Unseen Wounds

Posted on by Opher

Unseen Wounds

The wounds unseen

                Bleed into the mind.

Some will bleed forever

                Others leave a deep scar.

Lives have disappeared,

                Homes smashed.

Possessions lost,

                Stolen by a Russian Czar.

What help can we give

                To those who have

                                Been hurt so much?

Who mourn their loved ones?

Who can heal

                Wounds cut so deep

                                Into the tissues of brains?

Where do we find the funds?

Opher – 26.4.2022

The physical damage is obvious – the destroyed houses, the blown up schools and hospitals, bleeding, broken bodies and heaps of corpses tossed into mass graves.

The physical destruction wrought by war is devastating.

What is not so obvious are the wounds cut into peoples’ minds.

Those grieving for destroyed lives, for loved ones killed or maimed, for what should have been. Those who have lost so much.

What cannot be seen are the traumas created by witnessing the horrors, seeing death, seeing the dead bodies of those you have loved.

These images cannot be erased. These fears and grief cannot be comforted away.

These ae the injuries that destroy minds and last a lifetime.

War creates trauma.

Trauma

Posted on by Opher

Trauma

Penetrating brains

                Tiny tendrils

                                Of invisible roots.

Establishing a network

                Of fear

                                To be set in concrete;

A mesh of terror

                Frozen

                                Into circuitry

A compacted image

                Of horror

                                That can never go away.

Every explosion,

                Every death,

                                Every word,

                                                Spurt of blood,

An electric shock

                Searing minds

                                Forever.

Opher – 3.3.2022

Another generation traumatised by war. Images, thoughts and sounds locked inside minds, surfacing as vividly as in the instant they were formed.

War, the destroyer of sanity.

Poetry – Unseen Wounds

Posted on by Opher

Unseen Wounds

The wounds unseen

                Bleed into the mind.

Some will bleed forever

                Others leave a deep scar.

Lives have disappeared,

                Homes smashed.

Possessions lost,

                Stolen by a Russian Czar.

What help can we give

                To those who have

                                Been hurt so much?

Who mourn their loved ones?

Who can heal

                Wounds cut so deep

                                Into the tissues of brains?

Where do we find the funds?

Opher – 26.4.2022

The physical damage is obvious – the destroyed houses, the blown up schools and hospitals, bleeding, broken bodies and heaps of corpses tossed into mass graves.

The physical destruction wrought by war is devastating.

What is not so obvious are the wounds cut into peoples’ minds.

Those grieving for destroyed lives, for loved ones killed or maimed, for what should have been. Those who have lost so much.

What cannot be seen are the traumas created by witnessing the horrors, seeing death, seeing the dead bodies of those you have loved.

These images cannot be erased. These fears and grief cannot be comforted away.

These ae the injuries that destroy minds and last a lifetime.

War creates trauma.

Poetry – Minds

Posted on by Opher

Minds

A spider’s web in a gale.

                Tissues in a fire.

                                Glass under the hammer.

                                                A fly on wet paint.

                                                                Egg shells under the boot.

                                                                                A whimper in a hurricane.

Minds are weak;

                Easily shattered,

And can never

                Be put back together.

In the Ukraine

                Putin

                                Is tearing apart

                                                Generations

                                                                Of fragile

                                                                                Minds.

War,

                As with all violence,

                                Creates trauma,

                                                Destroys minds,

                                                                Wrecks lives.

Tattered remnants,

                Quietly coping.

Opher – 3.3.2022

My father served in the Second World War, my grandfather in the First. They never spoke about their experiences.

It affected the whole of their lives.

They were the lucky ones.

Many came back from war physically undamaged but mentally and emotionally destroyed.

It is not only war, any violence, any trauma, can have the same effect. It eats into our fragile psyche and rips us apart.

Humans are nowhere near as resilient as we all believe. Society is full of damaged people.

Poetry – Eggshell minds

Posted on by Opher

Eggshell minds

We stand so strong and put on a show;

So hard, so strong, so resolute.

So brave against the stars.

So easily shattered,

So delicate.

Our eggshell minds

Are housed in

Shelters

Of electric blancmange

That cannot resist

The forces that stir

Their currents.

Experiences and sights

That embed themselves

In the motherboard

To short-circuit

And sear the

Tranquillity of our thoughts

And dreams.

For we are not so brave, so strong

Or resolute

As we believe.

Blancmange is too soft,

So very soft,

So delicate,

That the shocks curdle our being.

Opher 5.6.2019

I’ve met so many people whose minds are twisted by the experiences of life. The things they’ve seen, done or taken have scarred the soft jelly of their brains.

We are not so strong and tough. Violence and abuse leaves scars that do not heal. It only takes one experience to send us reeling.

Life is a disturbance.

War, violence, trauma, abuse – permanent damage.

I fear we are all traumatised!

People are very fragile.

Posted on by Opher

brain

Human beings have very powerful minds and emotions. I used to believe that we are incredibly resilient. I no longer believe that.

I believe we are all incredibly fragile and easily damaged.

My long experience of working with children and observing adults have made me extremely aware that many of us are broken and our response is often aggression, hatred and violence.

I used to say to the teaching staff at my school that there was no such thing as a bad kid. Their bad behaviour was the result of having been damaged by their experiences; our job was to mend them.

I have seen close up the effects of bereavement, bullying, racism, divorce and abuse. The victims often either withdraw or become aggressive.

When I was a child at school a number of my teachers were ex-soldiers. They were not only violent aggressive bullies but they seemed to hate us.

I cannot begin to imagine the effect war has on the fragile human psyche. My father would not talk about it. My grandfather would not mention it. But I have met numerous highly confused and violent veterans; one of whom was a murderer.

Around the world at the moment we have millions of people traumatised by war. Some are victims and some are perpetrators. I cannot begin to imagine how some of them ever manage to sleep again. It is no wonder that some are either heartless fiends and others are traumatised wrecks. If you are going to saw someone’s head off at some point in the future that will haunt your waking moments and turn your sleep to nightmares. It catches up with you.

Human beings are fragile. The little things send us off the rails; the big things drive us into psychosis.