Survivors Poetry

Night
(April 1993)

To speak of secrets,
whispering voices.
Dark shuttered rooms,
muffled, nocturnal noises.
Footsteps and silhouettes,
shadows of mounting gloom.
Guttural cries, silenced by,
The heavy weight of doom.
Rancid smells of a furtive hell,
The pungent breath of night.
Red faces, staring eyes,
Obscure all signs of light.

Comfort?
(September 1992)

If death did come to me
Would he lay my soul to rest
Would his hand be the friend
I’ve many times thought to test
Would he grant me the peace
My tortured mind has craved
Would suffering cease to be
If I finally chose the grave

Would the lifeline he has given
To survive the terror and despair
Be a key in my mortality to
Give me freedom from the fear
Would the comfort I have drawn
During the desperate times alone
In the ultimate experience
Become my fantasy,
A loving,  peaceful home.

The Wolf
(March 1994)

The wolf howls its haunting cry
Piercing the still of night
She stands alone on a distant hill
Evading all human sight.

She cries for her young
The desertion of her pack
Her mate quietly dying beside her
Deep gashes in his back

Man has been and gone now
Crushing all in his path
With hostile rifles and evil blades
He has slaughtered in the dark

Battle torn and weary
She lays down by her mate
But unable to provide much comfort
For his pain filled wounds agape

Tiring now and closing his eyes
He grasps a final breath
In her helplessness and torment
She wonders what hope is left

Ghosts
(March 1996)

Spirits rise hauntingly
Like echoes in an empty room
Visions from a distant past
Awakening in their tombs
Unexpected visitors
Always taken by surprise
Draped in a cloak of love they come
Their familiar disguise

The Sunnyside of hell
(April 1993)

The wind gushes through me
And touches the trees beyond
Like a mirage in the desert
Once upon it, it has gone

Invisible, unless spoken to
Only reflecting what they see
I have no substance without them
A chameleon, I will be what you want
Me to be.
They are my eyes, my sense of sight
Only through them can I see this world
In a different light

If only I could be where others dwell
Outside of the darkness
On the sunnyside of hell.

Therapist (Relating to a particular Therapeutic Community-now closed)
(January 1993)

I wish I could show you,
the little girl
Who shrinks in fear,
when her name is heard
Who would like to tell
of her sorrowful tale
But sits there quietly,
when you speak her name.
She watches you,
from a distant place,
Lost and alone,
In a world you’ll never know, nor face.
With wounds ever bleeding,
Body always soiled
Barely out of infancy,
But bedraggled, frightened and old.
Frequently she cries,
deep wails of despair,
But only rage, her protector
Let’s you know that she is there.

She dreads your attention,
You’ll see terror in her eyes
Instead of talking of her woes,
She will run to escape and hide.
Always clinging to her one belief,
That she was not to blame
But the slightest hint of disapproval
And belief is washed away.

She mistakes you for her parents,
Incestuous with their lust
A broken child, with desolate eyes,
A shattered, severed, trust.
She wishes you could understand
When you ask of her each day
The torment she goes through
Just to be with you this way.

So look a little further Therapist,
Open your eyes and see,
Inside this weak, ineffectual adult.
Look closer……see me.

Poems by Mandy