Grief

 Sometimes, moving on is all you can do. 

Grief

After a year of silence 

I'll walk into 2025

With the hope to find someone new

To replace you

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Happy New Year

 Do you too like reading to escape for a few minutes or for the true diehards 

Free from the modern curse of Hypoprosexia

A few hours

Through poetry's heavily laden chest of mysterious things

Containing shiny jewels of such priceless wonders and visual experiences

 

Waiting for eager minds to race through like the Greek goddess of running

Atalanta

With such raw heavenly power 

Tempting inquisitive eyes to wait in line with a great thirst like polydipsia

For seconds

Minutes or even hours

To be maybe hypnotised forever by enchanted words

As they appear

Cast like fishing lines with bolts of Zeus thunder

To then hold minds

 

Caught and captured in gilded written cages in pages

Captivated for a few seconds

Minutes or hours 

By written spells to beguile 

Through ethereal carefully crafted and erected citadels 

Surrounded with such hypnotic wonders and smiles

From the hostile 

Versatile and others flickering with such style 

Is that why some still love poetry

And books like heavily laden chests

Filled with mesmerising dreamscapes to within wonder 

For readers of old and readers of new

There will always be one favourite author

To take you under

Who's yours?

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Hypoprosexia: A decrease in attention ability

Polydipsia is the medical definition of excessive thirst

Confession of The Soothsayer

 

(A lone voice whispers)

Am I cursed like poor Orpheus

The son of Apollo

To just wander through life

Wasting my time

Cursed by the Three Crones 

To now write rhymes 

For just you

Who I silently 

Follow

Writing about love and sorrow

Whilst hiding alone in my hollow

 For only

Two invisible pennies

 Or dimes

 Because my Goddess 

 Divine has called

 In all my sins

To be tormented in every way 

Like Orpheus by the Maenads 

To play

 With this as punishment 

 For all my eternal crimes

 So every night

 Or at the break of morning 

I'm now doomed

To write

 Sometimes 

 In darkness 

 Sometimes in light

 Writing for my soul

 For my freedom 

 To really see

Unlocking old mysteries

Hidden deep within me 

To take back control

Using secretive newly found keys 

To mysterious occult doors

To traverse through 

Strange literature about inner kingdoms 

As I now speak to you

The silent viewers

Hiding cleverly amongst life's many moors

 Hidden in the vastness of 

 The Universe or

 Simply forgotten kin

 Or quiet fallen watchers 

 Parading silently

 Through my paradigms of words or simply perusing 

 In my inspired biosphere 

Am I but one of the many cursed 

Maybe like you 

Too

 To walk at the front like a brave foot soldier or simply following

Like a loyal Banner man 

Coerced beyond belief 

To seek continuous relief

Is that why I 

Perhaps like you 

Always now write

For sleep doesn't come easily to us two

Walking these precarious tightropes in morning or

At midnight

Filled with such unknown delicious and sometimes devilish 

Mysteries 

 Now cast me

 My two invisible pennies 

 Or dimes

By reading on with those eager eyes 

 As I serve my penance 

For all my own earthly crimes 

Urging you to absorb all my otherworldly experiences while you read

With unrestrained greed

For know

All our mistakes and crimes 

Are to be judged by our own

Head Watchman 

Our own judge and jury

When it's our time

No matter what you've got 

Or where you go 

And it’s why I now saunter through life

Perpetually seeking salvation to be un- dammed

Spreading inspiration through words

Painting tapestries created within carefully selected adjectives and verbs

Before I meet the primordial and eternal king

In the apex of all the universe 

Where used up stars fall like molten snow as his golden bells sing a soft melody 

As its eyes glows

Who the faint whispers tell me

Is called the Tall Man 

The ruler of all who are tainted to live within realms of jeopardy

Copyright John Duffy 

Are you under a spell?

 

Press play.

Are you a follower of Nomophobia?

(A lone voice whispers)

From N to A

From the mythical 1984 to the dystopia of a Brave New World at play 

Has social propaganda and media platforms created a spectre for the collective consciousness

To sail blindly within

Starting at the world-famous shores of Nokia 

And quietly leading us to Nomophobia or more simply put

Phone Separation Anxiety 

Officially, although not a pathology

But aren't we all just followers of its tribes controlled by flock owners

Social controllers and maybe hidden idolaters

For can you really believe 

You can leave your phone at home for a day

Before your consciousness starts to grieve

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Music shared via TikTok 

Do you still believe in God in the 21st Century?

