Learned the art of survival
from father, a commando-
trained warrior, never able
to leave the battles behind
A sharp-shooter, whose
expert eye tracked our
every fault, with sniper
precision, shot us down.
Innocence has no place
when the enemy resides
within; when trigger lines
are camouflaged by wall-
to-wall carpets, and young
minds, craving exploration,
are imprisoned by acts of
terror; the only conclusion
survivalās impermanence –
hostility lurking in every
shadow, caution instilled
by the omnipotent legacy
of father. Tried to reach
him in the end, touch his
humanity; his shell-shocked
glaze paused for a moment,
he focused, broke through
the fury, seemed to remember
we were his daughters ā was
that compassion lighting
his expression? Take cover,
he cried, get as far away as
you can, save yourselves, I
cannot sway my path, too
committed to this private war,
there is no mercy for me ā but
you, you can be saved, save
your children. I turn and run
with all the certainty that this
is life and death and embrace
the little ones, praying to lift
them out of the ashes, give
them new life, but it seems
they learned the art of survival
from the daughter of a father,
conditioned to the state of war.
(Submitted for dVerse pub Open Link Night. This poem first appeared November 2016. Video is a reading by yours truly at an Open Mic night.)
Beautifully written, and read. This is so great: “Innocence has no place
/ when the enemy resides/ within”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you like this one – a favourite of mine.
LikeLike
Powerful read. It took me back to “my time”. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Your survival experience is much more literal than mine.
LikeLike
My father was a very gentle soul. My step-father not so much. I knew exactly what you were getting at when I first started reading your poem. “A sharp-shooter, whose/ expert eye tracked our/ every fault, with sniper/ precision, shot us down” sent long-forgotten chills down my spine. My step-father had not been to war. But his father had. He’d left an arm in the war. The other one, the one that was left, he used to beat his two sons. Badly, I suppose. My step-father passed it on to my mother and my little sister who’s never recovered from the damage to this day. Four generations falling victim. As you wisely say, you don’t blame your father, you just recognize the damage. Same for me. What a tragedy for all involved…
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is such a tragedy, and so unnecessary, if we only knew better. Thanks for reading and commenting. I am willful enough to try and recover and break the pattern, but like your sister, many of siblings are not.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I couldn’t agree more. And yet, it’s so hard to break the pattern. My sister was too young to be able to fend it off. I could leave home before the worst damage was done. Yet to this day I fight the after-effects. “The enemy resides within” is so true, too, when it comes to my own inner critic, the internalized brutal voice I’ve heard so many times and that I sometimes tend to direct at myself now, three decades later. Still, just like you, I want to break the cycle and working on it, very gently.
LikeLiked by 2 people
gently is the only way….
LikeLiked by 2 people
I enjoyed the reading. Your voice lends to the truth of your experience.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Ken.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You are a Word Warrior, a woman of courage.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful to see and hear you reading your own poetry, even though it was a difficult topic.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Olga. Now you know me a little more, lol.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Parents have children too easily not ever comprehending how to raise them to be happy and self-sufficient. I’m sorry to read these sad words. Good for you to work through it and become whole again.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Bekkie. My father wanted family and love as much as the rest of us, and I think he believed he could overcome his demons. I don’t blame my father, I just recognize the damage.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Wisdom and compassion in this response VJ
LikeLiked by 2 people
I hear you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
As I read this poem, found myself being dragged backwards, into my own abusive past. I told, as a child, not to tell anyone about the things that my younger brother did to my mom and I. And yes, he has tried to kill me, numerous times, only to be blocked by mom. From childhood and into adulthood, I have suppressed these memories, until they can rushing back.
