Angst

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.

Not quite sure the above is one, but I chose to write about post-war angst and the effects of hallucinogenics.  The image sourced at Wiki is itself sourced from the 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Research Fact Sheet' authored by The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

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.