{"id":714,"date":"2015-09-21T00:06:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T05:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/?p=714"},"modified":"2015-09-21T00:06:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T05:06:48","slug":"honey-ash-and-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/2015\/09\/21\/honey-ash-and-clay\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey, Ash and Clay"},"content":{"rendered":"

READ WITH CAUTION WAR CONTENT: Dear readers, war has brutalities so dark that most people believe these things do not occur.\u00a0 Some of our servicemen have been severely scarred physically and mentally, yet mental care is the hardest thing to get.\u00a0 The waiting list for a Vietnam Vet was five years until the scandal took place.\u00a0 This poem has very graphic details of torture and rape of a man that was detained.\u00a0 Our men that are reconnaissance or surveillance perform a duty that is needed but if lost behind enemy lines they might be labeled as a deserter, or worse, but hopefully they are missing in action. Some are detained to be released after enduring abuses that are denied, some are traded for, and sadly many die.\u00a0 Pray for your servicemen.\u00a0 You never know the burden they carry or what they have been through.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honey, Ash, and Clay<\/span><\/h2>\n

Honey, ash, and clay explain the feelings that have swept me away,<\/span><\/p>\n

A lucid dream of prediction crept into my mental images that day,<\/span><\/p>\n

Honey is the taste of life that came to me as a gift before I went away,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ash is what remains of me after time has ravaged the man made of clay,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Subtraction may be used in numbers but I know it fulfills lifeline retraction,<\/span><\/p>\n

As clay turns to ash brought by a transgression does honey become fiction,<\/span><\/p>\n

Long ago honey was but a dream of clay brought by love\u2019s hopeful action,<\/span><\/p>\n

As blood turns to ash, mud of blood flows no life with darkness the reaction,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Men of war returning as aged children have lost a light only naivety brought,<\/span><\/p>\n

Youth\u2019s virginity once lost, creates aged men because of the war they fought,<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon return most are faceless creatures of despair with hope and clarity lost,<\/span><\/p>\n

The persona seen is memorized traits mirroring what was before war\u2019s cost,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A taste of honey brought prewar attributes upon return to some such as I,<\/span><\/p>\n

Many heroes made of clay spurned by our nation chose instead to simply die,<\/span><\/p>\n

One figurine of clay has horrible mental disfigurement unseen by the eye,<\/span><\/p>\n

Disguised by love\u2019s facade, it has struggled to control the low and the high,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Three weeks hanging from the cliff of \u201cno return\u201d changed this man inside,<\/span><\/p>\n

He carries shame for crying mama or that he wasn\u2019t one of those that died,<\/span><\/p>\n

Psychiatrists are heartless characters meant to keep the numbers satisfied,<\/span><\/p>\n

One man\u2019s wrong decision has brought too many young men a life denied,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a scattered mess within my mind that needs execution by design,<\/span><\/p>\n

If only the debris of war\u2019s mental torture were a peanut surgeons could find,<\/span><\/p>\n

Scarred by pain of men\u2019s transgression left in the whole of my tortured mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

Each bowel movement brings the memory as if it was one they could assign,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A bat with a span of two feet contained in a one foot box fighting to be freed,<\/span><\/p>\n

When caged for so long, once escape comes, it\u2019s in a fury with blinding speed,<\/span><\/p>\n

After running free, containment is torture for he trained to perform a dark deed,<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a disgusting room of anguish hidden within my mind to never recall in need,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Toe tags and dog tags fill the stretches of things I have prayed to be long dead,<\/span><\/p>\n

As pain brought by remnants of injuries given me return to life in flesh and head,<\/span><\/p>\n

My preference, if truth be known, is to chain the beast for execution to be dead,<\/span><\/p>\n

In the darkness of death it should remain with no options of \u201cor\u201d with no instead,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Too often I\u2019ve crawled from the belly of the creature that envelops me from inside,<\/span><\/p>\n

Too often I have fired bullets wrapped as prayers into its form in hopes it had died,<\/span><\/p>\n

Too often sins brought from this darkness have regressed my spirit, it\u2019s undenied,<\/span><\/p>\n

