¦¦¦ masks and metamorphoses of ¦¦¦¦¦ Native Son
¦¦¦
¦¦¦ icy evil ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ ravished ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ into madness
trapped ¦¦¦ in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer glow.
His injured childhood bullied him.
He skirmished ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦
¦¦¦ cannibal flowers of the American Dream--
but could not hurt the enemy
powered against him there.
(Blackout of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) by Robert Hayden)
A vague face, immersed in mist
Lower lip firming, augmenting
Growing paler
Wider at one end
Like a curled up wood shaving
Mouth becoming linear
Puzzling process
Of de-existence as a face
Expression sinks away
In a cubist miasma
Embedded in a matrix
Of contorted dark vacuum
Which maintains emptiness
Despite what it contains
How many faces
Disappear into nothing
Never to be resupplied
Nor their lost words interpreted
The movement is but inches,
the relaxing and cinches.
The passion simply to be,
something that's happy and free.
But the plan has some spaces,
for the changes one faces.
The ripping and the tearing,
the spreading and the bearing.
With wings one will learn to fly,
then the limit is the sky!
METAMORPHOSIS
BLACK COAL TURNED INTO DIAMOND,
WAVES ARE SLOW AND CALMER.
BLISSFUL AMBROSIA I AM SIPPING,
BEST VERSION OF ME IS CREATING.
CRUSHING THE SHELLS, I GOT WINGS,
CIRCLE ON ME IS GOLDEN BLEAM.
Surging from our core, mirrored at each node,
bliss magnetism intensifies its thrust,
that even though we witness in monk mode,
we sense it may break through skin’s porous crust,
since kundalini will do as it must,
to embody light of Self in each cell,
for us to awake in mind-body shell.
If I could metamorphosise
Into something cute and furry,
I would change into a kitten,
Affectionate and purry.
I would move into the residence
Of the lady I adore,
Who I believe quite likes me,
But likes pussy cats much more.
She’d let me curl up on her lap
And stroke behind my ears.
I’ve been trying to persuade her
To cuddle me for years.
I would have my meals prepared for me;
Not my favourite chore.
I’m sure I’d soon get used to
Eating on the floor.
But there’s a potential hazard,
I’d not considered yet.
It might be counter-productive
If she took me to the vet!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First, the hunger~
a blade splitting every leaf,
a mouth with no bottom.
I am all appetite,
a green comma
curled in the wet dark.
Then the ache:
my skin stitches itself too tight.
I spit nails, spin a rumor
of wings~
a shroud of gold and spit,
a hearse made of silk.
Inside, I dissolve.
No prayer, no bone,
just a thick syrup of becoming,
a body unmaking itself
in the blind cathedral
of my own ribs.
One morning, the light
pries me open~
not with kindness,
but like a burglar
kicking down a door.
And I, new and clumsy,
will stumble into the air,
still drunk on the miracle
of my own undoing.
Contrition for the recorded events of frugalities.
So abstemious have I been, thriving largely in
Defenceless glares of the four-eyed.
Now I have learned to creep alone and weep alone,
Closing tacitly the chapters written in mundane ink,
Reluming the smouldering logs of long slumber.
I have told every truth in loud moments
Now I have only but few lies in my saliva
And I intend puking the remaining few . . .
The pulp and the reed among the wayside waters
Must have tilted in the direction of their winds.
Bloated and deflated, this ego of worth, crimson
With the bath of birth.
Rebirth, woven in colourful Renaissance yarn, has awoken
The drunken somnambulist
The pipers come piping hot, and the stolen trumpet,
Hidden in the soft crests of wisteria,
Alerts the souls of the roosts.
I crave the creation formula of the Sixth Day.
The sage among us have broken many books
And licked many paintings —surrealism —in the
Image of the contorted face, writhing in the throes of
Elevated glances shelved in the mirror-images of Knowledge.
Could there be comeuppance for inquiring into the deep?
It began low,
in the damp cellar of the sea,
where star-ash soured into brine.
Alchemic mud heaved upward,
vomited from vents and wounds,
a million drifting scraps of almost-life
black streamers waving
as if testing for breath.
I was there
or something that would become me,
salted and blind,
carried inland with the silt
of forgotten shores.
