Why War Poetry is Like Rape Poetry

I have thought, ever since I began reading and writing poetry that poetry written by the warriors who return from battle and the poetry written by those who have experienced rape are eerily similar. This phenomenon was referenced in a piece on This American Life by a person who experienced rape and war and suffered PTSD. Listen here when it is available.

I am referencing other works in this poem as well:

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

Daughterfuckers by me

Why War Poetry is Like Rape Poetry

Aside from the obvious

rape is a weapon in war
and a very cost-effective
high-yield weapon, at that

Aside from that

there is the trauma
the left-overs
the night-sweat screaming

And I am talking about the warriors here

not the populace
not the collateral damage
the war kind or the rape kind

‘cause I am a warrior, too, you know

ordered, without control
marching where and when told
my body not my own

I read Here, Bullet and I see myself

perched on a housetop
peering through scopes at the enemy
not sure who he was, is

I write Daughterfuckers and I see a soldier

told to suck it up
hiding the traumatic pain
wondering where to put the anger

It’s a wonder we survive at all

when we do, if we do
and the words we write-verboten
who wants to hear about that, anyway

Studying Music after Molestation

he would seduce me after my music lesson
offering attention and trauma in unequal measures
I would play scales for Blanche
and then pay the piper for him

Tommie would wonder why I was so ungrateful
stopping the lessons so soon
so late

my sister would have loved to play longer
but she didn’t have the advantages I was offered
lucky me

now I sit in a classroom listening to piano concertos
and fugues
I relate

hiding in the clefs and trebles are the notes
I recorded so deeply
this sonata’s third movement is especially chilling

I study music appreciation
tone, pitch, rhythm, timbre
all are here and now
it’s the history that trips me up

Deserving of Justice

I am no big fan of the death penalty. I think poor people get executed and rich people get away with it. DNA testing has proved we were about to execute some people innocent of the crime they were set to die for. I am appalled that we could be so wrong.

If we have the death penalty and are going to use it, we need to have some rules for who, when and in what cases we use it. If the rule is that we don't impose the death penalty for any crime where someone was not killed, then so be it. I think that is a reasonable way of thinking.

Our Supreme Court has overruled the use of the death penalty for perpetrators of child rape. They are concerned that we should not use capital punishment for anything other than when a victim is killed.

Oh, except for treason and terrorism and ....

Talk to a 5 year old who has been ripped open by a man whose penis is as big as her forearm. That, Big Nine, is treasonous and terroristic.

I have no problem with putting down the kind of animal who would do that. I can't imagine why anyone else would.

*This post is also on my other blog, Prodigal Aspersions.

A Cold Day...

Some of you only read this blog. I wrote on my main blog about Rape and reactions. Here is the link. A Cold Day... There is a link at the end to a poem.

My Whole Life

How I Prepared for a Poetry Reading
Domestic Violence Awareness Month, 2007

Crying in bed
Was just practice
for the tears they shed.

Dodging bullets was a drill
for weaving through a crowd
to stand before the one woman
I know wants to say something
but may not have the feet to walk.

I ate too much then for comfort.
I can work the room to dispense some,
skipping the cheese and crackers.

Worrying that he would kill us this time
prepared me to take into consideration
the fragile soul who is here somewhere.
I look around the room as I speak
and I spot her.

She is why I am here,
why after the journaling and the therapy
and the hunting for a peaceful spot
to live out the life I have created that
I came out three times this month
to speak before a crowd,
not my favorite Saturday pastime.

She does not write poetry
or hides it at home if she does.
People think she is ok.
She is a great employee.
She brings cake to the sick.
She laughs like anyone else,
but inside there is a crime scene
where soul murder has taken place.

See right there, the fast swallowing,
her eyebrows flicker when I talk about his hands.
She won’t fidget, but I see.
I know the signs from the inside out.

She is why I am here.
My whole life has prepared me
to speak to her.
Despite it all, I made it here,
loud mouth intact, still laughing,
thriving in my chosen spot,
never afraid to lay my head.
It was almost worth it.
Today, here, safe and whole
I can see there is more healing to do
and it is not mine this time.

The Woman in the Parking Lot
After Poetry Therapy

I can’t say
the things you say,
but they are true for me.

I had an un…
The words catch in her throat.

I had an uncle, too.
I don’t know how you do it.
Don’t stop, we need you.

And bright tears spill
out of her
onto the asphalt.

Can I hug you?

Always ask if they don’t.
Always ask.
Because they were tampered with,
bothered, touched, hurt,
all the euphemisms for soul murder,
so ask first.

And I do hug her and she
smells like hope and fear,
feels like promise and despair.

She will be skittish now.
She has said what she has not
to anyone else alive.
(three of us in this secret now)
I will be her first.

Don’t stop. We need you.

I do it for me and for you,
you know.
Once I couldn’t speak

but I wrote poems, lots of poems.
You keep writing, too.

Jo

Jo said she was sorry, that her words meant nothing. I have lived for weeks on the words of someone who cares. Words mean everything. Thanks, Jo.

