
My desolate unborn baby just lies, 
Never forgotten, but always evoked
Except the woman who'll never get wise.
Cursed she'll be, an oath I never revoked.

Fiction
I am against abortion.  But I am in favour of forgiving.

AUDITISTA

AUDITISTA
verbal
  music
insightful
declamations
    aloud
voice
     to
         ear
heart
   to mind
conscious
clarity
  stirring
    inspirations
evoked
in
aural
  emotion
to
elicit
  intensive
significance
said
aloud

Black and White

They waited, longing for calls of stalemate
Upon chequered realms, embracing fate
The deep sweat of their shades, merged to convey
And became another non-hue - pale grey 

The non-hues were placed before a jury
A visible length of pulsing fury
Reflections of colours, the fonts of light
With no grey areas to defend by sight

Within the waved spectrum, no judge exists
A black and white gown is not in the midst 
For the non-hues, palettes absorbed their glare
That evoked sharpened hues within their snare

As all grey matter differs to persist,
non-hues will not get their brush in a twist

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