Have you been abandoned too?

 

A dark, sad poem where grief has curdled into myth.

Whispering about someone who

loved deeply and dangerously but then punished intensely when they lost their counterpart.

To then never rebuild a safer self.

And rather than healing, romanticizes about the fall because the fall still feels more real than empty survival.

At the core, it’s a dark love elegy about passion judged and destroyed.

A soulmate who escaped and a speaker left behind to rot beautifully in memory, bitterness, and longing.

Title.

Have you been abandoned too?

(A lone voice whispers)

We once rode wild horses over rough concourses.

Once had raw appetites that would make Prometheus jealous in all weathers.

Loved welcoming in a delicious, heavy-breathing incarnations of sin. To show and bathe us in revelations of how emotional it felt to win.

But one day our beloved red curtains were shut. Shut forever by those sad fools stuck knee-deep in life's ruts.

The tut-tuts and second-class muts envious of those who seemed to have too much, like us. 

That sad day you caught the last train to Vienna, never to return again. 

While my tight grip on life weakened as all my futures jumped like lemmings into a massive abyss of assassins and grave diggers.

 People draggers armed with sharp, inhuman daggers, who loved to poke like a two-faced joke. As I watched and choked. 

I know your world is full of snake bites like mine. Lost and alone as your muscles and sinews pine.

Lost in an interdimensional world, remembering our good times. When the real world was spider blue with webs in every corner. 

Strung up high, carrying trophies of me and you. 

So if you happen to read this, feel within each line my dragon's kiss. For apart I sleep now in the devil's sweet abyss. 

Playing Pontoon. Hidden and coughing with demons within its mist.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

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The Snow of Life

 

Is life a temporary, shared journey where every step matters?

Do we leave traces through love, connection, and experiences?

And when the walking is done, do we return peacefully to something eternal, where struggle no longer exists?

Title.

The Snow of Life.

(A lone voice whispers)

We come, we go.

When our feet touches the snow of life and into it we flow.

We meet.

When our feet take us to others. Our father, sister, brother, or mother.

When our feet touches the snow of life and into it we flow.

We meet and greet friends or lovers as we grow old and even settle down. Maybe having children or the odd pet around.

When our feet take us into life to swim barefoot in its sacred waters.

When our feet touches the snow of life and into it we flow.

And at the very end, when our poor feet are tired, we walk back through our snow filled with so many different sized footsteps.

Back to the very beginning.

As from life, we retire.

Where our feet no longer touches the snow of life, and into Eternity we flow.

To join so many others.

In a place where endless tears are sometimes wept.

For there is no more snow, only time to reflect.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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Transition

 

Letting go without erasing what mattered.

Title.

Transition.

(A lone female sings as a slow piano plays.)

Intro.

It's January.

January.

And it's time to say goodbye.

Verse 1.

Goodbye forever, but please don't cry.

It's January.

January.

Don't cry because love never truly dies as time flies by.

Chorus.

But it's over.

It's over.

It's January.

January.

Verse 2.

Like a bridge fallen over troubled waters.

It's over.

It's January.

Refrain.

So goodbye forever, but please don't cry.

Don't cry because true never truly dies as time flies by.

Chorus.

But it's January.

It's over.

Bridge.

Over as that bridge in January.

Falls in troubled waters.

Outro.

It's over.

It's over.

It's January.

It's January.

It's over.

© Copyright John Duffy

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Do you like gothic poetry?

 The Shadow Self

(A lone voice whispers)

It came for me late last night.

Sliding and creeping whilst I was sleeping.

Slowly closing in, stinking of deep corruption, cold, smoky whiskey, and sin.

And as I looked in, from just beyond my astral windows as I dreamed and checked in, on my physical kingdom.

It saw me and smiled, crocodile wide and mouthed.

“Be seeing you soon, manchild. In those dark lands of sweet dreams of The Great In-Between.”

Then it slithered away after being pulled back by grey decomposed, arms and elbows.

To the wild, smoke-filled meadows and midnight sideshows—where nothing living goes.

Like a freezing winter's night, which forecloses on red roses.

With a wry devil's smile, as it suddenly appears from the shadows.

To all things warm, envelope and enclose.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Being human

 

Will you try to do something higher than self impulse or ego?

Title: 

Being Human 

(A lone voice whispers)

Will you deny realizing your desires and self-serving needs for a higher moral, religious, or selfless purpose?

Will you try to put your comfort and will behind trying to help others by being kind?

