Happy New Year

 2025

And so another year begins

A year, hopefully filled with happiness and hallelujahs

Built up to stand resolutely on a foundation of inspired resolutions

As old and new dreams are kept alive or revived 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

If Love could speak

 Did love, when tasted like a fine red or white wine, change you forever? 

Title: 

If Love could speak

(A lone voice whispers)

Yes, I

From whence all gloriously driven emotionally 

Notorious or mysterious sensuous pain or enjoyment 

Stems from

Heartbreaking strenuous anxiety but also soul rousing feelings 

Which beats loudly your life's drums like a reborn John Bonham

On a rare mid-summer night

Filled with wild rain or sun

Soaking all gathered with the precious aroma of an exquisite, expensive perfume

Which invades all minute spaces like an insidious thief

In any particular room

When l invite you 

If you dare 

To welcome me in

To then see the world through new crystalline lens

As your soul finally matures and burns

As it's put through my exceptionally complicated

But sophisticated extraordinary fires

To be eventually 

Willingly or unwillingly cleansed

By having an affair with me as I answer all of your hearts prayers

By leading you to my lair

Upstairs

By the hand 

Copyright John Duffy

Optimism

Stripped bare

I stood before her

2025

In all her glory 

What will this year bring

More of the same 

Or will happiness reign 

So as I stand 

Stripped bare

Before her

In all her glory

I can only pray 

This year 

Is going to be filled 

With better stories 

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

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