(A lone voice whispers.)

I've seduced so many
From all races

All ***'s

Oh
So many countless old and new faces

With such enticing words

So rhythmically and seductively compelling
Like a form of silent yelling

A self-inductive current for their soul

That can be either destructive or constructive

But be careful if you summon me
To visit

Or I could hypnotise you to crave more
To open that hidden Red Door

To your innermost
Curiosity or desires

Fires
Of the Unknown
Which lies in The Nexus

The very centre
Of all those hidden compartmentalized emotions
You own

To create such a magnificent
Self-Pleasure City
One that Freud would rejoice in

With the Pleasure and Principle as President

To help you win
Or overcome sin

When one needs primary gratification

A release of all happy or old painful sensations

Containing nations of

Thirst
Anger
hunger

Or ***

Which lay in your souls innermost
Vortex

A city free of any ethics committees

But where
Salacity

Will be
The only form of
Pity

Where
I'll hold you like a wilting red rose

Caress your spirit
When needed

In any love letters
You'll write

For they all matter

Call to you
At any given hour
As my new slave

Subservient to my visceral powers

And lead you
Into my pagan-lettered
Cave of Expressions

I also use as my penitentiary
Until I drink and eat all your innocence

Within a butterfly's heartbeat

Where
Afterwards

I'll curse you to bare your soul
Daily

As an indentured conscript
To create newly dipped scripts

In your hearts well

Like so many others
Of my indoctrinated addicts

Who from morning
To midnight

Yell
Silently

While composing
Or confessing

Possessed
Under my spell

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Part 1

(A lone voice whispers)

At the Most High Temple
On the unmapped mountains

Once climbed recklessly by illuminated souls such as

Nostradamus or Louis Bellefontaine

To meet the neverending sensation

The imperceptible incarnation emitting that magnetic pull and lull

Which haunted their every waking seconds and vivid dreams
With its unwarranted invasion

Who many contemporary colleagues

Then viewed as touched with a trace of Darkened Lilith Madness

For when the Mighty Dagon
The mythical beast of the Deep North Sea

Heard my calls for knowledge and wisdom

Sent blowing like paper boats
Sailing through the world's silence

Of the vicious violence in the Middle East

Overflowing with prayers
Spiritually charged with erratic need

He too sent me a personal invitation
Which would lead me into a new age of transformation

To the lonely place where I lived by the raging sea
Known only to a select few

As The Shadow and The Key

The Dagon
Invisible invader of the human thalamus

The Dream Walker
Whisperer in the Darkness

Came to me in Kansas
At midnight

With lightning and thunder announcing his sudden arrival
At the Shadow and The Key

It told me deep occult secrets

Only kept in the heavily guarded vaults
Beyond the Blue Door of the Marianas Trench

Sealed by incarnations and potent harming spells
To deflect the Broken

Seething and entrenched with dark dreams seeking only revenge

It spoke of red wars
Red rivers
Broken dreams
Torn minds and souls

Power-hungry controlled pawns used by unspoken things like it

Supernatural creatures

Which create their new forms of piety by handing out subliminal lyric sheets

So they can keep the hypnotised singing their war songs

It warned me of a lady in blue

A shadow walker who would soon call to the Shadow and The Key

And offer me glorious pleasure as we lay entwined by the sea

It said to choose wisely for the Red Wars

The red rivers of Broken Dreams and Torn minds and Souls

Would soon need someone strong

To lessen the blows from those pulling the strings

For the unseen monsters in control

Someone to soothe their pain with illuminated prose

And then with a crash of white lightning

Striking the fireplace clock
Right in its timekeeper's small face

It was gone

The Mighty Dogan told me a time and date

She would arrive

Idh-yaa
Or to some Quum-yaa

Cthulhu's Mate
The Mighty Mother or the Gothic Matriarch

One of the last Great Old Ones

But to me
Just The Lady in Blue who with her love

Would could carry the velvety tainted baskets

Filled with the snakes of corruption that could worsen the planet's fate

Well
Today's the foretold date

And the time is tonight at eight

Sitting here by the soft sea
Warm in my refuge from the world

In my beige smoker's jacket
In The Shadow and The Key

Shall I answer the door when she knocks and be a gracious host

Or should I ignore it and try to bring hope to the world

By starting my new form of poetic Renaissance

To soothe the few when they need it the most

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

Part 2 of Channeling H.P. Lovecraft.

(A lone voice whispers.)

Her ruby eyes

When she appeared knocking softly on my front door

Wore me out instantaneously with revolving shadows

Blooming with mystical colours of deep dreams

Echos of an unexplored multiverse

A place where unfulfilled desires and cravings linked to lust

Could be so easily dissolved and resolved

They whispered of archaic realms

Revolving around humanity
Like old satellites unseen

Twinkling with sparkling obsidian dust infused with a fervent red shimmer

Of something transmigrational

Something so mysterious and sensuous

That when she suddenly willed it to appear

You could sense it would be utterly insatiable

Her smile carried a hidden memorandum and invitation

That was inescapable

For with one look
You knew her courage was unshakable

She appeared to me like a ghost in the night

Offered me a sharp drink
To sink before our libidos began to fight

Her real name was truly a mystery to me

As I wait impatiently by the fireplace

At The Shadow and Key
For her return

But when I pause and reflect
Will I ever learn

And like so many before me

Will I come to eventually understand

That she's just one of the many saboteurs

Sent by the hidden Masters at Arms

Like wild-eyed birds as this world turns

Or am I just another blind fool
Looking for love

As the world stands at one minute to midnight

Before everything goes nuclear and everyone burns

At The Shadow and Key
My humble abode

By the raging blue sea

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

(A lone voice whispers)