Press play.

Is faith like stepping out of the front door

With your inner candle lit

With you channelling the fuel

Stopping societies wild winds

From extinguishing it,

And plunging your soul into a new eternal darkness

Tormented by souls 

In The Pit

When you lose your faith 

And are haunted forever 

By fools and wraiths 

Who sense

You're no longer lit

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 
 

Have you been a member of The Midnight Losers Club?

 

Christmas can be a hard time for many.
Especially those in The Midnight Losers Club.

If you are, surround yourself with great friends and you'll be ok.
Salute.

Are you a member of The Midnight Losers Club?

(A lone voice whispers)

I joined last night
Went through the initiation

Got my heart broken in two
Took proof

Showed them all on the big screen

A picture of my ex-wife smiling as I stood crying

Now I wear the secret brand under my right sleeve in French

Une fois brisés, nous nous relevons grâce à l'amitié

Car nous sommes membres du Midnight Losers Club

(Once broken but we rise through friendship

For we are members of The Midnight Losers Club)

(C) Copyright John Duffy

Foundation of the piece.

Do the broken belong to a secret club?

Have you been a member but unknowingly without the tattoo?

For did others help you rise after your mighty fall?

When you joined The Midnight Losers Club?

The Midnight Losers Club represents losing out to heartbreak and any future happiness with a person involved.

But rising to better things with the help of #friends

#poetry #friendship #inspiration

Mississippi Dreaming

There's a lady I know

Highly evolved

Raw as rawhide

Brave as a cowboy

Writer

Poet and connoisseur 

Today might be the day 

I pluck up courage and say

Want saunter down to Delta's Canyon and watch the sun rise 

As the starlings play

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Images shared under fair usage policy 

Les Prophéties

 

Le Prophéties

Lost 

in this unrepentant noise of life as it seduces

Consumes and beguiles

Everything I own at Christmas 

As all these magical words conjured from the deep crimson lips 

Of your inner mind

Reaches out to hypnotise mine

Words which once laid lost on wet shelves

But now found 

In the transient music of the unknown and forlorn

Deep in my inner self

How now my inner light shines ever brighter

As it repeats your beautifully written words 

Like a never-ending all-nighter

With my softly spoken voice 

Above the unrepentant noise

While my goose pimpled skin comes alive 

Like the Great Canopies 

In the unexplored jungles 

In the deepest of Africa at dawn

I now just dream

A continuous fantasy

Which infuses my bloodstreams and veins with copious energy

For there has always been subtle moments

Throughout some long-lost days and cold nights

When that irresistible longing

And need seemed too much

When I pined hourly for just a feel of your touch

Thinking

Would I be abandoned like another slave

To the four winds by unrequited love

Forever burning and

Spinning endlessly 

In desires salacious red fires like a lonesome white dove 

Just hoping to walk within your shadows

Or sate my thirst and hunger 

With just a glimpse of you passing 

By my eyes two way windows

So in this half light of living

I still look out for you somewhere walking and living out there

Just to see you again

Like the last time I saw you

Standing next that old farms well 

By that old cooking apple tree

Looking to see you

So I can break free from this dark dream

As I walk, trapped in this never-ending limbo

And so it's here where I return to each night 

As I think of you and stare out my bedroom dust covered window 

How do I reach you

I 

In quiet moments

Ponder

For all those old road maps and contacts are still yours to give

For they are your secrets you still might purposely keep

Of those lands,

Those beautiful grounds which you still stand upon

I know 

There may be uncertainty and unexplored hordes and mountains 

To conquer between us

Grimoires of Gossip whispered in the dark to keep us apart

But still, I send this message out

Like a letter from my own 

Nostradamus book of Le Prophéties

So if you are reading this

One day in futures home

You'll know 

We'll meet in the Astral planes of dreams, 

Like Titanic's 

Rose and Jack where we'll need no formal introductions

As we already know, our truly secretive god given names

Because by then 

We'll be beyond 

The many still alive treacheries 

Which may still surround your broken heart like She'ol 

As you traverse your world

So I write this in my closing page of my Les Prophéties

Whenever you feel lost and lonely 

Know my red candle still burns even through all the storms

When you feel trapped and breathlessness spins your overthinking emotions

Remember me

Thinking of you just over the world's many oceans

Standing patiently under that old lamp post by the Red Church's wrought iron gates

