Long Conflicted Poems
Long Conflicted Poems. Below are the most popular long Conflicted by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Conflicted poems by poem length and keyword.
I looked out at America
from my porch the other day,
Unusual, it's appearance,
seems so different I would say.
Problems in abundance,
so many that I see,
but this was once America
a special place to be.
Remembering recent times
my thoughts I could convey,
flowed freely, not a worry,
of what I had to say.
Judgment's made of people,
and who they just might be,
a great man's words remind us,
more than color makes up me.
As people so divided
the politics at play,
E Pluribus Unum
a motto we betray.
Attacks from the left,
reactions on the right,
these political old cronies
wage a never ending fight.
Opinions, such a chasm,
of who that we should be,
a country this divided,
can never remain free.
It's time now for the many,
to answer, lest we fall,
to get back to united,
an "America" for us all!
Consciousness,
A vast existence,
Where Time and space,
Become Conflicted.
To save our race,
We had to face,
A fall from grace.
All for one,
One for all,
Time to heed,
The hero's call.
Fighting the fall,
We build a wall.
Internally Conflicted.
Wants, desires,
And all that we Admire,
flooding through the Mind,
Leaving our Needs behind.
No need for the Divine.
Look, We're doing just fine,
Watching its crumbling design.
Seek, ye shall find,
Your spark inside.
As FEAR subsides,
Love resides,
Conflicted.
The battle of duality,
Constantly,
Challenging reality.
Awareness is key,
Smile, you'll see.
You,
Me,
Are Together,
In harmony.
(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.
The Game
Birth records the starting line
of an undefined span of time.
Unprepared for a life unknown.
You seek to fit and be the same
despite uniqueness you proclaim.
Dice your own, you begin the game.
The players all just come and go,
most estranged but some you know.
All so different, yet the same.
Unaware that life's a chance
at choices made on circumstance.
moves are made, in the game.
You learn to believe you're in control
yet seek for peace within your soul,
conflicted through the weight of pain.
Recognition and paths of pride
cloud the love you keep inside.
Justified, you play the game.
Things may not be what you thought
depending on the lies you bought.
Bridges burned and little gained.
You can't undo the things you've done.
Was it worth the the prize you won?
Baggage claimed,on with the game.
The road ahead is not so long.
Looking back you wrote a song.
Will anybody sing your name?
Was your claim to fame a comfort such,
it was with love, the lives you touched?
You chose the way you played the game!
-Jeannie Minor
At times He shouts to clear his throat, AHEM!
We are the phlegm.
Puffs of dandelion dust,
ignoring life, allowing hearts to rust.
Each day we rush upon ourselves,
shelving more decisions,
piercings and incisions,
in the side of eyelids, nose, and tongue.
unknowing victims, of
what we know not from.
beaming like returning martyrs,
blown to Kingdom Come.
matter splattered, gut ache or remorse;
no age is better for it; no age worse.
it’s what we choose to look at now;
it is our Holy Cow.
maybe sin is in the looking,
maybe in the not,
eyes averted;
disaster flirted with,
Mr./ Mrs. Smith,
composite couple;
doubling our efforts
to keep up, win the cup;
get the bowl;
satisfy a never-filling hole.
Our procedure is to marry;
double-feature of our troubled futures;
sutures for the wounds inflicted
in a psyche so conflicted;
we sit for hours and hours
hours and hours, paying folks
to analyze the guiltiness of flowers.
We simply grow, didn’t you know;
afraid of what we have created.
Frankensteins,
so overrated, - tall,
but not so unrelated after all.
As the day shut down, a scarlet sun bled:
and I drank in the essence of the moment.
Seeing the night unfold, touched me:
and my soul released a tear; I'd held captive in my heart.
In the hospital room, I sat beside my mother;
and gently held her hand.
A mere shell of the vibrant woman I loved,
Mom was dying; I couldn't deny that fact,
My humanity competed with my selfishness:
I desperately wanted her to live,
but I knew that her time had come.
Her hand squeezed mine, ever so softly,
and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
I was drowning in a sea of tears,
for her heart was barely beating
as I held her hand: afraid to let go.
My head was swimming!
Tripping over my emotions, I couldn't find balance;
numb to all but my hurt.
To manage her pain, she was placed on a morphine drip.
And drip by drip, I felt her life force weakening.
I wanted to rip that needle out!
My conflicted heart was sobbing,
not wanting her to suffer, yet not wanting her to die.
But I steadied myself, held her hand,
and watched her peacefully depart this life.
I so wanted someone to blame
that when Death came, I blamed myself;
and forgave myself, simultaneously.
I looked upon her face for the last time;
made my peace with God:
and kissed my Mom goodbye.
How do I love you and hate you?