There were times
I wish the Lord

Had intervened and I should have stayed the course

Used the power
Of true judgement

So I wouldn't feel this remorse
And shown up at that appointed hour

After work

And not been
Where I was seen

Shouldn't have hid my wedding ring

In The Wine Bar
At Charlie's

When the Devil whispered
She's nice

Compelling my libedo
To sing
For a taste of his sweet pleasurable sin

For when that eight lettered oath I once made
Was spoken

I love you
At church

In Downtown
Manhattan was broken

That fateful night
And you left
Soon afterwards

Heartbroken

All I can do now is refect
On a sad path
Once taken

And all these black books of grief
It has awakened

I now kneel
In Saint Peter's
Every Sunday

Every Sunday
And pray for atonement

But this pain won't relent
In any known way

So I now live alone
For I'm now one
Of the tainted

No longer
Innocent

The once Sunday church man
Who was drawn like a helpless moth

To a flame

Now tries to hide
From the Devil
With prayer

For it knows his name
And follows him
Everywhere

So as the these blue clouds overhead
Flow

As the blue oceans
Below
Churns

Those old mistakes I once made

Still deep down
Inside
Burns

But will I ever learn

You see
That Devil of mine
Still whispers

Everywhere
I turn

Been married
Eight times
In five years

Since she left
Abandoned each one

On how that Devil
Must laugh

At all he's done

But this time
It's gonna be different

Just told my
Katy

Wife number nine
Everything will be fine

She's the one

Now all I got to do
Is not listen to that old Devil

Who's always saying

Be a rebel

Keep them coming
Cheating has always been fun

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

(A lone voice whispers)

The first day love climbed
Like an invisible green vine

Into me
From Aphrodite's crimson tree

My life changed
Haunted forever by
My old history

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

(A lone voice whispers)

He who walks without the most holy of ways

Will never return
Until they have learned not by sin be swayed

As true as new trees are made

By lay played
In so many wet insidious ways

By those hidden in the chasms
In the faraway stars

For people like you gathered here should be careful

For without faith
In any form

The nearby Darkness can always open a small gateway to sin

And if that abyss is opened
Revealing
Desolation's

Fatal sandstorms

It gets so much harder
To let hope crawl in

So O ye
O Ye

On the yellow beaches
Beseeching

O ye
Gathered round me

To the worthy few
I summon by the power of the Purple Flame

Virtue
By the Divine Will of your choice of God

To guide you
Amen

Through Acheron
To the blue Stargate
So you can

Once more
Run

(C)
Copyright John Duffy

(A darkened soul sings to the watching night sky)

All hail to The Lost Tribe of the Shadow People of The Obsidian Dust

The life thieves like Lazarus
Who hides in the Grey Meadows
Outside my windows

Chanting

Yes
Pull up your souls black gallows

Hang your tortured heart
High

For us all to watch
The Machiavellian sights

While our blackbirds cry
And in us
Trust

As I stood waiting
Waiting all night
Waiting all the next day

For your call
As they watched

Wasting so much time
After our fall
On Valentine's Day

But like time dies
Within each passing second

Our love died
As the Watchers
Watched

Within each playing record

Things I know now have
Changed forever

And memories of you
Still get in the way

For those memories
Don't need no cue or weather
To play

So now, there'll only be crying
Crying over you

As silver eyes in our painted white windows
Shine

Now you've gone

Now you're gone
And are no longer
Mine

No denying the whys
And what for's

As I cry
Yes baby

Our love is dying
Dying with time

As each of our old records play
And in each second
Deep down

I know
Why

Why you ran away

I know I stopped caring
Stopped sharing

As the crowd outside my windows sway
Chanting

What I was feeling
When my mother died and I needed healing

Did I take to the Old Jack Daniels
To hide what I was feeling

So baby
If you hear this

This is for you
My final sweet kiss

One of us is changing
And one of us is dying

And it's too late
For all our Valentine Days

Have upped and flown away

So I look up
Look up at the Sun
Knowing

I'm in hell

As I hail
The Shadow People of The Obsidian Dust

The life thieves like Lazarus
Who hides in the Grey Meadows
Outside my windows

Chanting
Yes

Then
Pull up your souls black gallows
Hang your tortured heart high

For us all to watch the Machiavellian sights

While our blackbirds cry
While our blackbirds cry

And in us
Trust

For soon I'll step outside
As they bow and go wild

And tonight join the crowd

For they all know me
Now as One of their own

As I pull on
One of their grey shrouds
And start to sing

All hail

The Shadow People of The Obsidian Dust

The life thieves like Lazarus
Who hides in the Grey Meadows
Outside all windows

Chanting
Yes

Pull up your souls black gallows
Hang your tortured hearts high

For us all to watch the Machiavellian sight
While our blackbirds cry

While our blackbirds cry
And in us

Trust

The Shadow People of The Obsidian Dust

(C)
Copyright John Duffy