Oracle of Necromanteion.

 

A poem about spiritual survival exploring whether losing faith (in anything) opens you to inner darkness.

Where temptation and despair work quietly in isolation, hardening the heart.

But it also promises that virtue is a choice, not a rule, and belief can be personal.

Suffering can be crossed.

Transformation is possible, and if you choose rightly, you don’t just survive.

You get to run again.

Title.

 The Oracle of Necromanteion.

(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 today. 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

Art by:

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl in 1898. 

Revelations. N.o. 1.

 

A poem exploring whether every thought, action, and feeling becomes part of your story, whether seen or unseen.

Centered around the theme.

Can you change before it's too late?

Revelations. No.1.

(A regal voice whispers)

You do know what you do and feel in public or secret.

My child.

Writes all your life's many hidden manuscripts and follow's you like a Charles Dickens-Jacob Marley character.

Into and after the crypt.

So do more good.

Purge yourself.

Pull yourself away from the Great Tempter's black hole.

Don't just sit and judge.

Urge your soul or the goal could be:

You.

Stripped and whipped as you become just another of the Devils legion's of unloved conscripts.

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(C) Copyright John Duffy 

The Seer

 A poem exploring if you've suffered deeply, can your pain become wisdom—but only if you choose forgiveness over bitterness, letting go of self-torment, and to stop projecting pain onto yourself and others; for happiness, slow and earned, to eventually return.

(A lone voice whispers)

To you who have swum, filled with misplaced faith, in the deepest of obsidian rivers and streams.

Of the mind.

Brimming with crimson and purple screams of heartbroken dreams.

Of the unspoken kind.

Just know you might, in turn, know the true value of eventual happiness.

From what you've learned and earned.

For you, whose once soft hearts have felt hatred but decide instead to embrace forgiveness.

To extinguish sadness.

Will always someday dance hand in hand with old Mother Gladness.

But those who hang their cherished coattails on internalized judgmental emotional madness.

Will seldom find peace.

For to abandon oneself to wallow in self-torment and grief and project it onto others.

There can never be any soul-saving relief.

Just let it all go.

These are the words of I, Aluna the First.

The blind seer, whose bright, hungry eyes always thirst.

For those still on the lonely journey in a place I once visited called Earth.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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Survival

 

A poem about losing innocence.

Being wounded by love, society, and broken ideals, Being saved (but not cured) by art. Living with awareness that sadness never fully leaves—it only changes shape.

It doesn’t ask, “Are you healed?”

It asks something more honestly: “How are you surviving—and what keeps you from disappearing?”

Survival 

(A lone voice whispers)

Do you blindly in the old silence of your mind? Subsist with violence?

Like a once playful spirit who's been shattered into a million pieces?

Are you wandering lost but just constantly looking for guidance?

Like when you first met poetry or its mesmerizing lyrics in music?

And in those throes of new beginnings, did it encourage you to strive to come alive?

To try to bloom, to truly exist.

Did you abuse it when someone or something cruel made you say goodbye to all those once holy days?

When you were possibly in love or tainted by all those sad portraits sketched so beautifully, by what unkind, strange people say?  

Which some in society like to see painted in so many devious ways.

Ideals and principles uttered by people you deliciously cherished.

Loved or once worshipped.

As you wandered throughout that old life sheltered in unconditional bliss.

But when those spectacular times came to an abrupt end, you found the courage to depression resist.

When you looked for something truly meaningful.

To infuse your heart and soul into, like Saint John the Baptist.

Did you find a serene taste of tranquility in the written, spoken, or sung-out word?

To help heal and give you back a sense of being in total control? 

Did the years of being a true or part-time disciple to music.

Poetry or any form of catharsis. 

Help you find the freedom that continuously encouraged you to read, listen, or practice? To discover a more profound understanding of self-prosperity. 

That for you was invariably your implicit goal and a means to pay some of your soul's taxes.

But do you now live on a knife-edge with the Sword of Damocles? Hanging over you?

As you relate to new and old tales overflowing with happiness or pronunciations.

Centered and surrounding like an invading army.

A lonely word called Sadness?

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

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The voice of Dueda

 Foundation.

What would an Outsider say if they could view humanity as a whole?

(A lone voice whispers from The Great In-Between)

As I view the world out there from in here.

It just fills me with a sense of ever-growing fear.

I can see so much suffering and seemingly endless pain.

A world awash in the throes of all those who are just so corrupt.

Blindly trying to secure all they can gain.

They need to be stopped.

To be defeated by the rising consciousness of a reunited and renewed humanity.

Don’t let your planet go to waste.

It’s never too late.

Look at Fukushima.

The rising levels of destitution.

Racism cleverly conjured up by memes, leading to separation.

Secret societies linked to human traffickers, and the number of homeless numbers rising.

The endless lines of the hungry and the poor facing starvation.

