Separated but together

 

A reflective piece on modern technology, particularly phone addiction and AI, and how they can impact human relationships and genuine connection.

The title sets the tone, Separated but together, with a subtle paradox:

People can be physically near (or digitally “connected”) but emotionally or socially distant.

This question being at the heart of the poem: 

Is our dependence on phones and AI leading us away from authentic living?

Is the devil’s trick, a seductive but destructive modern version of temptation?

To separate family friends and lovers in real-time, with an addiction to AI in various forms?

Do you think technology, especially phones and AI, creates distance even when people are together?

Or have you felt a sense of isolation, surveillance, or emotional disconnection, when you're with someone or in a group?

Do you think Phone Addiction to be a subtle, seductive tool that was created, for amongst other things, to erode intimacy and presence, as powerfully as a weapon?

Title.

Separated but together.

(A lone voice whispers)

I sometimes wonder in silence, for if I say what I think aloud

It will turn into another long AI conversation with something nameless, which now lives high up, in some clouds 

But here goes for the curious, who is eager to know 

Is phone addiction one of the devil's greatest ever tricks 

To separate family friends and lovers in real-time 

With an addiction to AI

While holding the death of real engagement, like a Heckler & Koch hk416

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy. 

The visit to Monique the Medium.

 

Do you want to read a poignant, dreamlike meditation on love, loss, memory, and the spiritual longing for reunion?

Where the speaker talks about a love that is raw, deep, and filled with both beauty and regret?

A parable and cautionary tale.

Urging us to recognize love when it’s offered.

And to hold it dear, and not to let the distractions of the world pull us away from what truly matters.

Title.

The visit to Monique the Medium. 

(A channelled voice whispers)

Every clock in here 

These old faded white wooden ones, hanging on so many burnt out trees 

That litter my new pathways as they tick, so remind me of you

Every single second

In every single minute, carry such luminescent memories 

Of all the wild but lovely things, we once used to do

As they suddenly manifest, like a magician's trick

Right out of the blue

And if my broken heart could beat, could scream to the high heavens

It would carry drum beats of irreversible revelations, so true

I would die once more

In palpable bliss

If I could write a parable

It would only be

I yearned once for a touch of your silky skin, and a taste of your bright red lipstick

But got distracted by the sweet voices

In the darkness of society, that strives all good things to underpin

And now in here, in my memories Great In-Between 

My parable 

If deciphered by an illuminated, one would read

If love is offered freely and willingly 

Clasp it

Holds it and treasures it

And it's why now these sparkling twinkling lights, dancing before me 

Reflections of you

Shine so brightly in this ever-hot dust, from dawn to dusk

Showcasing your beautiful image to the empty husks 

Of the Ascended Ones

Night and day

That litter the roads and pathways 

Some in here call

The Lord's Way

Come what may

So while the Baylore energies magnify my thoughts, into these words

Like a soft fingertip across your warm spine

I'll see you soon, sky clad in blue, in your deepest of dreams

Wide-eyed, mighty and free

Where we'll be reunited once more

But not like Orpheus and Eurydice

To be snatched away by a lack of trust

But forever and that's why my love

I still see your reflection in these embers 

In this everlasting dust

In every single second and minutes

As these tired wooden clocks tick

From dawn to dusk for true love can never be crushed 

Even though life is so fleeting, I can never forget, our first meeting

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy. 

Drops of rainwater

 

Do you want to go on a symbolic journey through the wet landscapes of memory, using rain as a metaphor?

Illuminating the emotional vulnerability, and the inner battles that can suddenly emerge between embracing or escaping the past?

And exploring deep themes linked to both healing and harm?

That sometimes memory, like the weather, can be so changeable and deeply felt?

Where rain (memory) can be beautiful and cleansing, or cold and overwhelming?

And finally, how we are sometimes drawn to remember sad things we should perhaps forget.

That joy can become pain.

