Out of the Storm

I wrote this a couple of years ago, it is only one part of the whole book, that I have worked on as part of my recovery. There are 49 and just waiting for the illustrations. I found I wrote a great deal and even the name 'Linden' harks back to a time of innocence, I lived in a road of the same name! It was subconscious and the specialist thinks it is significant. Some are to dark to include.

~ Linden's Men of Flanders ~

Many hand shire dray, snorts linden chill,
Firing twin spirals & swirls mist high.
The tremble & thunder as barrels fall.
Echoes to nightmares of the foreign foe,
The pond, where no man can land,
Or deep crater where the mine blown.
A soldier feels the bandage of valour,
And his head shakes, blurring vision,
Another bound to a chair, marches there.
A whistle sounds out the morning mess,
They cannot fight or retreat no more,
The Flanders soldiers cannot cry in fear.
Linden Edward Hall nurse, can not see,
She knows not where mined trenches be.

BeHealthy,

Thanks for your comments, that is how I felt it.

I have been studying the Pine ridge Native Americans and I found this poem. I see it is a deep poem that resonates on the healing we are all doing!

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST WARRIOR
I searched for the Warrior as a child, a spirit innocent and free, but broken by people's reaction to me.
Your too small, the last one picked when we played ball.
How come you're always in the way, don't do what I do, just what I say.
Never say how you feel, do anything but be real.
The way of the church you have to learn, or in * your going to burn.
It's too bad your Dad had to die, be a man and don't you cry.
Fit into society they would scream, but in my heart beat a different dream.
Outside voices conditioned me to fail, but a voice inside said "a Warrior spirit will prevail".
I searched for the Warrior as a young man, a spirit filled with pain and frustration, fueled by anger and intoxication.
I finally believed what they said, the dream inside was almost dead.
Society had finally won, I became the prodigal son.
With no dream I lost my sight, all I wanted to do was fight.
Drugs and alcohol became my way of life, it's the only way I could cope with the pain and strife.
In relationships I could not stay, I would always run away.
In my soul I wanted to die, I no longer had the will to try.
Then God gave me a sign, it helped me quit the drugs and wine.
My thoughts had become my jail, but a Warrior's spirit said "you will prevail".
I searched for the Warrior as a man, a spirit scarred but free, made by my reaction to me.
With the pipe I learned to pray, the spirits guiding me along my way.
In the ceremonies I began to heal, I slowly began to see what was real.
To grow I needed all the pain, just like the grass needs the rain.
Now when people try to use their power and control, I just stop and pray for their soul.
When in my life love begins to fade, I just remember that soul mates just don't happen, they are made.
Not believing in myself was my only sin, that's all I had to do to win.
I now live my life by choice, and that is to listen to the Warrior's voice.
I no longer believe in the end of the trail, because if you find your Warrior's spirit, you will prevail.

by Bim Pourier

Wow.

Wow, that poem from Pine Ridge Native Americans... that hit hard.

Hi there . I never liked poetry until I started to realise that I have CPTSD and the creative part of my brain was not allowed to grow properly. This is a poem by Charles Bukowski called Bluebird. It has helped mea great deal in coming to terms with what I have been through.
There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him.
I say stay in there, I not going to let anyone to see you.

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke on him
And the whores and the bartenders and the grocery store clerks
dont know he is in there.

There's a bluebird in my heart   that wants to get out
I say stay down,
Do you wanna mess me up?
Do you screw up the works?
Do you wanna blow my book sales in Europe?
Ther's is bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when every one is asleep
I say, I know you're there
so don't be sad then I put him back,
but he is singing a little in there, I haven't let him die just yet
and we sleep together like that
with our secret pact
and its nice enough to make a man weep
But I don't weep
Do you?

Where are you? I shouted away my lungs, but I couldn't hear a sound. Like the last moment of a dream, right before you wake up. I couldn't see a thing, only fragments of my imagination. I tried to wake up, but couldn't decide if I were awake or dreaming. Stuck in limbo, neither alive nor dead. A perfect combination of something wright and wrong at the same time. I couldn't tell if my thoughts were giving birth to this unreality, or if it was the other way around. Always stumbling, never deciding. A vacuum with no end in sight. A fracture of time seemed like forever, like a conscious catatonia, like life unwillingly giving up on life. Like a scream within a scream. Despair without sadness. A dream without beginning and end.