For if you all don’t rise and do more.

The Four Horsemen from the Bible will just ride in and stand in full view,  every country's governmental pews

To control all corrupt governments, black and white dance floors.

Heralded by all this talk of nuclear war.

Funded marches and bankrolled doctors and politicians.

Who are all part of that deep state infernal machine?

Your world needs the means to breathe.

Don’t be one of the many who turn a blind eye?

And when it all turns black.

Don’t be one of the many, like those already in here.

Don’t give your soul another reason to grieve.

Fight for a new freedom.

Give your life a reason.

To change the future

You just have to believe and try not to be deceived.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

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The Street Preacher

 

(A lone voice whispers, watching a busy high street)

Let there be a bright light to strengthen and revitalise in the name and in the presence of The Almighty.

Of which we are all reborn into Eternity through the sacred power of the

Holy blood.

Once sacrificed for me, you. The many others.

I COMMAND the four winds to summon Archangel Michael, to with his mighty flaming sword.

Remove all dark energies manifesting around you or my friends, any unseen energies that secretly bind us to evil.

And as all that darkness is absolved to the ether from whence it came, I call upon Archangel Gabriel.

To summon God's strength and the blessed violet flame and, through absolution, cleanse your energies, remove all illnesses and threats to your mortal and spiritual being.

To once again bathe us all in the Pure White Light.

From the Almighty's Great Halls and to fill up all our Future Rooms with so much revitalising Energy.

I ask Archangel Michael, through the Almighty's grace.

To purge all the afflictions from kind souls as they go into the world to do the Lord's bidding.

In this very moment, as all this Dark energy is released, I pray for divine salvation. Freedom and enlightenment.

For all birds need to sing, not just to hide in the wings.

Hidden from everything.

For we all have a glorious bell to ring.

In the name of the

Almighty for all.

So be IT.

Amen.

(C)

Copyright

John Duffy

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The Two Hills

 

(A lone voice whispers)

There's a dwelling on a hill, somewhere in my head, where strange legends of the dead.  

Still breathe over my memories in the cold and scream; they'll never die, no matter how much I cry.

That they'll crawl like green vines over all things I hold dear, until they too become things I fear.  

But tonight, as I shed a silent tear, I always scream back inside as I pray.

“Take what you need to be fed. Take all you need.  

For I have a secret place on another hill where you'll never find the real me.

A place where you, the dead, can never go to get fed.  

A place where red roses are forever blooming as the sun stands so still."  

It's where I go when those sad voices call, pleading for me to fall.  

Each one throwing their perfume into the air like blue and pink confetti, begging me as they stand so tall.

But that other green hill always calls me away from their pleas.  

For it's there I see the real me, praying while crucified on a white cross, paying the price for being me.  

As bloodstained grass and trees sing, slowly swaying.  

And always in that sweet moment, I am reminded of what the grass and trees all sing and understand what they are saying.

“To be the real you in a world owned by the Devil and those consumed by sin always takes self-sacrifice as you find your way home, to beyond the tomb.

To be welcomed in.”

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

A poem structured around two hills, both inside the speaker’s mind:

The first hill.

This is the dwelling “somewhere in my head” where the dead still breathe.

 These “dead” aren’t literal corpses so much as:

Past trauma, guilt.

Old identities.

Regrets

Intrusive memories or voices

They behave like parasites:

“Crawl like green vines over all things I hold dear.” 

They feed on fear, grief, and attention.

They never fully die, no matter how much the speaker cries.

This hill represents the haunted mind—memory that refuses to stay buried.

The second hill.

The “secret place on another hill” is a refuge of the true self:

Untouched by the dead, inaccessible to those inner voices.

Timeless (“the sun stands so still”)

alive with beauty and renewal(red roses forever blooming).

This is the speaker’s inner sanctuary, a place of identity, faith, and survival.

The “dead” are seductive, not just frightening.

Notice how the voices don’t only threaten—they tempt: throwing “perfume into the air,” dressed in color (“blue and pink confetti”), standing tall, begging the speaker to fall.

This suggests:

Self-destructive thoughts that feel familiar or comforting, nostalgia for pain.

The lure of giving up, surrendering, or dissolving into old patterns.

They want the speaker to feed them—attention, belief, and surrender.

The speaker responds with a boundary:

“Take what you need… but you’ll never find the real me.”

This is an act of psychological and spiritual self-protection.

The crucifixion image = identity as sacrifice.

The most striking moment is here:

“For it’s there I see the real me, praying while crucified on a white cross, paying the price for being me.”

This isn’t saying the speaker is Christ—it's symbolic.

It means:

Being authentic in this world is painful. Staying true to oneself requires endurance.

The “real me” is something that must be suffered for, not celebrated.

The cross is white (purity, truth), not a bloody spectacle—the suffering is quiet, internal, and moral.