Angel-hair filaments brushed past
like nerves learning pain,
snowflake cells stumbled and split,
tripped over themselves
in the green dark.
The cauldron churned,
rain-beaten, fever-swollen,
and beneath its scum-slick skin
an eye squinted open,
not knowing what it saw.
The vessel woke.
The universe shuddered,
and the sea rocked itself
as if soothing a crying child,
webbed with light,
heavy with wanting
each of us a note
from that first wet music,
each of us carrying the ocean
in our blood,
remembering, dimly,
it was me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The seed planted in frozen earth now grows,
through storms and time, its tender stems arose.
Once choked by thorns, stubborn, toward light it goes,
No pleas for light—it takes what sun bestows.
The moth unfurls from silk it once outgrows,
the river carves the rock, no hammer slows.
Wounds I wore now bloom in the vein I chose,
old meanings dissolve where deeper Knowing flows.
Stars fade as night gives way to dawn’s quiet repose~
my former self decays, unmourns, and does expose
my ego, that internal script that age and turbulence depose.
soul reshaped—my life is now stunning prose.
This life is full of challenges and tests ~
It's mere preparation for what's to follow
when our souls transcend into the butterflies
that they are meant to become in afterlife.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Scales interspersed my skin, enrobed my flesh, hardened it, within a mesh. I come close to kiss you, but it binds me still, and you walk away, and I hobble up the hill. One foot follows the other=feigns, I must catch you before it wanes. The fog between us has grown so dense, and my body with it all so tense, my steps slow down yours speeding=out of my sight, now. What immense fright...
I falter on my knees, near to naught, nigh to my knife, and I cut me, and the blood runs so rife, a gate opens but I don't recall I have its keys, but it doesn't end my life.
I clenched my teeth and pulled each foul flake from underneath, and freed myself but now I seek=her until she's meek, until she's weak...
I walk with my chest up, then I see her clear, I walk toward her, and her voice I hear, “I've come for you my precious dear”, I said as I smiled from ear to ear. I held her mere but she flailed from fear. Then she froze in fear. And I sank my fangs in her,
as I dropped a single tear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The caterpillar completes its cocoon and starts dissolving, quietly awaiting metamorphosis. That transformation must be such an odd experience when seen from the inside, a sort of confusing birth until it emerges with some biological comprehension of what it has become. At one time all it could do was crawl. Then suddenly it flies on gossamer wings.
cocoon's gentle grasp
softly wraps the soul within
transformation's sleep
silken threads unwind
emerging new life takes shape
unfurl sequined wings
wings of butterfly
dancing, soaring, free, and light
unencumbered soul
Is the tangerine tranquility
of divine signature—
a chlorophyll sanctum
for kindled minds,
where identity softens
into its sovereign form.
Uniqueness glistens
like diamonds in agate woods,
flowing like a brook
through silenced seastorms,
casting resilient ripples
of peace in chaos.
Kaleidoscopic hues
lather liberation
in lilac breath,
woven through rose-glazed silk,
layering thy self
beyond binary divides.
Weaving a raspberry mirage,
condensing orbits once defined,
gravity kneels to lucid silhouettes —
where polarization, veiled in vines,
drifts through phantoms of shadowed memes,
labeling itself among quiet captives.
Appearance deceives—
a haunted massacre,
gnawing at edges
of borrowed illusions,
trapped in the coffin
of jinxed confessions.
Still, I yearn for that foetal light—
a harlequin armour
on mannequin soul,
held by the thinnest threads
of clairvoyant defiance,
tethered to becoming.
Dusk drapes the horizon
in crimson hush,
penning butter-paper dreams
into the murmuring breeze,
where buried silence exhales
fractured fragments of valour.
Have you been through this emotional, physical, and existential transformation from innocence into experience?
Or more precisely, from youth into adulthood?
Metamorphosis
(A lone voice whispers)
I still dream of the beautiful moments, when I was first introduced, to the Red Goddess called, Sin
Still feel her soft red fingernails, on my hard skin
Still taste her red lipstick, as I became her king or queen
And walked like, Adam and Eve, naked
Into my own Garden of Eden
As I remember the noises of the early morning Blackbirds
Who just loved to sing
When I became of age, and walked reborn, into an adult's skin
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
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