Almost a child herself, how will she cope?
Until now everything had labels, expiry dates,
do’s and don’ts, helpful hints, arrow pointing ‘UP’.
But this one was delivered not even marked ‘FRAGILE’.
What will she do? She’ll have to start by giving it a name.
21st Century is Here
Is it good or bad thing?
21st Century is Here
Everyone’s political
anti critical
right by the rights
now wrongly divisional
Giving up the literal
power unconditional
Narratives are narrowly
focused on disparity
comparatively ignorant
to actual reality
You’ll never change the past
try to understand it better
Don’t look passed what made it past
its not your own endeavour
advantages that you now have your ancestors didn’t
branching out from beginnings to a global vision
colonies were empires and empires were common
the way that people were back then has long since been forgotten
so don’t skip over history the path we all come from
everybody’s owed something we need to move along
City of Big Shudders
Once known for Big Shoulders
Powerful barge lost her rudder
Withered… stooped… inexorably older
I spend day and night
every single day
pacing the floors
up and down
thinking of words
and thoughts to scribble down
drains of plenty time
and stamina
away from me
to the point of
letting my body
loose out on more blood than
it is supposed to
94.
My 21st Leaf
Picked thee from root stock
Like a mini rock
That's rough and dusty
Brown, pungeant, spicy
Wew! It's “ginger” leaf!
Peasant Garduque
No other than me
Planted by my hands
Arancillo lands
A crop squatter too
First day of last year
I planted it there
The last time I saw
Only few leaves grow
One Twenty-Six Twelve
Carved fish pond paddy
Western side levee
Inside a plant box
Black, loamy soil stocks
Weeds and dirt surround
It's first time to see
Leaves of crop by me
First time this year
Visit fish pond near
First time write so late!
-02/01/2012
(Dumarao)
*My Toladas Collection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Born in era of
rotary phones and
Western Union telegrams,
my fingers now dance
on glass—no dial tone~
a frequent user of Facetime.
I carry the memory
and weight
of paper maps,
while satellites whisper
turn left, turn back.
My hands remember card catalogs,
my breath still holds
the scent of old book glue,
but my eyes keep adjusting
to the glare of forever screens.
My fingers recollect
the shudder of a manual typewriter
as it punched its teeth
into the blank white throat of tomorrow.
I recall when cloud meant rain,
when stream was a small river with fish.
Now my hands ache from phantom keyboards,
my dreams buffer between decades.
I am a bridge, a relic, a traveler,
carrying the 20th century
like loose change in my pocket,
spending it carefully
in this bright,
impatient 21st century.
The emperors have no clothes on!
People are living in a trance
Psychologists like to call it cognitive dissonance
Perhaps even a carefully crafted chance
To see what isn't there, only to praise a hollow show,
While truth and reason disappear, common senses go.
It’s just simply a situation gone sad
I can’t help but wonder, have we been had or merely gone mad
The people fear to break the silent spell, to voice a single doubt
For they are to be canceled, labeled rebels or terrorists, and quickly cast about
Instead, they applaud the phantom apparel, with oblivious, hypnotic cheer,
Ignoring empathetic whispers in their hearts, that scream truth so clear.
But chatty whispers grow to rumbling cries, a stirring overcomes the digital crowd,
Suddenly, an innocent video, goes viral, distinct and loud.
"The emperors have no clothes on!"
An echo filmed of pure bravery
Hopefully, others will follow, setting truths to be viral and free
Reject conformity and fight for sovereignty
For all to hear and see
The emperors have no clothes on!
How was I supposed to know,
When all I have ever known was love?
That bad doesn't only exist in the bible
And liars aren't just in stories from a long time ago.
Bad is also the nice guy from the bar that I took home.
Too focused on hell, too jaded to tell
That sex isn't evil, it's the people.
The ones with bad intentions,
The ones you never mentioned
The ones who tell people, me, what I want to hear,
Manipulating the boundaries that I had made abundantly clear.
And then I'm confused again by how I ended up here.
I gave trust until it was broken,
Followed by fake apologies to keep me hoping that they had changed.
I learned that the devil isn't horned and red,
He's the horny man who was in my bed;
The one who raped me after I'd been fed his lies.
Drunk on nothing but an illusion; devil in disguise,
In the details too.
Magick woven with intention to suspend belief
This is the devil of the 21st century.
Beyond tomorrow, there's a future.
A future for the present age;
A destiny-filled journey
Far across the lands or shore.
A never-ending story that begins with an aim;
Flying high like a star shining across the sea.
The sky was never our limit.
Our limit is where we end, the end of our limit is where we begin the journey for a brighter future;
In adherence to peace and with united hands,
We the youth will make it into the future,
Transforming lives and maintaining peace.
The future is bright, ready?
A 21st Century Question?
Do people still need real human poetry in the 21st century
Some still ask as AI plagiarizes when put to task
To be the social connectors
The innovation and invitation
To new or old, writers
Adored heroes
Thought leaders
To breathe form from the intangible into their quiet lives
For them to taste the twist and guile of the Mysteries Schools
Poetry in all its many magical ceremonial forms provides
For soon
Each and every quest will end in a visit to a lone watchtower
In the mind
And when one is on the other side watching from those parapets
AI won't help
Because only real created human poetry will help you once again remember
Through someone else's shared experience
In rhymes
All those people and things you once loved
So you don't forget
With the passing of time
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
2025’s manuscript
Tips off the rip-offs as we’re gypped!
When oligarchs die
They'll not greed deny
But flip us the bird from their crypt
Church
doors locked
security
"Friends Attend Contend #2"
The first book of The Old Testament called; Genesis is the story of the origins, of both planetary nature and human nature and serves with distinction.
... or schemer effects
21st century, this is,
That's him over there,
Who's him, whose that,
the next Moses himself
That's Moses, that's also his name,
no it's Henry Magillacutty
WHAT, wait a minute, wait a minute,
Oh gawdawful this is.,
He'll take us to the promised land
of milk and honey
I'm lactose intolerant and a diabetic,
we'll have a better life there,
I got a swimming pool at me house.
"Friends Attend Contend #1"
What are we doing here
in the middle of nowhere,
we're following that guy there
he's the one who brought us here,
He doesn't look Jewish, not even close-up!
Go tell him to prove it, just have him unzip her.
All this rigamarole,
gathers the foolish
in the twenty-first century,
all this bruhaha
like a kerfuffle
not like a thingamajig
that's more like an object
I don't know why I'm subjecting
myself in his delusion
looney, that's the ticket
I was looking for.
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