Guttis aquae pluviae (L)

"Drops of rainwater"

(A lone voice whispers)

Are your translucent memories like the softest of rain drops, when they suddenly fall

As they quietly like children call

Reminding you of someone or somewhere so special 

On another level

For sometimes, do you just want to relax and get soaking wet, remembering the good times

Birthdays 

Weddings

Growing up

Getting in the club

 

When they appear on your internal television set and won't stop 

But every so often, 

Do you also want to find somewhere precious to shelter to help you forget

All those bad memories of trauma, tainted with neglect 

By the visitation of all bad intentions 

Mr Dishevele

Subtly introduced, by the so seductive and invisible, Devil

From another dimension 

(C) Copyright John Duffy

 

Image shared under fair usage policy. 

The Guide

 

Want to read a new mother load via this poetic underground railroad?

The Guide is a mystical, visionary call to poets, and perhaps to storytellers more broadly.

In the visionary tradition of the likes of Blake, Rilke, or even Octavia Butler.

Writers who didn’t just describe reality but dared to reimagine it.

To create writing that is transformational. This poem is both an invitation and a manifesto for what poetry, or just writing, can be in a world that often neglects its deeper, spiritual purpose.

Well, are you ready to escape?

Title.

The Guide.

(A lone voice whispers)

What a year to be alive to see poetry and writing still thrives

Want some new readers?

Well, I asked this once when I was institutionalized

Before in The Great In-Between 

For you see I was baptized to be non institutionalized when I was consumed by a materialistic drive

So here's my advice 

Try to write immersive experiences 

Create landscapes and dreamscapes for all readers want to escape 

For some long-lost legends, whisper 

That every spirit seeks tok walk in newer realms on their way to redemption 

So take your readers by the hand and like a leader 

Take them on soul tempting journeys into the unknown and mysterious 

Hold them mesmerized

Spellbound through words like ringing church bells

To keep them reading slowly like the birth of a caterpillar 

And when that red key eventually turns in their minds

To open a blue portal and enter them into a strange interdimensional place

Through the two great ancient white pillars

Of Ashtara and Shoka

 

To where smoke and fire

Day and night burns 

A spiritual place

I call, The Great In-Between

A mythical experience for the curious mind begins

A fog filled place where pain sorrow and sin

All things seen or unseen

Like love and happiness exists 

A wild place where darkness 

Shadows selves

Corwatturea creatures

Spirits

Angels and beauty 

Coexists 

In absolute tranquillity and harmony

And you my friend 

In that subliminal moment, that red key turns

A new reader of yours is reborn

One who seeks their Drover

As their need and curiosity takes over

To move them through higher high roads and lower byroads 

Unexplored old church lanes 

Of joy and pain 

To walk them through the fire and snow storms 

To find a new mother load 

Via this underground railroad

Unspoken poetic stories to take them under like chloroform

For their souls 

After stepping into

The GREAT IN-BETWEEN 

Will have been truly transformed and renamed 

For now, they'll walk like new aged gods and goddesses 

Baptized in that smoke 

Fire and rain

To stand up strong like their newfound Drover 

And walk forward forever

Trying to stay pure and unashamed 

As their need for more stories slowly takes over

  

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy. 

#poetry

The Monologue of Dostoevsky

 

An exploration of Dostoevsky’s themes in contemporary poetry of:

Suffering and emotional purgatory.

Longing for redemption through love.

The inner war between past and future.

Channelling his core existential concerns through a deeply personal, vivid voice.

Can a soul haunted by the past ever truly be free?

And is redemption still possible, not through God or repentance but through love?

And does suffering lead to transformation?