Nature understands what humans don’t.

The grass and trees sing, sway

understand the truth instinctively.

Nature becomes a witness that confirms the speaker’s realization: suffering for truth is part of belonging.

Sacrifice is the cost of spiritual homecoming.

This contrasts with the “world owned by the Devil”—a “world of corruption, false values, and sin.

The core message (plainly stated):

 At its heart, the poem says:

The past will constantly try to reclaim you.

Inner demons can be beautiful, familiar, and persuasive.

Survival depends on guarding the true self.

Authenticity in a broken world demands sacrifice.

Redemption and belonging lie beyond fear, beyond death, beyond the voices.

Or, in one sentence:

To remain true to yourself in a corrupted world is a form of crucifixion—but it is also the only path home.

Emotionally, this poem is defiant but tender, wounded but disciplined, deeply spiritual without being dogmatic.

It’s not about escaping pain—it's about refusing to let pain define identity.

 

The Longing

 

A poem about a person trapped in emotional isolation who encounters another’s unfulfilled desire and, through it, dares to believe that connection—perhaps even salvation—might still be possible.

Title.

The Longing. 

(A lone voice whispers)

At the void in the lost letters of the world, in a black and white room.

Sat in this paid-up tomb opening letters for an address to write back to.

I suddenly came across you. Your letter to your unmet lover called to me and created an impression that I could never forget. Neither from the soft words nor in its radiance, but in its dance and rhythmic sounds that fall.

Its beautiful cadence.

 

Praying for the spirit of the righteous to intervene.

So as I sit here, where your past and future stand at attention like soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery, I feel a longing. A pull.

A deep need to say a Hail Mary.

Neither with a slow movement forwards nor backwards. Or ascent nor descent, but a magnetism that holds me in a tight grip. 

Daring me to want to feel what you feel, with my trembling fingertips 

So, Mary Lou, will you reply because by writing to you.

I can escape this lonely old room. A darkened tomb where hopes and dreams arrive.

Cry, fester, and then, unfortunately, die.

Is that why you read this far, because you prayed for someone like me to come on up on your radar?

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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Requiem

 Requiem 

A poem that mourns what is lost when depth is mocked—and quietly honors those who still dare to descend into the well.

Maybe like you?

(A lone voice whispers)

How sad is a mind that abstains from the pleasures and beatitudes of the incredible kind?

And the thoughts of the highs and lows of life and all the many diverse moods it includes?

 The art reflected in words of an illuminated heart, only there to try to tear it apart with sharpened claws.

The flaws and causes reflected in new or old poetic laws.

Some revelations may appear untrue depending on where the guitar music goes. But the more you know as you drown in the flow and embrace its icy blast.

Maybe you'll finally understand at last.

Stories conjured with rare magic from the deep purple well, like a whispered incantation or spell, are just created to keep the curious sated.

As they swallow all on a page but to then scorn a thing that took an age to write—can that be right?

As a wise man once said to fools who pleaded for more as they waited in King Solomon's courts,

 "Wouldst thou tear the branches from the bough of the tree of knowledge until all grow as dull as thee?

So stay your tongue and wait and see. For soon you'll be sated.”

For happy are those who embrace all prose or art 

Good or bad, if they know how hard it is to go to where a poet or artist goes.

To the deep purple well to conjure with a spell.

Prose for eyes in hidden blue skies to consume when they ring their bell.

Hiding with ease behind swaying trees in a supernatural breeze inside their cells.

To help them sing with life while under its spell when they enter into its visceral hotel.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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The Redeemed

(A lone voice whispers)

Once I stood in front of life's very mirrors, lit inside with such fire.

Walked like a true dreamer unaffected by desire.

 Whose sacred voice was protected by angelic lyres.

But I fell.

Only to be denounced by the King of all liars.

Then Corinthians 12:9 arrived.

Slipped like a secret note under my door. 

It just read, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

And in that stillness, even though denouncement remained amongst all that pain.

I heard a voice whisper, “Be brave; your game is not over yet. For in you I'll forever dwell.

And that thought, never forget so I can save you from being tempted by Hell.

So today, rise and stand up strong.

Dare to make mistakes and accept your wrong, but in doing so. Try to sing my song.

That you have all my gifts to be remade complete even while you sleep or grieve.

For all you have to do is in me believe.

And I swear I will never leave.

And this tale pass on. So others can sing my song.”

So listener in the mists. Read this aloud or with silent eyes. For by doing so. You summon incarnated Hope, which will never die.

Goodbye…

“Hosanna.

When thou need'st to be saved. Call for me from beyond the honour'd grave.

Hosanna.

Hosanna.

Oh my Lord.

Come to me and save.

Hosanna 

Oh my Lord.

Come to me and save.

Hosanna.”

(C)

Copyright John Duffy