Ashen Tears of Pain

 

 

Some days are great you know,

I can really get up,

Have at the day like I was just

Eighteen,

     Great days are those days

Where the haze and fogginess

Of war has been forgotten,

     But those days

Are few and far between.

 

Most days I find –

Are as grey as the clouds above,

(not one to grumble but)

Even my face remains as

Grey as the days of

Pulling casualties off the mountains,

The policy of scorching Earth

Making the weather for the region,

Quick at killing refugees.

 

Ah but, that was a long time ago – you’ll say!

 

I’m fine I say when asked but;

I’m not!

     I’m distracting myself yet

Deep inside, the knot’s

Have got me fallen for another day,

And the butterflies and

Flight or fear

Continue in a rage

Despite the relative peace

Of disability,

And some days,

I provoke a willingness

To cease my being upon

Its fractured heart.

 

     Forty-five years I am,

Forty-five were they beside

My side in Kurdistan,

Each a hero – Green Beret

For bearing witness to the carnage,

And I guess even they are damaged;

Carrying on – tortured by

Visions of the children

Going starving but,

Let’s not rest upon those thoughts,

For it doesn’t do a man justice

To seek the snapshots

That crucify and butcher.

 

Some days I feel totally alive,

And then some days;

I feel I walk the dead

As ghosts chatter

Taunt and batter all

Coherent thought till,

     I’m back amongst

The madness that triggers

Only sadness in my heart

And I played my part,

     So why,

     So why one score year

Later am I still

The subject of my own

Personal torment and hatred

For looking in and looking on?

     I’m trying to let it go,

But it wants to stay –

Forces itself till I bray

Fatigue set my soul to sleep,

And though I’m here within a group

Designed to help; the Combat of Stress

Be now my own personal hell –

And the NGVFA and Legion

Try their best,

     But my perspiring brow

And palpitating heart,

My sickness that has stricken

Me since victory

Makes mockery of the

Brave I used to be,

     And there really was no victory,

Just thousands,

Thousands of once agile minds

Pleading leniency

When their youthful ways

That served in faith should

Never have warranted conviction,

     For; for each of us,

It’s sorry to our family,

Sorry to our peers of all

Conventions just to ease

The sorrow –

And as each day rises,

It’s Thank – You

For the borrow from the light,

Thank you while we

Try to fathom meaning,

     And we’re only soldiers,

More than that, we’re only

Human carrying a cargo of pain,

And we so want the Sun but,

To each of us is everything to hide

The hurt and walking wounded

We’ll state in solitary,

Let it rain,

Let it rain,

Let it rain.

 

Michael J Waite 12^th June 2012.