Too often others have reached into my soul\u2019s sewage allowing it to be actified,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In war decisions are made that may seem insane until truly thought through,<\/span><\/p>\n

Should a man die in forecast of what he fears the creature inside could do,<\/span><\/p>\n

If the battle is lost by another\u2019s ill will or inability to calm a beast that\u2019s taboo,<\/span><\/p>\n

The response is critical, be it defeat by captivity or neutralization by drugs, too,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are many things some men are asked to endure while some have none,<\/span><\/p>\n

Of endurance of pain I feel I have done my part, although I\u2019m not number one,<\/span><\/p>\n

From my first recon tour to just before my discharge extreme pain had begun,<\/span><\/p>\n

The brutality of detainment was so horrible I was fortunate my release was won,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internal bleeding for twenty-five years has brought episodes of extreme pain,<\/span><\/p>\n

Often so incredibly bad I left my body and if not for one I wouldn\u2019t remain,<\/span><\/p>\n

Passing bloody stones of kidneys, liver has blood clots too, yet not of my brain,<\/span><\/p>\n

Stand in my shoes with no excuse in hand and it will leave you with a dark stain,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lord won\u2019t let me go home this way, I fear the gate will remain closed,<\/span><\/p>\n

In the darkness of night with ignition I fear the darkest side will be exposed,<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the calming of the hulk it is with peace the creature becomes disposed,<\/span><\/p>\n

Siamese twins have options at times when one has to die as it is proposed,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is my mind lost, mired in a bog of darkness? I\u2019m so weak of body, no brawn,<\/span><\/p>\n

If only the beast within could be gone with incision, ostracized and be gone,<\/span><\/p>\n

Would nightmares of war that torture the mind and heart finally move along?<\/span><\/p>\n

As clay is forced to endure without honey more ash replaces what was strong,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was physically brutalized and raped by the cruelest of ill-intentioned men,<\/span><\/p>\n

Cried in darkness as I laid in my own feces waiting for the next wrong to begin,<\/span><\/p>\n

The sensation or lack of feelings that remain when darkness departs my mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

Leaves an emptiness that makes me feel forever broken and emotionally blind,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I struggle for days to find the clay I am, rather than ash that remains behind,<\/span><\/p>\n

Honey is not a long forgotten taste once known, oh sweet honey I must find,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ash, clay, and honey.\u00a0 Has the order of my existence been changed inside,<\/span><\/p>\n

The ability to rhyme is struggling suddenly, has a part of my mind died,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What has brought this change in my mind, is confusion stopping \u2014\u2014\u2014?<\/span><\/p>\n

If it is so, ash has proven too much for clay to counter on this awful day,<\/span><\/p>\n

Flesh is made of clay yet we become ash if cremation is our chosen way,<\/span><\/p>\n

Honey, honey is the sweet nectar of life, taken from plants grown in clay,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Man so needs honey, desperately when honey represents the love word said,<\/span><\/p>\n

What kind of animal am I, man is said to be animal, let that portion be dead,<\/span><\/p>\n

Again I have failed, allowing direction to be swayed by meager words said,<\/span><\/p>\n

Has honey, sweet honey, been lost because \u201cshe\u201d is the honey in my head,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am lost, I am sought, I am in search of me, words written sometimes cure,<\/span><\/p>\n

The word is strong when written, but when words of the heart it must be sure,<\/span><\/p>\n

In desperation I crawl from the hole created in search of honey\u2019s sweet touch,<\/span><\/p>\n

I pray I have not isolated the one person I adore, the honey I love so very much,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I must remain in an abyss of isolation please place near her photo to see,<\/span><\/p>\n

I will weep tears so plentiful lakes will rise up where valleys of clay use to be,<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing I have to hide away will bury me one day unless sweet honey is near,<\/span><\/p>\n

If just ash and clay remains without honey I will have entered my greatest fear.<\/span><\/p>\n

The end.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ WITH CAUTION WAR CONTENT: Dear readers, war has brutalities so dark that most people believe these things do not occur.\u00a0 Some of our servicemen have been severely scarred physically and mentally, yet mental care is the hardest thing to get.\u00a0 The waiting list for a Vietnam Vet was five years until the scandal took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poemsforpatti.com\/love\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}