You never quite forget the hell of it,
the smell of it:
charred flesh and cordite;
and the never ending mortar fire
and sometimes you go mad with it.
I body-rock:
rhythmic repetitive
like a ticking clock,
tick-tick-tick, to-and-fro
not side-to-side like a stick insect
and he asks:
how do you feel about this;
and I say I don’t know,
not being arboreal
I've never lived in trees.
My feelings for you are inchoate
although I’ve known you
longer than a piece of string
and I can’t help wondering
if that time we smoked all night long
and I got paranoid
whether you just might’ve set fire to the bed
as you rocked to-and-fro in candle light
grinning like a Cheshire cat.
My heart
has the monotony of a metronome
and my mind
is bored with its click-click-click-click
and I think I am bored with you
but as said feelings inchoate.
The garden is overrun by weeds
and ivy strangleholds the trees
and sometimes I think you are strangling me
and I wonder if I should cut and run.
I think my mind is running out of time
and I don’t quite know who or what I am.
And I wonder if this coldness in my breath
is death whispering holding out its hand,
and whether it is or not,
either way do I give a damn.
Anna :o]
Gay at dVerse has us writing beat poems and she
writes: Beat
poems have no set form. They are free verse influenced by blues, jazz, post-war
angst, the feeling of being beat down by society (therefore a little
rebellious) inspired by hallucinogenics (surreal) also influenced by
meditation, Zen Buddhism, Native American and other ethnic tribal lore and folk
stories. The challenge for this article is to take some of these elements
and create your own beat poem.
Interestingly
(or worryingly?), the fact sheet advocates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
and I wonder about this having personally seen the damage that can be done in taking this 'talking' path, where
the patient becomes stuck on the merry-go-round of constantly reliving a
traumatic event or events.
Of
course the skills of the counsellor are paramount here but sometimes I wonder
if all this ‘talking’ is to meet the needs of the counsellor…
One
of my great mentors (on this subject and via reading his blog) is The Cockroach Catcher and you may be
interested in reading his posts on PTSD here.
He writes:
What
was most surprising was how the group that had counselling generally faired
worse, much worse than those without any counselling. The group that did best
were the ones that drank, and drank a fair amount.
Please visit his blog and read more.