She began folding away her fantasies, blending in with reality. Melting in with the interior of my house of dreams. Like a metaphor for confusion. Like a manifestation of a perfect state of flux.

Everything faded away into black and white, into perfect shades of light and darkness, void of colors and nuance. "Is this reality?" I thought to myself.

I really liked that poem by Charles Bukowski, ding dong :)

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

   David Whyte, from his poem "Sweet Darkness"

What a complex thing it is to live
To trust enough to continue giving
Or believing in love
When passion is not tempered by logic
And ambition is not balanced by gratitude
The truth is obscured
In this age of instantly cured
Which values nothing of value
And puts the price on what it is
Which is priceless

What it is, is this
Is what it is
You and I exist
Therefore we are becoming
Here we are in this precisely now

How amazing is this life

Say goodbye to the guilt
Leave the past behind
Leave the pain with the past
Lighten up the cross
It's a long journey ahead
You are innocent victims
Of circumstance and coincidence
Be gentle with yourselves
Forgive yourselves
Release yourselves from the past

Wow
What a wonder is this life
Here we are in this precisely now
What a wonder is this life

------------------------------------------------

It's a song text.
But it already sounded like poetry to me 30 years ago.

And I feel like I have been pursuing this for 30 years now.
And I'm getting nearer to completing it

I've got a headache at the moment but I promise to come back and try to give some constructive criticism on others' poems. For some reason I find that difficult to do, perhaps because I am concerned I will be too blunt and my positive encouragement won't be enough at times.

Anyway, this is a first draft which came out in about 3 minutes. As such, it'll be rough. I wrote three poems surrounding the idea of my recent ex in one night, and after two lamenting the break up, I finally managed one which captured him more (which is what I had intended from the start).

My poems don't always have much structure or necessarily classic rhythm. Punctuation doesn't matter so much usually and grammar can sometimes do odd things. e.e. cummings is an inspiration of mine so that might give you a hint to why, though I'm nowhere near as... "experimental"?

Please let me know where it is too weak, too strong, confusing, etc. I might redraft this with the intention to show friends after enough time has passed so they don't know who the characters are.

Badmemories, Thank you for sharing In Search of the Lost Warrior!

ding dong, I like the bluebird poem; I totally relate to controlling the spirit in myself through addictions...

Thanks for sharing.

Hi Everybody!

New to OOTS, I find myself unable to share a bit about me; it feels really awful to be so afraid of that.
Anyway, I asked myself: "what will help you?"  Answer: Poetry. Music. And like minded people. So then I asked SOMEWHERE on this site and Woodsgnome guided me here. Thanks Woodsgnome!


I wrote this about 20 years ago when I first started waking up to what my life had been up to that point and I thought to myself: OK! I got this! Now that I know... I can conquer anything and everything's going to be great from here on out!
Well, it didn't quite work out to be that easy, right? :stars:

So, here I am, many years later and these words still ring true, albeit in a different way.
The Dream Designer is my spirit communicating with my thinking self, like ding dong's bluebird...

Here you go:


I am a Dream Designer, I go where I wish;
I have complete freedom so there are
no limitations as to who, what, how, where or why
and as such, I can see
the most beautiful,
the most interesting,
the most satisfying.


I am YOUR Dream Designer.
I am your wants.
I am your thoughts.
I am your needs.
I am your fire.

I tell you, my talent is immense - I can do anything!
And I say you are worthy of my time.


I am grateful to have found this site and to be witness to so many who have struggled, who still struggle and who get out of bed every day sharing their love, hope and strength. Thank you all for being here.

Lifecrafting,

Dream Designers are really cool; thanks for yours joining in via this poem. I love how a Dream Designer can hang around, never clamoring for attention, and yet always there. You can travel the world, not be noticed for 20 years, and they're always accessible. They'll never force themselves on you, scream, shout, or insist you acknowledge them, even worship them.

I wouldn't know where to begin to try and understand this, either. The mind hates this, :pissed: it can't figure why I believe there's more than the grief and sadness it hurls at me every day, or what a Dream Designer has to do with the facts of cptsd. That's nice, mind; you can keep your thoughts and be baffled, because I sense the Dream Designer traveling right along, exactly where its always been. The mind will get its chance, 'cause I'll forget, much to its twisted delight. Dream Designer just treks along, so thanks, Lifecrafting, for sharing some of its beauty.     