How do I want to run away from you and fall into your arms?
How is it that memories sicken me, and hurt me, and make me feel such joy and love?
Why is it that I never want to feel your touch again but stay awake at night longing for it?
I never want to see or talk to you again.
Each second without you is a stabbing pain of longing.
How were you so kind yet so cruel?
So understanding yet so clueless.
Why are you my worst moments and my best?
Why were you my first everything?
Why did none of my firsts count?
How can I feel so sure yet so conflicted?
Why do I feel like you were the one to leave?
What right do I have to be heartbroken?
What right do you have to be the victim?
Why are you so hard to forget yet so easy to leave behind?
How can I do the right thing yet still feel guilty?
What were these months and these moments?
How could I leave them behind?
How could I do this to someone I love?
How could you?
When was enough enough?
Was it enough or was I weak?
How can the word abuser mean the same as highschool sweetheart?
How do I call something abuse if it is only hypothetical?
Why is everything so grey and convoluted?
How can I not know or not be sure?
Who were you all this time? Who was I?
Who are we now?
Where are you now?
It feels like you died.
Time has led me to an unknown path
And I am lost
The wheel has again turned on my past
I didn’t know the cost
Everything always changes
That will never fail
I am here looking for explanations
Why my nightmares in comparison pale
To the conflicted individual I have become
To the moments, the minutes, the days
To the memories I abstain from
To the old world I set ablaze
And like a phoenix from the ashes, I rose
Just to come crashing right back down
Humor only the gods know
Feeling like the dirt on the ground
Trying to coalesce the scattered pieces of my soul
Just walking around like some fool
With my heart a hole
Stuck in an existential duel
Stifled over what to do next
Where will fate lead me
Have I already failed the test
Life’s not easy - am I meant to suffer through the rest
Why are we the human race
rather than another extinguishing species?
Why not the human species
and not the cockroach race?
Why is human nature
intended as somehow supremely natural
not within but faster than,
above and beyond
inferior sensual nature?
Why is race,
inhuman embrace-conflicted context,
a qualitative noun,
stultifying stasis,
rather than a speeding verb
toward shared finish line
when everyone can win together
where no one fully wins apart?
Why is nature's race
not yet declared as one
indigenous Earth Tribe?
Bicamerally endowed
to celebrate Earth's rhythmic ordination
of regenetic liturgy and syntax,
grace racing veins
full-blooded diverse healing homes
of natural peace construction.
What happened to issue
as primal verb
when babies issued from progenitors
and words issued from mouths
and blood issued from wounds
and racing issued from DNA's polycultures,
storytellers weaving diverse generative threads
Remembering from whom and when we issue
back before embracing human memory
in dialectic dreamy nest of fractal tones
polychronic texture
4 dimensioned structure
rhythm rhyme dancing
polycultured racing
comic multicultural
co-operative opera.
Coincidental correlating races,
humane natural places,
issue forth to teach and humor
and recess back to learn and decompose
to mentor Nature's human embrace
radical solidarity race
rooted pace
secured by leaving none behind
Every living system ordained
to race redeeming issues
through singing flows of dancing waves
linked through all spacetime.
If race exponentially regenerates
intergenetic issues,
then this is more of a species relay race
during which boundary lanes
no more than trace and lace
our deep seasoned swimming synchrony,
blending genetic notes of freedom's harmony
toward nature's unfinish-lined
circling symphony.
We were finishing up our morning walk when there beneath our feet
we saw a snail on the sidewalk…getting up the nerve to cross the street.
As I looked down from up above I felt somewhat conflicted
for my world is so far-reaching and the snail’s so restricted.
I felt bad but then I thought perhaps my thinking is defective
for, when it comes to a snail’s world, I imagine
the joy’s in the perspective.
From where the snail crawls…bringing his shell for safe refuge
I imagine he…like me, thinks his world is pretty huge.
And there’s something to be said for a life with little worry…
where you find your food along the ground and you’re never in a hurry.
I thought I would help this snail…that the normal laws of nature we’d defy
So I picked him up and took him across the street…
in a way I showed him how to fly.
I set him down in the grass where he now had more time to eat or dance or play…
“No need to thank me Mr. Snail.” I said as we happily walked away.
I was feeling pretty good about myself…this I must concede
even though helping a snail cross the road…is but a minuscule good deed.
“What if that snail had already crossed the road?” Deborah asked
“What if you threw off the day he had planned
by picking him up and putting him back in the place where he began?”
Of course she was correct…
for I surely had no way of knowing
If, when we first saw Mr. Snail
He was coming or he was going….
But I have learned my lesson…
even though with this snail I couldn’t atone…
The next time I see a snail beneath my feet…
I’ll leave well enough alone.