Blessed be.
Velumbound.
A transmission exploring an encounter with cosmic horror, forbidden desire, and existential unravelling as an unsuspecting traveller is lured across the threshold of human understanding.
Maybe within this lore.
Spoken in free verse with gothic and Lovecraftian undertones, the piece develops a progression from subtle, seductive haunting to cosmic entrapment and grim realisation.
• Seduction and Vulnerability:
The opening introduces a siren-like call ("Pleads to sing a song that will tempt you").
Rather than attacking overtly, the hidden forces use forgotten histories, longing, and mystery to draw the subject into their "hidden shores / And ominous rooms."
• The Void and Cosmic Horror:
Phrases like "the Great In-Between" and "anchors drop through the cosmic floor" expand the scope beyond an earthly graveyard.
It invokes cosmic nihilism—a liminal abyss outside known reality where human agency is swallowed whole.
• Paradoxical Awakening:
The climax turns familiar perception on its head.
The senses do not dull under torment; instead, they "Wake and come alive."
The final twist—fearing that strange horrors "weren't true"—reveals a dark psychological tension:
A bleak yearning for wonder or dread over the mundane certainty of safe reality.
• Personification: "Dark shadows are whispering" and longing "pleads to sing" grant agency to darkness and death, framing them as active predators.
• Sensory Contrast:
The transmission shifts from hushed acoustics ("whispering," "quiet histories") and muted visual tones ("half-light") to violent tactile shock ("icy cold wind," "ravish your soul," "hold you in bondage").
• Spatial Distortion:
Movement travels downward and outward—from graves ("tombs") to thresholds ("shores," "rooms," "edge"), eventually breaking physical reality altogether by dropping anchors through the "cosmic floor."
• Tone:
Bleak, hypnotic, atmospheric, and dread-inducing.
• Form: Unrhymed free verse.
• Lineation and Pacing: The short, isolated lines ("Tonight," "And ominous rooms," "To strange things") function as rhythmic pauses, creating deliberate suspense and imitating the halting footsteps of someone approaching a precipice.
Shall we begin?
(A lone voice whispers)
Dark shadows are whispering their quiet histories
Into the half-light
Tonight
Lying above tombs where long-forgotten longing
Pleads to sing a song that will tempt you
To trace your way to their hidden shores
And ominous rooms
So the icy cold winds from the Great In-Between
Can ravish your soul as you appear in sight
And as their ancient anchors drop through the cosmic floor
To hold you in bondage
As you stand upon the edge of all you thought you knew,
When your weary senses
Wake and come alive
To strange things
You always feared weren't true
(C)
Copyright John Duffy