Thank you Woodsgnome,

When I was young, maybe 10 or so, I remember asking God for help. It was never in the midst of violence but afterward, when I gravitated toward something outside of my physical reality. And each time I turned to God knowing that I "have been here asking for help before and it doesn't come"... I wondered why I kept trying when it was obvious that God wasn't going to help ~ nobody was going to help. I recall thinking something like: alone is all I am.

Somewhere within myself, I also knew there was something more ~ something bigger than God. Can you imagine a kid thinking that there is something bigger than God, SOMETHING that didn't place me in a position of  expecting or needing??? At the time, those thoughts/feelings served me but eventually, they too were gone and of course, over time, this leant itself to me never asking for help...

Now I know that hidden under all the chaos that was my existence, was creativity trying to be expressed, dreams of me being able to.....fill in the blank.
I want so badly to create; I am EXPLODINGWITH THE NEED TO CREATE.
And I am so stifled, I don't even know what to do; this note started yesterday, if that tells you anything...

So, Woodsgnome, I appreciate your words in response to this poem because even though I cannot access the Dream Designer at this moment, I always know it's there; you worded it perfectly. Thank you!

I don't know how I missed your  Sweet Darkness post before but I did. I favorited his website to read further; thank you for sharing his work.

QuoteSometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

David Whyte, from his poem "Sweet Darkness"

This is BEAUTIFUL! And in my opinion, of the same feeling as the conversation here. Or am I off base there?

I was wondering....
Anybody up for interactive poetry? Could be interesting.....

I used to write until my ex threw my 20 some odd poems and a hand full of short stories in the trash, pretty much lost interest after hearing I was a no talent hack.

 :sadno:

Quote from: JohnnyBoy on August 21, 2015, 05:19:05 AM
ex

:thumbup:

lol nice

wow, never read this thread before but i wrote a poem and wanted to post it. NyxBean's The Magi and the Dryad totally blew me away - i was reading about my marriage!
I've done a few poems, always 'in extremis' it seems. sorry if this one's a bit sad, it's just how i am at the moment. inspired by Shostakovich

Nice one.  :thumbup:

Listening to the music now.  ;D

Edited to add: the music is very fitting, arpy1. Wow.  :applause:

Arpy1, May writing and posting that beautiful reflection create a space for healing...I've sat by that window often, when those rains, on both sides, never cease and nothing matters, melting into, becoming the grief, not knowing or caring, just being.  I'm reminded of these lines from Rumi:   

Weep for yourself as when a cloud weeps,
and then the branch freshens.
As when a candle releases tears and gets brighter. 

thank you, that means a lot.

Arpy1 I love your poem as well as the music you shared,

I also love Rumi's work shared by Woodsgnome :)

Thank you for sharing

i love that Rumi quote. please, forgive me for being thick but, who is Rumi? ( my super-blinkered-evangelical-xian-cultural-background is showing, i know. it takes a bit of getting out of)

i had a nice thought: i like poetry because it is like using words to embroider lyrical images into tapestries that are shot through with the gold and silver threads of your deepest heart and your most private thoughts. hmm... that's what it is for me, anyway

Arpy1, Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet and mystic. Usually he's associated with what's now called Sufism, but the terms don't matter--if you ever read more of him, he's full of peaceful and insightful wisdom that cuts to the core of your heart.

Coming from my own "cult-like" xtian experiences, I didn't run across him 'til "after" I'd done time, but it was a beautiful find, nonetheless.

thank you woodsgnome, i am gonna google him :yes:

My favorite poet has always been Emily Dickinson, her are acouple of my most loved poems of hers.....

I never hear the word "escape"
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude!

I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childishly at my bars
Only to fail again!
                    -Emily Dickinson


A poor-torn heart-a tattered heart-
That sat it down to rest-
Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day
Flowed silver in the West-
Noticed Night did soft descend-
Nor Constellation burn-
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.

The angels-happening that way
This dusty heart espied-
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God-
There-sandals for the barefoot-
There- gathered from the gales-
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering Sails.
                       -Emily Dickinson

latest poem. (Miranda is what my dear old Grandad called me when he couldn't remember my name!)