The Monologue of Dostoevsky

(A lone voice whispers)

Yes,

You say it's over 

Finished between you and me

Well, I'll confess

Our flame has gone out 

You yell, it's s time to leave, to go and find someone new

But why does my heart still cry and bleed for you

Whenever I hear those two words which always turn me blue

It's over

Its over and over again

Two words which has broken our spell with no pity

Spoken when I made my oath of fidelity 

All those sad feelings of self-worth return

Knowing deep down there'll never be another girl for me, here on this poor old Earth

As our beautiful love song goes up in flames and burns

I've moved out my things

Packed my three bags and took off my golden wedding ring

Did everything you asked 

So there I stood

Three years ago

By our much loved green garden gate

Under that old familiar lamp post

Waving bravely goodbye

Turning that grey key in my broken heart

Locking up that old tired red door

Since you said you couldn't love me, whatever I said like before 

You might still be the only one who stood by my side 

A friend I thought I could trust until the very end till I died 

But I guess God doesn't make them like he once used to

Any more

Is this the price you pay, when you're still in love

With your dream girl from next door

But now I'm moving on

For I just need someone new to love me

So I can open up that once closed door 

With my grey key

Yes,

You still say it's over 

Finished between you and me

Well, I'll confess our flame has gone out 

You yell

It's time to leave

To find someone new

Yet, why does my heart still cry and bleed for you

Whenever I hear those two words, which still turns me blue

It's over and over again

Two words which has broken our spell 

As all those sad feelings of self-worth return

Knowing there'll never be another girl for me 

Here on this Earth

As our beautiful love song, goes up in flames and burns

I moved out my things

So I've now packed three of my worn camo bags, and taken off my Golden Shield 

My old wedding ring

Done every last task you ever asked

So here I stand

In Sweden watching and waiting 

By a new green garden gate

Under a strange white lamp post

Smiling, but bravely waving goodbye to my old life, with a controlling wife

As passing, angels sing

Fyodor Dostoevsky

It's time to move on

Before it's too late

Go through that gate and love Selma

Your new girlfriend from next door, we've sent whose love for you

Will never run out of date 

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image: Google.

 

Have you heard the Red Priestess call?

 

A poem which explores mystical themes linked to the writing process.

From poetry using prose to who knows.

Are you willing to see where your journey goes?

The awakening, using hidden knowledge, the spiritual allure of creation, and the inevitable transformation which may come with embracing sometimes deeper truths about you:

At the risk of being irrevocably changed forever?

The Red Priestess represents a physical, seductive incarnation of the writing process.

The Red Church represents the creative library of inspiration.

The Great In-Between refers to the liminal space between consciousness and the unconscious, sleep and waking, the physical world and the spiritual.

Red represents courage, passion, danger and sacrifice, all bundled in a three-letter word.

Do you sometimes hear her whispers when you least expect it, and then compelled to write?

Has writing, the creative process. The mental dexterity needed to design and structure works in progress. 

Changed you from whom you originally were before you started writing?

Title.

The Red Priestess. 

(A lone voice whispers)

Within my dark dreams she always appears, and she sends me deep spiritual treasures 

To read and absorb by silver scrying mirrors 

In the silvery moonlights, many reflective walls

Which are in plain view but just hidden from nearly all

My crimson priestess from the Red Church 

With a multitude of dark confessional rooms

Hidden from all

Only revealed to the privilege few 

Who sits in one of their pews

Come listen and hear my calls and let me join you upon your quest

She always whispers and calls, whenever I dream

 There's a red room in here. In The Great In-Between.

With silk sheets adorned 

with diamonds and gold, 

where you can be my guest forever 

Until you're old 

I'll send you ancient spells to drive your success

Compassion and kindness to leave for others, to follow in your footsteps 

I await in the deep ravines, currently unexplored by you. 

Look deep within yourself tonight.

With the thinning of the veil between your world and mine, after the stroke of midnight 

And I'll appear before your eyes and command your mind to write

I'll take you back through the dark corridors of your dearest Hippocampus 

Past hidden cities and towns

Down your new Road to Damascus 

Like I once led Nostradamus 

To my Red Church of such Spiritual Salvation 

And there I will trace my soft fingertips

Along your new road maps to a new recovery, and tempestuous realms, of such redemption

That you'll want to stay and never return 

But it's here in this bedroom, tonight, as you write 

Your Red Church's ticket you'll earn, as the Earth turns, and your old world crumbles and burns

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

 

Are you influenced by the Archons?

