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
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
(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
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
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
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
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
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
(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