And not being brainwashed by the circus?

If you can, reach out your hand.

 We are as one… we are true humans.

(C) Copyright John Duffy 

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Have you been Reborn?

 

A poem exploring the moment someone finds faith in any religion.

A moment from seeking to knowing, from external pursuit to internal acceptance, and from loneliness to spiritual belonging.

 Love is revealed not as something missing but as something forgotten—rediscovered through faith and self-recognition.

As they find themselves included in divine joy, celebration, or grace.

 Jubilee implies forgiveness, restoration, and release—suggesting that love is not earned, but granted through existence itself. Salute.

Title.

Have you been reborn?

(A lone voice whispers)

I once searched for love over land and sea.

Looked deep into all of life's many mysteries.

Only to find it lives within me: when I finally realized—I'm part of God's own jubilee.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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The Black Dog

 

Title.

The Black Dog.

(A tired voice whispers)

It was 3 years ago that I first saw it in my long mirror.

A black dog watching in the shadows.

Then 6 months later, in full view but at a distance. Watching.

Now four years later, it's my best friend.

He follows me everywhere. Sleeps beside me, and lately I can hear him talking.

Talking about my father and about his end.

I went to see Old Shala, and she read my aura and said I was being stalked by a Lylak. 

She asked if I had lost anyone. I said my wife, and she said depression had opened a portal, and it had gotten closer and closer.

So with her permission we had a ceremony. Candles, incantations, and incense.

 Looking in her long mirror, I sensed and watched my only friend leave my side with sad heavy eyes, and slowly move away to the shadows.

When it was in the shadows, the mirror was suddenly broken, trapping it, and another thing happened, which I cannot say to this day.

I paid and left.

Now back alone. 

I still see its red eyes in the dark.

Everywhere in my now empty home 

Shall I call it out?

That old friend of mine or ring up my real friends?

(C) Copyright John Duffy

This poem is about:

Grief after losing a spouse.

Depression becoming identity.

The danger of romanticizing pain.

The loneliness that follows healing.

It does not glorify the darkness—it shows how seductive and persistent it can be.

The voice is reflective, aware, and conflicted. That self-awareness is what separates this from despair and turns it into literature.

For depression doesn’t vanish cleanly. Even after treatment or ritual:

Traces remain.

Fear of relapse lingers.

Familiar pain still “looks back” at you.

If you're feeling depressed, talk to someone. It will make all the difference. Try never to face anything alone. Salute.

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The Atlantean

 

It's rather strange where creative writing can lead you.

Have you tried automatic writing where you just write what comes through?

One of my explorations is below.

The Atlantean

(A lone voice whispers)

I am the tip of the divine spear when it comes to facing fear.

 For I abide under the shadows and protections of the Most High.

So heed me, creatures of the night.

Abandon any means to attack my soul, for I am already on patrol.

So be it.

Amen.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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The Monologue of Saul

 

Do you live consciously—or does the world live through you?

A piece about reclaiming your spiritual agency in a digitized, engineered reality before life ends.

Not with fear, but with awareness, responsibility, and honesty.

A whisper, not a sermon.

A mirror, not an accusation.

(A lone voice whispers)

Have you ever wondered if your soul is just mirrored reflections? 

Fragmented shards of an augmented reality.

A divine kaleidoscope of your own perceived ideas.

Of what to do to get to your version of heaven and how to avoid hell?

Overlaid onto a real-world environment.

Are you too logical to ever really understand, but just bravely parading around like another human being? 

Locked into a social engineer's dream.

Trying to live within and under its dark, magical, mesmerizing spell.

Hypnotized by whatever is subliminally repeated on your handheld screens.

Slowly waiting unconsciously, before it's too late for spiritual understanding.

To return to just you.

To truly see there's more to life than chasing paper dreams.

Before you catch the last bus to take you home to atone.

In The Great In-Between, where you'll be asked,'

Did you live a clean life, or did something happen that was unforeseen?

 That caused you to live temporarily unclean?

(C) Copyright John Duffy

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The Southern Belle

 

A poetic exploration on romantic longing, emotional stasis, and the way we protect love by housing it inside ourselves when it can’t survive in the real world.

Title.

The Southern Belle.

(A lone voice whispers)

There's a room inside my head all white. The purest color you've ever seen.

All white walls and ceilings—with fields of never-ending green.

Playing on loop is some deep southern blues.

While I wait for you.

The firewoman who once said, “Well, bless your heart.”

Whenever we fell apart.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

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