Breathlessness Poems

opus

dulcet …

the night …
holds far too few hours
to attend you, pure … proper
in twilight reverence
your body’s song is my scripture
the braille my fingers ache to read -
sexy verse moonlight recites
and orates to my blood
longing’s lullaby
spoken glyph-by-glyph
and plopped like sugar on my tongue
where it attends …
yours …
speak to me with
your coy and curvy whispers
such fair flesh tells an epic tale, erotic
few know the language
but I am fluent
I will listen with an anxious ear
and reply in cursive on your dermal page
my game?
to raise those tiny little bumps -
catkin skin that jumps to
the touch, as my adept answers wind
their warm way south
to the source …
come, let time stand still
night is too fleeting
and a delicious pas de deux awaits -
a torrid tale of pillows and percale and
moonbeamed madness …
where minds and moans and motions are
met in one rapturous breath …
of breathlessness
ghostwriter … and manuscript
this tome is ours -
you and I … lost
to ourselves …
to each other …
to the world of whys and whatevers
and to everything …

but us.

Breathless He Left Me

“Maybe love doesn't come from the heart. Maybe it's a psychic jolt that wakes you when you touch them, leaving you breathless.” Christy Johnson

Butterfly kisses and his breath upon my cheek.
Racing heart of mine. I could not resist as he
Enticed me with his gaze. Words he had no need to speak.
Anticipation peaked when that angel boy kissed me,
Thrilling me like I had not been thrilled before.
Heaven-sent was he, for he melted my heart.
Lavished with affection, I reveled in his ardor. 
Enchantment it seemed he practiced as high art.
Such a surprise it was that he had come my way.
So sweetly did he steal my breath away.

How time has flown since then. I think of how
Elation once whalloped me with a romantic WOW.

Love comes and goes. I’ll never know
Even now what happened to the young man who
Fed my soul with sunshine’s happy glow.
That all remains a bliss I cannot live anew.

Magical is breathlessness. Sadly, that feeling
Ends eventually, but how I long again to be reeling!

Consequentia

.Consequentia (L)

(A lone voice whispers)

Like the Sagittarius A* Black Hole, at the centre of our own known galaxy.

Does getting older make you slowly swallow more and more former memories? 

To wallow in bygone years spent with family, friends, lovers and enemies?

Like this Senryu below looking at the weaknesses of human nature.

Found in all human semidocumentaries?

Breathlessness Desire 
Adolescent Memories
Old age consumes all

(575)

(C) 
Copyright John Duffy

Brushed by the Moonlight

Moonlight brushes in softer Angelic glows
the face of lovers hidden in the night
where welcoming eyes of warm ardor flows
embracing beneath the moon's tranquil flight
with whispered breath and words Dreams cherish
hushed tones harmonize with each touch caressed
emotions are rendered drawn from a wish
in moonlit shadows when love is confessed
fervent breathlessness will turn enchantment
enraptures the soul while rising to bloom
as an elixir with a perfume scent
to nourish passion our love will consume
grateful for glows in the shadows of night
lovers are bathed in halos of moonlight

Dream or Nightmare

After many years, it is still not done
I know what happens, but nevertheless
I still feel terror of knowing they come
And I tremble with fear and breathlessness

Into a nightmare disguised as a dream
Were a monster lurks behind a closed door 
I open that door, choke back a wild scream
 When, as expected, he pounced with a roar.  

I sit on the stair and watch it unfold
Unable to change or alter a thing
I hear myself saying “you have been told
face your demons and the terror they bring”

But years of abuse are hard to survive
And crowding my dreams the demons arrive

Breathlessness

as your tears form and overrun my sockets
I cry
everything vague as salty dew creep down my cheeks
mascara run down your dejected face
your central muscle beats unforgiving
I deepen my sigh as
I cover your hand with mine
upon your thigh
driving apologetic stares inside you
giving mystical answers to
uneasy questions before being asked
two spirits broken to be mended by faith
healed through truth
we are as one
as you breath inward
I breathe outward 
only to catch each other in
breathlessness...
we are as one

Haunted In ITQ

Tree boughs scope me by window glass,
As the long night without stars pass
The moon out like dead rock— the last
Time dark mornings will be so vast.

Around my boughs, raining's ghost wane,  
Falling by frost and Winter drape
On each neck of shaked off leaves' fade—
A gone beauty's heat, spent in pain.

White bough's gloom in the swaying trees
For springtime's parched-for reveries—
On fogged glass, it reflects with me
The old, old, January bleak.

