(A lone voice whispers)

What a year to be alive to see poetry still thrives

Want some new readers?

Well, I asked this once when I was institutionalised

Before in The Great In-Between

I was baptised to be non institutionalised

So here's my advice

Try to write immersive experiences

For some long-lost legends whisper

That every spirit seeks to walk in newer realms on their way to redemption

So take your readers by the hand and like a leader

Take them on soul tempting journeys into the unknown and mysterious

Hold them mesmerised

Spellbound through words like ringing church bells

To keep them reading slowly like the birth of a caterpillar

And when that red key eventually turns in their minds

To open a blue portal and enter them into a strange interdimensional place

Through the two great ancient white pillars

Of
Ashtara and Shoka

To where smoke and fire
Day and night burns

A spiritual place
I call The Great In-Between

A mythical experience for the curious mind
Begins

A fog filled place where pain sorrow and sin

All things seen or unseen
Like love and happiness exists

A wild place where darkness

Shadows selves
Corwatturea creatures

Spirits
Angels and beauty
Coexists

In absolute tranquility and harmony

And you my friend

In that subliminal moment, that red key turns

A new reader of yours is reborn

One who seeks their Drover
As their need and curiosity takes over

To move them through higher high roads and lower byroads

Unexplored old church lanes
Of joy and pain

To walk them through the fire and snow storms

To find a new mother load
Via this underground railroad

Unspoken poetic stories to take them under like chloroform

For their souls
After stepping into

The GREAT IN-BETWEEN

Will have been truly transformed and renamed

For now, they'll walk like new aged gods and goddesses

Baptised in that smoke
Fire and rain

To stand up strong like their newfound Drover

And walk forward forever
Trying to stay pure and unashamed

As their need for more
Takes over

(C)
Copyright John Duffy