 

This poem is a call to spiritual awareness and resistance. 

In these dark times.

Can you feel the high-frequency shift into the lower vibrational frequency?

The emotional resonance of society getting colder and bolder?

Anarchy slowing appearing to be the new norm?

The world on the cusp of war?

It challenges the reader to:

Question what influences their thoughts and emotions.

Recognize and reject manipulative, dark external forces.

Embrace inner virtues and even spiritual practices as shields.

It carries part warning, part prayer, and part philosophical reflection.

It's especially resonant in a time when truth is contested, media is overwhelming, and many feel a need for inner grounding. 

Likewise, it draws a line between external chaos and internal peace, asking:

Are you letting the Archons in, or are you holding the line with Light?

In Gnosticism, the Archons (from Greek archon, “ruler”) were malevolent, sadistic invisible beings who controlled the earth, as well as many of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of humans. 

Are they dictating world events and emotions?

Title.

Are you influenced by the Archons?

(A lone voice whispers)

In 2025

In the eternal battle between Light and Dark of those still alive 

Do you really want to know what to do 

To defeat the metaphorical Archons that might be surrounding you 

Knocking on your spiritual door and waiting behind it so casually, like something in The Purge

So quietly and patiently in perfectly dark, uneven inconspicuous lines, like soldiers preparing for war

Archons who pine and whine like feral dogs, to take a taste of your soul

To their master, the Demiurge, who always wants more

The slow, but sure followers of a second eternal Father called, Darkness, who incites dark passions in humans

Driving them to rebel in spiritualities new Cold War

So beware of lying politicians

Professionally paid for and bought gas lighters

Even owned celebrities pushing false information, even more than before 

Hack writers

Polluting the shores of social media 

By reciting the paradigms of their hidden supervisors

As a new lore

Who constantly try to invade your circle of happiness

By knocking louder 

Even more 

So you must use whatever your allegiance 

Be it spiritual intelligence or your beliefs in your religion

For you're in a Great War

As an unspoken magical charm to protect your angelic stillness from harm

For preparedness cannot be underscored by wielding whatever your devotion 

For by creating your own magical salt circle through your beliefs 

You'll materialize an unbreakable sword of conjured silver to be carried by you 

A new adventurer

A reborn conquistador

That can never be broken

To hold back the swaying Dark Hordes

Like a dam holding back a raging ocean

As they knock on your soul's many doors

Imbued with your virtues 

As your mighty defender

To protect your family, 

friends, hopes, or dreams

And so much more in-between with honour 

For at the core, if we are stripped bare to all that can be seen

Like a mannequin in a department store 

There's no dishonour when that's all you can do, whatever your calling, as you go out to explore 

For that thought has already been planted 

Split into four Divine Seeds

Courage 

Service 

Mercy and Knowledge 

To be encouraged through self belief to grow into your folklore 

For within us all, if we know 

Those seeds can be all we'll ever need to do more 

If in those four, we can trust and believe, before we too turn to dust

And return to the Universes 

Never-ending cathedrals

Of ever-expanding atoms

As Gods continue at war, while we are once 

more 

Forced to kneel in submissive acquiescence

To Life's eternal brother

When he finally chooses to visit

And we are then mortally crushed into obsolescence

To then hear no more knocking on our spirit's now silent front door 

(C) 

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

The Torment of Saint Anthony by Michelangelo

    

    

Have you felt the pull of the Black Gate?

 

Have you felt the pull of the Black Gate?

Have you been devastated by a deep betrayal or loss?

Do you live in a kind of spiritual limbo, longing for something that will never return?

An unspoken truth for the unfortunate many:

Walking around single.

After a painful breakup when utmost trust has been broken, and life seems to never be the same.

The Black Gate is a mournful reflection on the pain of lost love, emotional devastation, and the numbness of living with heartbreak and depression.

The speaker, a “lost soul,” wanders through emotional purgatory, hoping for love's return or an end to the psychological suffering.

Neither of which will come.