From the window, my breathlessness
For boughs straining in rainy gust.

Winter Knight Minichu

Through my chest, Winter slips
Her chill as a coat of arms;
Honed breathlessness—

The whitest of white; milky touch—
She has a warming heart's warning,
As the frost dribbles out of Her clutch.

Pass dark's storming
Snow angels by morning
Heavy ice flooring

Through my chest, Winter slips—
She has a warming heart's warning,
Heavy ice flooring.

There Is

In unlettered eyes too language there is, 
World would read, hope-mixed mirage too there is.

In breath of death breathlessness too there is,
Wish to live by paying wage too there is.

There’s peace when you proceed to read poem,
The buzz and bustle of stage too there is.  

True, every age has churned out a villain,
Carriage if, man’s old baggage too there is. 

Benign blessings in two eyes, not in third,
In Shiva’s sage, fiery rage too there is. 

Welcome O friends and foes at my deathbed,
No more rage at this age in me there is.

If Ghazals enjoy a-not-before edge,
Old styles of pens, their marriage too there is. 
_________________________________________ 
Ghazal |04.09.2023|
Poet’s note: Based on a Gujarati ghazal by Raish Maneear:

Fear Minichu

Heart silently shivers
when the roaring clouds burst in electrical light
mind quivers

Trembling in tears
breathlessness, as stars wane from sight
kohl fears

Inked sky
faded twilight
sigh

Heart silently shivers
breathlessness, as stars wane from sight
sigh

Slow Wings

Within my true macadam
tethered reins roll—
A ragged seam play
On cords unmade.

This bag of feathers
My pins, rehashed
held the dreaminess
In its youth's mask.

Pinions dark within
Move through my own
breathlessness;
A jab dug in my pillow—
Its cloth frisked.

Vigil my heart out of time
That her coma at last 
allows sleep—
A new probing dream
lifted by wings.

My pale dark in analysis
Glows while in the light.
But like a butterfly's effects 
in my skin—
Our cocoon's riddled strife.

The fiber of these 
slow wings—
falls first at
the thread's melting.

The Sick Child-Edvard Munch

THE SICK CHILD-EDVARD MUNCH

Ghostly downpour upon not the sick,
but the sick at heart - a child’s mother.
Bittersweet tangle of red - patient’s hair,
dresser, caretaker’s hands. Bedside
manner, sorrowful to the point of death,
but the woman is not literally dying,
her daughter is. Steadfast bravery
warm blanket hue of hunter-green,
orange and blue. The girl’s mother
already draped in a dreary raven habit.
The sick room is passionate - lucky girl
is blessed. She is not alone until
her soul departs. Her mother will live
with a solitary soul-sucking pit, deep
inside of her residual days, memories
tucked away from all her friends, for
she will dread the fire of life - the source
that lit her lamp with strawberry hair,
freckled windsong, a swinging pendulum.
The sick child, already in the light;
despair has a screaming voice,
perceived in claustrophobic space.
One is lightened by breathlessness;
the other is lightened by a broken heart.

The Hibiscus Agony

Hibiscus the hues
Beautiful breathlessness 
Floral  agony
Bright full colors hurts my eyes 
The Hibiscus  pageantry

Breathless

The steamy breathlessness of unending youthful love
Reckless plunges into cryogenic mountain lakes
The sound of brightly shining stars beyond the Trevi
Eternal love embraced in kiss of shimmering gold
Golden glow of dying sun on white Aegean walls
Among first sights and sounds that once took away my breath


And yet, you leave me breathless
still

In a Snowflake

Breathless sighs, soft
Dreams awakened, stirred
To life by smokey gasps, air
Cutting, biting… bitter
Blustery cold, like the heart
After a dismal divorce
From someone who knows
Every sorrow, each fear…

All the dreams forbidden,
Like the silence of the dawn
Who is blanketed by white, snow
Falling overnight, reminding
Each puffing prayer that there is
Gusting winds of change,
Laughing through the flakes
In quiet waves of inspiration, soothing
Away the melancholic fright
As night is erased by a sun reflecting
Flurries raging between the pages
Day and night – the moments
Connecting silence and sound,
Stormy weather and the moon’s
Shimmering pleasures, singing
Music in notes of turbulent
Relenting into the breathlessness

Raging, furious storms
Relinquishing the silence
Through the explosion of a blizzard
Who reminds us all…
	Historically, we’re all merely
Fragments, dust – a snowflake
Melting beneath the warmth of the Son






WINTER STORM Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Kim Rodrigues
December 23, 2022

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