During a brutal 26 hour panic attack, in August 2007. When my mental defenses collapsed. Have since been diagnosed with chronic depression, various anxiety disorders and PTSD. I wish you well, in your healing and poetry.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am sorry if this triggered anything, Theresa, and to hear of your past. How can we not suffer PTSD, anxiety and depression, when the very place that is meant to support and nurture us is the cause of our strife. I write as a means to heal myself and also as a hand extended to others to say: “you are not alone”.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Damage in a person is so often inherited. I often think of father to son, but of course it affects the daughters too… and being a soldier is usually not the best way to cope if there is peace.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think the damage is passed on too, Bjƶrn, which is why I have been on a mission to heal it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just read your poem, then watched you read it. Reading it, the stanzas remind me of steps, where you are going somewhere. I can relate to: “A sharp-shooter, whose
expert eye tracked our
every fault, with sniper
precision, shot us down.” but it was more my mom than my dad, even though my dad had more than his fair share of issues. When your dad’s, “his shell-shocked
glaze paused for a moment,” and he had the presence of mind to warn you away, it is such a powerful moment in the poem. it couldn’t have been easy to pull those memories out. {{{{{HUGS}}}}}
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you. Writing can be cathartic. When I read this to my husband, he cried. It gave him new understanding. I think we both gained something. Thank you for your kind words
LikeLiked by 2 people
You are welcome. Yes it can be such a release to get it out, and having “witnesses” to our stories also helps dissipate it I think. You have a good husband who cares to hear what’s inside of you.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I do!
LikeLiked by 2 people
A very strong and powerful poem..sometimes dad can be dads but little do they realize that they have already lost the love and compassion needed by their children only because of wanting so much security for them.
P.S. i salute you..
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bless you.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Excellent poem š
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is a powerful share and breaks my heart at the thoughts of that inner war raging in the minds of these fathers. You are a brave daughter and woman to your family. I salute you!!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you Grace. It has taken me many years to write of our struggles, and I believe that it is the right thing to do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Powerful and poignant. My father was a Veteran of WW2 and returned without his older brother/best friend (killed in 1945 when a munition ship blew up accidentally in Bari, Italy). He was changed and never talked about the war but depended on the Legion and alcohol to get by.
You are right – PTSD was not given the attention it deserved. But I was happy this year to hear of the awarding of the Memorial Silver Cross to the mother of a young Canadian Vet who killed himself after returning from war in Afghanistan with grave emotional wounds.
You are quite amazing to have bounced back from those grave wounds your father passed on to you. Thank you for sharing this poem, made even more powerful by your reading of it!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think so many of us, children of soldiers, have been touched by the effects of war. Thanks for sharing your story Sarah. I am still a work in progress, suffering PTSD myself. I search for understanding and release through writing. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
VJ, this captures so well the implications individual personal dramas have on others in the afflicted’s range of influence. Your father unable to abandon his struggle even at the end is very sad … for all concerned, not just him. The video adds emphasis – nicely done. Did your father know you as a poet? (Bot of my parents were gone before I began.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
My father didn’t know me as a poet, but he introduced me to Rumi, Gibran, Burns, and others, plus he was quite the writer himself.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Sounds like he would’ve encouraged your poetry. I never heard my dad mention poetry at all – nor my mother until one day she sent me a poem she’d written “a long time ago” that perfectly matched what was happening to me at the time (lover walked out on me). And then after her death, my sister and I found quite a few poems she’d written in her young adult days before meeting Daddy. The one Mother sent me was written after Daddy’s death.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Funny what we don’t know about our parents.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is a strong, sustained piece, like sustained fire. It had me wanting to run and hide. The line run-ons are prefection.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you for that Jane. I thought about reformatting it, but I think it works as it stands. Your words confirm that.
LikeLike
No, leave it as it is.
LikeLiked by 1 person
V.J., this left me stunned. I’ve dealt (in my nursing career,) with Vets who had PTSD, but this presents it to me in an entirely new way. My own father was KIA when I was only 3 months old, and from what I know of his crew (he was the pilot of a B-24) they had difficult lives. I’ve thought sometimes that what happened to my dad was the more merciful thing, though so sad. This rather confirms it. The effects of war are disastrous.
LikeLiked by 3 people
They are so disastrous, Victoria. Losing a father so young is no easier. It is all unfair.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Although it breaks my heart to think that this comes of your own experience, it’s one of my very favorite works of yours so far, VJ. It really speaks to how the ripple effects of war can last for generations.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Heide. This is a favourite of mine also.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, I thought that too, a tender picture of inter-generational effects, you have given us strong raw honesty, as is your wont VJ. Thank you
LikeLiked by 3 people
Appreciate it, Lona.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You had me at /he broke through his fury/. As noted above, this piece is powerful and so very personal; so fitting for around Veteran’s Day. The video added many layers of depth as well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Glenn. Hard to watch oneself, but there is something to be said for poetry spoken aloud.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so poignant! Especially love the analogy in the second stanza.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person
So happy to see and hear you! It adds to one’s perspective. This poem is so telling. You learned survival, something we must all learn. So sorry your father suffered as he did. Who knows, mercy may have found him. My father was a prisoner of war and never could speak of it. Thank you for sharing this.
LikeLiked by 2 people
My father rarely spoke of it either, Mary. Maybe a bit in his later years. But he often demonstrated the strength in his grip, how easily he could bring us down.
LikeLiked by 1 person
if I did not know the poet I read this as a very masculine poem. loved your voice and reading V.J! best part for me – to touch his humanity.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I strive now, in his passing, to find the humanity, to understand. Thanks Gina.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A Vets Day fireside tale about the deep cost of war – how many generations pay.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Brendan. PTSD was not recognized in those days – in retrospect, very present.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, it is both sad and powerful in how the art/need for survival has been passed through the generations because of the impacts of war ā the battlefield scars are palpable here. A gripping verse! The complications of this scenario are so well represented in this bit: “hostility lurking in every/shadow, caution instilled/by the omnipotent legacy/of father.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks HA. PTSD, in retrospect, was present. My father also had his own inner battle going on – the secrets that kept us oppressed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, this is powerful shit VJ. Bravo for you, especially the strendth to keep the kids strong…. š
…rob from Image & Verse
Lost in Azure
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Rob.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh wow, I had a visceral reaction to this–felt my stomach clench, and the need to tiptoe away and find a corner to hide in…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Perceptive of you. I spent many childhood days hiding in corners, or in the woods.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Recently, as I once again considered writing my “real” story, I began with the child’s fantasy of running away into a Minnesota blizzard one night… I often wished I’d had the knowledge and courage to do exactly that. But being psychologically imprisoned, I didn’t believe I truly had any options. So I have immeasurable empathy for you, hiding in corners or woods.
LikeLiked by 2 people
There is a reason we resonate with one another, right?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, Ma’am.
LikeLiked by 2 people
a powerful piece and lovely to see you performing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you on both counts
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nice lines: “Innocence has no place
when the enemy resides
within”. I like the video presentation of the poem. I will have to try doing something like that as well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Frank. My friend filmed me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I admire your bravery…at posting the video and the poem of such raw emotions. Such a painfully difficult subject to revisit and then share. It resonated with me. And I’m sure others as well. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you. I know I am not alone in this issue.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Such a sad life.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Certainly material for therapy, lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful to hear you reading your poem. Great poem. I, especially, liked the analogy in the second stanza.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks. I can never stand to watch myself – but I am what I am. Now you know me a bit more.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think most of us feel that way about seeing ourselves in a video. I’m always surprised at what my voice sounds like. It isn’t how I hear it in my head! lol
LikeLiked by 2 people
So true. Weird
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, you are lovely, and the reading was so tender and well done
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ah, bless you.
LikeLiked by 2 people
So sad.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Strong, powerful, empowering. The natural instinct of humans well depicted. Hope to see more from you. Keep up the good work. šŖš»šŖš»šŖš»
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your encouragement.
LikeLiked by 2 people
you are welcome. š
LikeLiked by 2 people