Words for Us Girls

Whisper I love you
Say I adore the way your mouth looks
Come here, beautiful

Here, let me get that
You have waited long enough
You deserve better

I am so glad I am here
You make me feel safe
Hold me

It's a girl
She's perfect

I just had to tell someone
I just had to tell you

Thanks
You're welcome
Praise GOD!

Thanks for saying it
out loud
It happened to me and I can't say it
out loud

I am not going anywhere

You will get better
You look so happy
You smile all the time now

Even when you cry,
you look beautiful

There, there
I've got you...I've got you.

Bad Daddy, Big Daddy

They say you were a wonderful man.
Dead at 53,
leaving a wife and
children.

Do they count the 5-year-old
you were flying to meet?
So sweet of you
to bring her a doll,
to teach her maybe,
the ways of a baby explorer,
since you have "done it plenty."

"always gentle and loving;
not to worry;
no damage ever;
no rough stuff ever;
I only like it soft and nice"

Pillar of the community,
Coach,
Assitant U S Attorney,
lover of children,
I commend you into the hands of GOD,
who also loves children.

**************

"A federal prosecutor charged with traveling from Florida to Michigan to have sex with a 5-year-old girl committed suicide on Friday in prison, his lawyer said.

At the time of his arrest, the authorities said, Mr. Atchison, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., was carrying a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings and petroleum jelly." NY Times

The NY Times Article

North West Florida Daily News

The Criminal Complaint

The Indictment

Doing Yard Work

I have mowed this yard for years.

I know that there are turns and twists

around the corner of the house

that you cannot see from here.

If you mow this yard, you may choose

not to go to the end of the daisies

and then pull back

where the tulips will come up in the spring.

You may mow this yard

and retrace each line

without turning around and I

always turned around at each end.

If you mow this yard, I can

watch you and call out advice

and encouragement. I can

pick up sticks so they won't

spin out from under to

catch you on the leg.

But if you mow this yard,

dear sister, please know that if will be

your muscles that push the machinery.

It is you who will sweat and curse the sun.

It is you who must do the work.

But I am here, in the yard.

I have mowed this grass many times.

I offer you iced tea

and words of encouragement.

Why I am a Better Victim's Advocate Than You are a Mother

What did you think when I told you
that he pushed aside my child's size 4 underwear
in order to plunge his man's size 9 hand into me?

Were you humming to yourself,
distracted by the ingredients to
some cake you were about to bake?

How long did you study on the facts
before you pushed them to the back
of your mind,
"I wish I didn't know that."

Did you think I would relent some day
and allow you to talk of him in chipper voice
as my daughter and I sat at your table
eating bowls of ice cream?

And when she had grown to a woman
and you did speak of him in pretty tones,
did you know she would shake her head
and hold me as I cried,
apologizing to me as though
she were the mommy?

How many miles have you traveled with him
in the same car on trips to see relatives
whose own little girls were in danger of his
special kind of love?

What in the hell were you thinking?

Did the years you spent letting Daddy
rain terror down on our heads
inure you to the pain in my guts
as I told you your brother is a child molester?

Because for the life of me,
for the very sanity of me,
I cannot imagine doing the same.

I want to be your little girl,
but you make it difficult
to shell peas on your porch
or make coffee in your kitchen
knowing you may one day go too far
and, against my one rule,
bring him face to face with me.

I have tummy aches at holidays
knowing you will let slip bits of information
about him
like other mothers drop hints
about presents.

So instead of the safety of your arms
I seek the voice of those who have
their own Uncle Mike
or have struggled under a gag
as a stranger has laid them bare
because when I listen, it goes like this...

First, I say I am sorry that this has happened.

Then I tell her that she didn't deserve it,
no matter what,
no matter where,
no matter who.

And I smile a little,
because it is not funny,
but no one deserves to see a frowning face
when they tell you about their rape.

I hold out my hand sometimes
for the ones who aren't about to jump
out of their skins.
Sometimes they take it.

I listen. I murmur soft words to them.

I don't bawl my eyes out,
because it is not about me,
but I don't try to hide the tears
that gather in the corners of my eyes.

I tell them the process is slow
or fast.
That she will heal and be fine
or have lingering fear.

I make no promises I am not ready to keep.

I play by her rules.
It gives her back
the control
some bastard
snatched.

When I am the advocate for a victim,
she need never wonder if I will wait
until she is distracted
to offer her a second helping of pain
instead of a tissue.

No More Valentines, Please (a prose poem)

The color could be covered, but the swelling could not. She is a lumpy woman; bumps on her head and sags at her hips, the one from him directly, the other from him through his kids. His kids, they are, even without his taglines on them. She is the page for his byline. Some writer, he, inscribing lines across her cheekbones. His generous use of punctuation leaves the reader with no doubt as to where the limits lay.

He loved her thoroughly yesterday, declaring it so in a long hail of sonnets ended with the most exquisite haiku. Something about “tiny pearl teeth”, she just can’t remember now exactly what. That happens more now. His words escape her mind. She drifts about, his muse. It is only when she undresses that she is able to read his love notes. Down her arm, inner thigh, circling umbilicus. The special poem he inscribed deep, deep inside where the pink of her bears witness to his first valentine. He cut it out himself with the knife he keeps in his right front pocket.