The Transmissions

 New novel in development. 

Now, where can I conjure 35,000 words from? 

The Repetition of Time

 

A poem offering a gentle, reassuring hand to anyone experiencing sudden loss. 

Shifting the focus from the permanence of death to the permanence of love. 

Suggesting that memory is a timeless dimension where we can always reunite with those we have lost.

(A lone voice whispers) 

Blessed be

Velumbound

Let's explore the Repetition of Time

For loss covers many different paradigms.

From relationships, family, and friends.

But one pivotal thought sometimes gets forgotten in grief. 

When someone suddenly has died.

The love you both once shared will live forever.

Just hidden in a Repetition of Time.

As you suddenly remember this 17-syllable drop of bliss.

In five, seven, five.

As those old memories fire and come alive.

To just miss someone. 

 (5)

Is to have been truly loved. 

(7) 

Treasure those moments. 

(5) 

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

Lucid Dreaming

 

A short poem using the mythological figure Morpheus to explore the boundary between waking reality and the subconscious realm of dreams. 

By describing sleep as an immersion into "ever-flowing seas," the verse highlights the hidden, fluid nature of the dream world that remains unseen during our waking hours. 

(A lone voice whispers) 

Theres a world on top of this one, no one ever sees.

Until they enter the deep waters 

Of Morpheus's ever-flowing seas.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

The Song of Argento

Blessed be.

Velumbound.

With your last breath

Of the midnight hour

Will you hear

This call

From my towers

Will you join my company

Going past

To a world

Of neverending pleasures

That will last forever

Where sensuous music

With wild voices

Will put your soul

At risk

With its seductive power

And make your Fate

Close its ivory gates.

No longer to lament

But be courageous.

To welcome me

In.

To pitch my tent

With my powers

Of enchantment and pleasure

As my kin

That will seem

Heaven sent.

To those that

Seek love

And intimate sin.

A contradiction

Of above and below.

For I know

When all lascivious

Tensions must go.

So shed your fears

As you

To me

Are led

The Golden Goddess

Of all Exiles.

To a place

Where purple butterflies

Fly to

Die.

Come to me.

Come to me.

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

Initiation

 

(A lone voice whispers) 

Blessed be. 

Velumbound. 

Want to visit a surreal, ritualistic mental space after a life of emotional pain? 

Let us begin. 

I've lived more days in grief than can be remembered. 

                                

Walked the dark roads of a wounded heart each night.    

                                

As a lonely world numbed me. 

                                 

Lost all beautiful things I once treasured. 

Now cursed to see. 

By second sight. 

                              

I've prayed daily guided by the violent flame. 

                

Praying some God would hear my name. 

Looked down Fate's black barrel of the gun. 

Watched Father Time get up, laugh, and run. 

                                   

                                               

I've heard banshees cry over emotional battlefields. 

Without pleading. 

                                       

Heard the roar of Leviathan without yielding. 

                                  

                                                                     

And still in darkness and semi-light, 

I live. 

                                    

With all these poetic gifts. 

I give.        

                            

For these transmissions are like a portico to a secret place. 

                             

Surrounded by ghosts of the future and past.                                                               

                                       

Where you, the curious. 

Can find some sort of peace at last. 

For here in these wet words in your cerebral cortex. 

                     

You've entered my purple vortex. 

                                        

   

A fountain to drink from. 

To get drunk with all things once named. 

                                   

Only to return again. 

                  

To walk its alabaster halls.         

       

                                                                               

After you've been marked to receive its calls. 

                              

After the sun has died. 

For I know you've cried. 

                                        

                               

So stay awhile. 

                                   

Stumble and wonder through its fields of lore. 

                                   

Embrace this curse to walk on new sacred grounds. 

Revel in the pagan sounds. 

                                       

And then dance wildly in my underground streams. 

For now, by hearing this. 

Blessed be. 

I now have baptised you. 

From somewhere hidden. 

In The Great In-Between.         

                                   

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy  

Inferno

 An evocative poem which explores themes of projection, identity, and the destructive nature of human judgment.

Core Themes.

Projection vs. Reality:

 The line "I'm just a figment of your longing and desire" suggests the speaker was never truly seen for who they were.