No matter how late

Maybe we'll last forever

In some shiny new world 

But if I'm gone to a higher or lower realm before you arrive

If you wait too long, and I eventually disappear and die

I'll leave you a tear stained envelope underneath the white stones 

By the huge gate post hinges on the left

And in it is my road map to the stars where my memory will now stay 

Reside and survive 

As I look for you 

From somewhere new

Wondering

Can true love heal what two need 

To really begin to heal

Free from the clutches if human or spiritual 

Jealously or sin

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy 

The Voice at 4 am

(A lone voice whispers)

As we stroll this Long Walk together

On Boxing Day

Someone's prayer reached out through the Ether and asked me

Hey

Are we all silently walking in a spiritual sense

Do some like me walk blindly from A to B with no purpose or willful intent

Do others have a planned route

Painfully justified and organized, detailed, and meticulously unbent

And do a few accept whatever happens

So here's my answer for you if you're here

The point simply is: we are all silently walking spiritually home

Approaching bridges of challenges and uncertainty we must cross to find a new kind of renewal

For by doing so:

We can find a form of poetic catharsis from which to grow

To find ourselves and to really know

The universes secrets linked to us as they flow

And by encountering those many bridges we must cross alone in the mind, but guided by a family member or true friends

We can help ourselves find a kind of salvation

But like all things

There is temptation 

A temptation to follow the crowd

A temptation where You could lose too much to its identity cremation

So always remember 

Every soul walks silently by day and by night 

And must tremble inwardly with exhilaration at the thought of achieving a degree of happiness’s touch

Many old souls like me could tell you a secret if you inquired

“A soul, which remains shackled within the chains of the opinion of others, and the fear of change.

Will always be searching and could go wild since it’s too much.”

To truly embrace and find happiness: you must be true to yourself.

A life of hopelessness and meaninglessness could transpire if one does not find the courage to conquer and know oneself.

For we all are silently walking in a spiritual sense:

So, do you walk alone, with family members and true friends, or simply follow the crowd?

A question layered with multiple outcomes which may lead to you being forever bowed

So in closing 

You must always choose because you are always walking.

Who do you walk with apart now with me at this moment?

I think you sometimes need to walk alone, and sometimes, hand in hand with family and friends but within the crowd: 

You could lose your voice forever.

Me.

I walk alone after sometimes seeking advice from others

For only I can truly walk my walk

Free from the crowd

It's what my Grandma always taught me

So my soul doesn't feel shackled and goes wild

 (C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy 

Would you visit a medium if you lost someone special?

 Would you visit a medium if you lost someone special?

The visit to Monique the Medium on Christmas Day

(A channelled voice whispers)

Every clock in here 

These old faded white wooden ones

Hanging on so many burnt out trees 

That litter the pathway

As they tick

Remind me of you

Every single second

In every single minute 

Carries luminescent memories 

Of all the wild but lovely things

We used to do

As they suddenly manifest

Like a magician's trick

Right out of the blue

And if my broken heart could beat

Could scream to the high heavens

It would carry drum beats of such irreversible revelations

So true

I would die once more

In palpable bliss

If I could write a parable

It would only be

I yearned once for a touch of your silky skin

And a taste of your red lipstick

But got distracted

By the sweet voices

In this darkness

That strives

All good things to 

Underpin

And now

In here

The Great In-Between 

My parable 

If deciphered by an illuminated one, would read

If love is offered

Freely and

Willing 

Clasp it

Hold it and treasure it

And it's why now these sparkling twinkling lights

Dancing before me 

Reflections of you

Shine so brightly in this ever-hot dust

From dawn to dusk

Showcasing your beautiful image

To the empty husks 

Of the Ascended Ones

Night and day

That litter the roads and pathways 

Some in here call

The Lord's Way

Come what may

So while the Baylore energies 

Magnify my thoughts into these words

Through Monique

Like a soft fingertip across your warm spine

I'll see you soon

Skyclad in blue

In your deepest of dreams

Wide-eyed

Mighty and free

Where we'll be reunited once more

But not like Orpheus and Eurydice

To be snatched away by a lack of trust

But forever 

And that's why 

My love

I still see your reflection 

In these embers 

In this everlasting dust

In every single second

And minutes

As these tired old wooden faded white clocks tick

From dawn to dusk

as I walk past

The Ascended Ones

Husks

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy