Healing Poetry

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Healing Poetry share poetry that has helped you heal

#16 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 21 October 2002 - 11:42 PM

I thought I was "over" most of it -
but I guess I just found a way to
bury it deeper - and I HAVE to let some
of it out - with NO counseling, and only
a couple who believe me, I have a husband
who I can only hurt because he wants
to help me and he can't . . . only my
dogs to share with, and somehow that just
isn't enough.

Sorry guys, I HAVE to vent.

Bits and pieces in my mind
Not enough to help me find
What has happened in the past -
Only sadness, pain will last.

Segments of that anguished "dream"
Pieces of that "mental scream"
Bits of this and bits of that
Not enough to start a chat . . .

Whose voices came out from the walls?
Who shined lights in shower stalls?
Watching private parts of me
That no one will e'er again see . . .

Showing me where their minds were set
Watching me shower, seeing me "wet" -
Wonder what they wanted next?
Wonder why my soul was vexed?

Then when the walls no longer "talked"
Why did they follow me as I walked?
When their cars went to and fro -
Back and forth so I would know . . .

Only that I was being stalked -
No one approached me, no one knocked -
All they did was cause great fear
'Cause I could see they were still near.

Oh, the shame I now embrace
When in the mirror I see my face -
Wondering who my a*users were
Can they still see me? Are they here?

Do they watch me in the tub?
Do they see me as I scrub?
Whatever were they looking for?
Do they still think that I'm a whore?

Only pieces - only bits
Just enough to give me fits
Only parts of that strange night
Fill my nights with pain and fright.

Why did they come here as I slept?
What is the secret that they kept?
Why only pieces, why only bits?
WHAT did they do to give me fits?

I have no knowledge of what they tried,
On the night when my spirit died.
Who were they - the ones who hurt?
Why did they do it? I didn't flirt.

I wore no short skirts, my face was bare -
No make up, no jewels to adorn my hair -
Only me, and nothing else
WHO, what . . . WHY ? ? ?

I'm told the past must be put away
Forget the horrors of that day.
"Move right on, leave the past behind"
"Clear your heart", "clear your mind" . . .

"You'll never know what gave you fright
On that aweful, trecherous night -
Only think of happy things -
It will take away the stings"

Happy things? Pray tell me please
What they may be - I must appease
This empty soul, this aching heart
Please show me how to play this part.

So I'll just keep on "keeping on"
Til all of my life is gone . . .
With hopes that one day I shall see
The happy one that once was me.

#17 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 18 February 2003 - 01:12 AM

I found this poem on a website about PTSD - and I think it's amazing.

<b>Survivor's Psalm</b>
by Frank Ochberg, MD

I have been victimized.
I was in a fight that was
not a fair fight.
I did not ask for the fight.
I lost.
There is no shame in losing
such fights.
I have reached the stage of
survivor and am no longer a
slave of victim status.
I look back with sadness
rather than hate.
I look forward with hope
rather than despair.
I may never forget, but I need
not constantly remember.
I was a victim.
I am a survivor.

#18 jenster73

Group: Member
Posts: 1,921
Joined: 28-August 02

Posted 18 February 2003 - 08:04 AM

A friend sent me this, author unknown. It was this that finally got me to open up.

If I could catch a rainbow
I would do it just for you
And share with you its beauty
On the days you're feeling blue

If I could build a mountain
You could call your very own
A place to find serenity
A place to be alone

If I could take your troubles
I would toss them in the sea
But all these things
I'm finding are impossible for me

I cannot build a mountain
Or catch a rainbow fair
But let me be what I know best
A friend that's always there

Jen

#19 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 26 February 2003 - 09:08 PM

This is one of my favorites...

I think it is very powerful and strong, but read with care, it could *T*...

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time --
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You --

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two --
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

-Sylvia Plath, October 12, 1962

#20 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 09 March 2003 - 11:12 PM

I'm sorry.....I was very angry when im wrote this.....im so upset.....i dont know how to put myself back together...but i thought maybe this poem would help other...maybe some of you can relate to this?

[Before you turn your cheek]

A child's body is not a play thing,
a painless little toy.
A child's soul is not an object
for a man to destroy.
If a child has innocence
it's quickly ripped away
and coldly devoured
to her terrified dismay.
What is it about a child
that fascinates a man?
Is it the never-broken innocence
of sleeping beauty and peter pan?
The adults say there's no monsters
but a child can prove them wrong
because shes felt an ogre's hands
in places they don't belong.
What's wrong with the world
when it chooses to turn its cheek
and ignore the crying children
the obscure, the scared, the weak?
To hear the excuses and cliches
that rise up in a public place
until a child's funeral is held
and a community becomes a disgrace.
Where is god when a child is hurt
does he see the pain in tiny eyes?
Does he see the way men look at her
quieting her with their filthy lies?
Does he hear the words filled with hate
that make an innocent child sob in shame
because shes told she wanted it, shes a whore?
when in truth shes not the one to blame.
What about when she's punched in the face?
Can she ever forget that metallic taste?
that forms on her tongue and makes her gag
with the bruises forming in a new place.
Will this cycle ever end?
The child suffers, the man lives
lies build up, magnify the pain
and push until something gives.
So say it again, scream it if you must
will this cycle ever end?
Is this really the moral message
that we want to send?
Think about the children
before you turn you cheek
stand up for their rights,
the obscure, the scared, the weak.

- LJW
March 7, 2004, 3:24 a.m.

#21 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 15 February 2002 - 09:22 AM

Aoife.. great idea :biggrin:

i have several 'poem-type-things i'd love to share, so sorry if i inundate this thread for a while..... ((huggles))

To a Wounded Angel

You're so brave, so strong, so beautiful, and you can fly so high. I'm so often in awe of you, did you know that? And believe me when I say to you now that I value you every bit as much when you're stooping as when you soar. Right now, settled on the ground, with your wings folded down around you, I think I love you even more.

Everything happens for a reason good people have told you, and you've done your very best to believe them. This philosophy offers such comfort and peace. And in retrospect, when looking back upon my own life, for the most part, it rings true. So much that was painful or disappointing later proved to serve me. And I know with all of my heart that your own hurt will serve you. But I can't offer up that everything happens for a reason to you. My throat closes around those words the moment they occur to me, and bitterness rises up to meet them.

How can there possibly be a reason for women to be tortured physically, sexually, emotionally or spiritually? There is no reason. And I've long since given up my quest to acquire one. I refuse to tell you that the devastation that you suffered happened for a reason. What acceptable reason could there possibly be?

As an advocate, I've looked into too many pain filled eyes. Eyes that reflect a tortured experience, eyes that ask why? WHY? And you know what? There never was a why that I found acceptable. Not a single explanation that was ever good enough for me.

And so my tired angel, I come to you emptied of answers. I can't take away your WHY and replace it with an explanation. I wish I could. I want so very much to take your pain away.

Because I cannot take away, I come to you with a modest offering. One so small, that I'm humbled as I hold it out to you. It's a small stone with one word engraved upon its surface. The word is AND.

You were hurt very badly AND yet in spite of the hurt, you've grown. You were deeply wounded AND still you survived. You were exposed to the worst in human behavior AND yet you've always tried to give your best. Your voice was silenced AND still you've heard and responded to the pain of others. You were touched by evil AND you've chosen to embrace goodness. You were betrayed AND still you seek to trust. You've been vulnerable and exposed AND still you've sheltered lost souls with your wings. Your agony can't be denied, but neither my precious friend can all of the AND's that are contained within you. They too have shaped you, and even as your pain has left you grounded, they surely make up the magic that will lead you once again to fly. Take them with you.

Tammie Fowles, LISW, Ph.D.

#22 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 15 February 2002 - 12:19 PM

dunno if this fits...or if its healing...if not im sorry ....

Survivor's Poem # 1 by Jennifer Lisa Vest

Who will deliver me
of this hateful birth;
This suddenly remembered
Child's terror,
This misty recollection
Forming a cloud
Raining on my
Everything
That was sanity
Purity
Sancicty.
Who will take from
My weary arms
This burden too heavy
To hold?

#23 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 29 March 2002 - 07:33 AM

I usually don't quote other people's work, but:

"I only told you those
pretty poems
because the
real ones
would frighten you"
that was Jewel Kilcher

#24 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 22 July 2002 - 02:32 PM

I'm sorry. This may not be very 'healing', but i'm having a bad day and can never get into the "share your poetry" board. I just wrote this and need to vent a little. I hope it's okay to post it hear. Please forgive me if it's not the place to post it. :sad: here it is.....

If “regular” people only knew
The kind of pain we’ve been thru
If they could only grasp it

Unless you’ve seen the demons
Tasted the taste
Smelled the stench
Heard the awful sounds
And felt the blows
You don’t have a clue
Don’t have a clue

The unbearable scenes
Go around and around
They never stop
Maybe leave for small vacations
Only to return full blast
I die again a little each time

I hate the memories
Hate them and what they show
Feeling powerless and less than human
Filth and ugliness all around
Evil and hatred lurking
Satan and his flunkies laugh and leer
Yelling “give it to her”! she deserves it!”
Screaming and laughing, “she’s less than a dog”
Hot tears flow
Screams turn to soft muffled sobs of disbelief
I leave my body
Don’t want it no more

I scream inside myself
Aware that no one can hear
The turmoil inside my soul
I wish it would quiet down
Drown out
As I’m drowning

#25 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 18 November 2002 - 07:15 PM

This is a poem I wrote for a therapist I used to see. I miss her terrible. She was the greatest ... Read this and you'll understand why.

White Linen

She hears my silent cries
My hidden fears
And without judgment
She listens to my lamentations.
As my archives unfold
She accepts every word
Every thought
Anticipating the tears.
And the dark pigment flows
Onto her white linen pages
Etching the images
Of rents and abrasions
As I am etched
By shards of betrayal
Past and new.
And with each intimate passage
Respectful silence assures me
Of her unspoken promise
That my trust in her
Will be honored
And I can close each entry
Knowing
I am not alone.

#26 Cherry Blossom

answers to goddess

Group: Member
Posts: 906
Joined: 02-October 01

Posted 11 January 2003 - 01:50 AM

"Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."

This has always been my favourite poem whenever I'm feeling distanced from the rest of the world.

#27 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 26 February 2003 - 09:02 PM

Quote

Quote: from Donna on 9:54 pm on July 10, 2002
Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost

I LOVE this one!!!

#28 Guest__*

Group: Guests

Posted 23 March 2003 - 09:08 PM

Here's one that reminds me that everyone is on their own journey. I figure dealing with abuse just speeds up the process in some ways...

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine and your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine and your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstacy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning to be careful, to be realistic or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can dissapoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life from its presence.
I want to know If you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon “YES!”

It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or with whom you have studied, I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer ~ Indian Elder

#29 Guest_katehealer_*

Group: Guests

Posted 26 February 2004 - 07:12 AM

The Wild Iris
by Louise Gluck

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the deep earth

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater

#30 Guest_katehealer_*

Group: Guests

Posted 26 February 2004 - 07:29 AM

The Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the suan and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over and prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue sky
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.