 Instead, they were an idealized image created by the listener's own needs and imagination.

The Danger of Expectations: 

When we build someone up based entirely on our own longing, we set them up to fail. 

The human experience often involves mourning the gap between who we want someone to be and who they actually are.

Destructive Judgement:

 The phrase "burnt up in your judgemental fire" shows the consequence of breaking that illusion.

 When the real person fails to meet the idealized fantasy, the other person reacts with harsh criticism, destroying the connection entirely.

The Shift in Perspective.

The poem moves rapidly from a quiet revelation ("A lone voice whispers") to total devastation ("burnt up"). 

It highlights a common tragic cycle in human relationships: 

holding someone to an impossible standard, and then punishing them for being human.

(A lone voice whispers) 

You never really knew me

I'm just a figment of your longing and desire

Now burnt up 

In your judgemental fire

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

X

 

The Red Schooner

 

The Red Schooner, is a melancholic song about lost love and the passage of time, using the metaphor of a ship sailing away.

Key Themes and Narrative:

The Departure: 

The singer describes a love that arrived late and departed on a "cherry red schooner", leaving behind feelings of coldness and regret.

The Loss: 

The song reflects on how the years have passed like a "restless sea", with the narrator feeling stranded on the shore of their memories.

The Longing: 

The Lingering Ghost:

The narrator admits to still "chasing her ghost" through broken plans and calling out into the night, hoping for a return that never comes. 

The song concludes with a sense of resignation, acknowledging that the love from long ago has sailed forever into the "dark" and "landless" sea, leaving the narrator to wonder where "lost hearts go".

Salute. 

Echoes from the night

(A lone voice whispers) 

Blessed be. 

Velumbound. 

Close your eyes. 

To everything else. 

Listen to this. 

In total silence. 

In semi-darkness. 

Can you hear. 

My sultry, tempting voice. 

As the only noise. 

Hear these magical words. 

You have no option now. 

There's no going back, 

Yumbarto. 

Kilgarruti. 

So its dulcet tones can run.

Their sinewy, hypnotic octaves. 

Up and down your now shivering spine. 

In waves. 

Yumbarto. 

Kilgarruti. 

Are those goose pimples. 

On your now-on-edge skin. 

Appearing. 

As your soul. 

Opens its front doors and gleefully. 

Beckons me. 

In. 

When these final words are found.

Yumbarto, 

Kilgarruti. 

Blessed be. 

Velumbound. 

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

Are you awake

 

A poem reflecting on war, manipulation, and hidden power. 

It asks if people still follow leaders into conflict. 

It warns about secret groups who use illusions and rituals to start wars for their own gain. 

The author questions if society will notice these tricks or ignore them.

Key Themes.

The Cost of War:

Innocent families leave home and carry heavy loads while leaders stay safe.

Hidden Control: 

Dark groups use secret plans, magic symbols, and lies to guide society.

Mass Deception: 

People get tricked by loud speeches and fake promises.

A Call to Notice: 

The poem challenges readers to wake up and see the truth.

(A lone voice whispers) 

Do wide-eyed fools still sit or stand in strange lines, and watch as huge grey planes like in 39?

Set out at night carrying their children and their heavy backpacks off to war?

To satisfy those with incredible appetites who never fight?

The dark ones who travel in secret circles, of no rehearsals.

Using the power of blood and ritual magic, as their 

gleaming weapons of the supernatural.

Hidden inside pagan long wagons, where their kin are gathered?

Praying to the low Heavens with eyes rendered by heavy sin.

As angry eyes mourn for people to forget all tarnished resolutions.

As they concoct more convincing illusions.

From their deep depths of secretive retreats.

Underneath and beneath the surface of the world, which emboldens them as time gets older.

And their old lust for war, sung in podium songs, gets louder.

Making political deserts bloom in any room they stand up in.

As their dark waters erupt, so their seeds once sown can grow faster.

Within blinded-sided travellers with their occult sideshows.

Fools gaslit in the wilderness from the secret domains of future's darkness.

Where followers pray no one sees through or breaks their spells. 

No matter how much society yells?

Have you seen through their smokescreens yet? 

Or would you rather walk by and forget?

(C)

Copyright John Duffy