It’s a raw and vulnerable expression of what it's like to carry deep grief, mixing spiritual language with personal anguish. 

The metaphor of purgatory is used to describe a life where the pain doesn’t quite kill you, but it never lets you live freely either.

Where one is caught between Heaven and Hell.

Have you felt this visceral sense of purgatory in your life when all seems lost?

Title.

The Black Gate.

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you too felt the hungry pull of the Black Gate

Has love real love now cheap love broken you too, and is it too late 

With reflection 

In this, the midnight hour

I light a white candle for the one who once had me, totally under her power

Like French marionette

Driven by loves powerful desires

For us, The Almas Perdidas

The Lost Souls, maybe like you 

The leftbehinders who wallow and wade through griefs tiring deep waters

With a broken heart after love says farewell and you can't sleep 

To then become new drinkers from Depressions deep well

Praying love returns with a ring of a lone bell

To see true love once more and say

Stay, please

Don't go away and melt my heart again 

Stay and put me under your spell so we are no longer torn apart

But like all pilgrims seeking God, in their own particular way

We know the bell will never ring

We know our hearts will never fully heal or honestly sing 

So we live in a living version of Purgatory 

Dying with each breath of decay we take, as we watch and wait for our call

To join others, now living in Purgatory

Beyond the dreaded Black Gate

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Temptation

 

A poetic sermon about a Faustian pact.

Would you resist temptation in these dark times, or instead choose fame, power and incredible wealth?

Do you believe in the immense value of your soul, regardless of your faith, and understand the eternal consequences of seemingly small or big decisions?

It’s a reminder that what the world offers may be dazzling, but it’s fleeting. 

And what the divine of your choice offers may seem subtle, or sacrificial, but it could lead to eternal peace.

Looking at the world in conflict today, on all levels: do you think many just took the money, fame, and power, or all three?

Title.

Temptation 

(A lone voice whispers)

Belial came to me late last night, just after three

With Faustian promises of riches and such auspicious delights

But as I prayed while he talked 

As my faith shimmered but never once swayed

A beautiful bright light suddenly appeared and came my way

A soft voice

Spoke gently and held me hypnotised 

As it whispered as the tiny molecules of golden light which surrounded its form

Defeated the encroaching darkness 

In every way

Listen not

To Belial, 

The Lord of the Flies

But to me,

The divine messenger 

From the Most High

Bend thy knee

And pray, 

Follow my decrees

Belial might promise you promiscuous sins of the flesh 

Riches beyond all the eyes can ever see

I simply offer freedom 

Beyond this lifetime 

A rebirth on the silvery shores and golden cities

By the blessed Holy Sea

Be careful what you choose 

You hold so much which you could so easily lose

As the clocks through midnight ticked

As each soothing voice echoed deep within the many recesses of my mind

What choices I chose in this life 

I'll accept as payment 

When it's called

In time

For I now know I have something too precious to lose

My eternal soul 

Which doesn’t want to wander forever lost 

In the Bad Lands 

Of the Burning Black Coal

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

Image shared under fair usage policy.

Vae Victīs! (L)

 

A monologue created to explore emotional or internal defeat.

Expressing that silent suffering can leave people vulnerable, unseen, and at the mercy of others' understanding or indifference.

A poem that gives voice to hidden emotional struggles, and emphasizes the importance of empathy.

Acknowledging the silent suffering many endure, and urges them to seek out those rare people, who can truly understand.

Not through just words, but through subtle emotional intuition.

The use of Vae Victīs (Latin for Woe to the vanquished) suggests that those who suffer in silence are often left alone, or misunderstood, but there is always hope in finding the few, who can see beneath the surface.

Salute.

Title.

Vae Victīs! (L)

(A lone voice whispers)

Pause and look around 

When your fake smile hides the deep pain found, hidden within your eyes 

Look for those who can feel the vibration and quiver in your voice

When the rain never seems to stop

For it's them, who'll understand the chronic suffering

Hiding in each and every hidden teardrop 

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

Image shared under fair usage policy.