Not Here Anymore












[attachment deleted by admin]

this is for all of us who find getting our housework done such a trial:

Beautiful. Love it.  :thumbup:

This is a poem I wrote when I was 16. I still say it to myself sometimes when I'm feeling really low. Hope it can help someone.

Rise

You will fly away on jaded wing
You will land on stars and start to sing
The praises of the scars that came
And left their mark, yet sparked no shame

You will plant your flag of severed parts
You will claim the land for shattered hearts
And then proclaim to each clean thing
You were carried by your jaded wing

GettingThere,
That is beautiful and uplifting. Do you write much poetry now?

Hi Whobuddy :) Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I haven't written any poetry in the last few years, but I still write some short fiction and life writing from time to time.

I love all the poetry guys!!!

Here is one of my very favorites which i am sharing because I read this poem for the first time when I was 7 years old. I knew then that my family was dysfunctional - mainly my mother - who was trying so hard to beat me into the person she wanted me to be. I only wanted to be myself and I am good and loving. She was mean and hateful -  so I'm glad I read this and yes I totally understood it at that age - it was clear as a bell. I was on the right path age 7 - god saved me!

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Heres a poem well a poetic song if you will.
Its call "Excess Baggage" its by Staind and it was a "secret" song on their album Dysfunction.

"Well I know the words, but I cant really speak them
To you

And I hide all the pain, Ive gained with my wisdom
From you

And Im eaten alive by what I hold inside
All the things that I live with I cant easily hide
And Im left here with nothing, nothing to live for
But you


Its not easy to hide
All this damage inside
Ill carry you with me
Until im not alive

When you look at my face, does it seem just as ugly?
To you

I cant seem to erase all the scars i have lived with
From you

Im so sick of this place
This taste in my mouth
Cause of you I cant figure what Im all about
And Im left here with nothing nothing to live for
But you

Its not easy to hide
All this damage inside
Ill carry you with me
Until im not alive

Little Girl (me)

Little girl, the love in my heart
take my hand as we walk into the dark
monsters we'll see, dragons we'll face
always remember you have a place
here with me

 :thumbup:

And welcome, Cat Glass.  :hug:

Thank you :)

To the Sensitive Ones...by Jeff Foster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqzN-vs4Adc&feature=em-subs_digest

TO THE SENSITIVE ONES...

Do not be ashamed of your sensitivity!
It has brought you many riches.

You see what others cannot see,
Feel what others are ashamed to feel.

You are more open, less numb.
You find it harder to turn a blind eye.
You have not closed your heart,
in spite of everything.

You are able to hold
the most intense highs
and the darkest lows
in your loving embrace.
(You know that neither define you.
Everything passes through.
You are a cosmic vessel.)

Celebrate your sensitivity!
It has kept you flexible and open.
You have remained close to wonder.
And awareness burns brightly in you.

Don't compare yourself with others.
Don't expect them to understand.
But teach them:
It's okay to feel, deeply.
It's okay to not know.
It's okay to play
on the raw edge of life.

Life may seem 'harder' for you at times,
And often you are close to overwhelm.
But it's harder still
to repress your overwhelming gifts.

Sensitive ones,
Bring some gentleness into this weary world!
Shine on with courageous sensitivity!
You are the light bearers!

Quote from: artemis23 on April 14, 2016, 08:46:51 PM
This is a practiced suffering, we are prepared.

This line so perfectly reflects how I feel as a person with CPTSD. Your writing is so wonderful Artemis!!

On my way back home I just saw somebody with the following phrase on her bag:

The Earth without art is just "Eh".  :thumbup:

Raising the Rent

I didn't know you were camping out in here
It seems you've been here for quite some time
Your voice isn't welcome here anymore
F**k off out of here, this space is mine

Your accusatory tone and blaming ways
Omnipresent in these sullen quarters
Your constant criticisms, teasing and torture no longer veiled
I'm through fawning to your disorders

The economy of my soul for ever at risk
Transactions more complicated than a bank
All profits and huge margins on this emotional one way street
Wired direct to your empty bottomless tank

I'm raising the rent in here
And it's going to be too high for your rage

There's rat poison behind everything in here
It's amazing anything survived at all
The toxicity perverting all but the bricks
And I think it's ready for the wrecking ball

Nice one.  :thumbup: