Veterans Voices

 What Veterans Voices Means to Me

A few years ago, some online poetic friends I have never met urged me to submit my work to Veterans Voices. I had never been one for submissions, but considered it another growth step in my later life. Now, I am delighted to have made the choice to participate. For a long time, I had lived with the physical damage of a mortar assault, as well as PTSD and panic attack syndrome, including the remorse, shame, fears and anger that accompany them, and cancer from Agent Orange exposure. I had lived like this for decades, until I finally accepted treatment, which provided me with coping skills and the ability to more openly and positively express myself. It was followed by additional personal and spiritual development in what some might refer to as churches or spiritual centers, sort of a graduate school after therapy. One side benefit was a dramatic improvement in my writing, which became more focused, truthful and honest. When one is as imperfect as I, it takes a lot of guts to try to spread hope, inspire faith, promote love, go for broke on what matters to Spirit above. It can be breathtaking, even alarming, to listen to one’s echoes, consult one’s memories. It might even be surprising to recall that which was forgotten, admit that it was suppressed. It can be staggering to say out loud, those words based in reality, ones rooted in blood and bone, in heart and mind. And so one writes, in order to discover what one does not know how to say. It is necessary to go to the center, to the hot, steaming core, to get face to face with grief, sorrow, love, to ask oneself, what am I not willing to reveal, and if I reveal it, share it with others who understand, how will it contribute? Will my words make a difference? As I write this acknowledgment today, I have become a man of many words, but I don’t have enough of them to adequately express my gratitude for the existence of Veterans Voices, a safe place for Veterans of all stripes to participate, a haven in which to continue to grow, alongside my sisters and brothers.

What Veterans Voices Gave Me

Through Veterans Voices 

I was blessed with

important personal choices,

essay, art, photo or poem,

of current thoughts and feelings,

and of memories long gone.

I went there to submit,

but then I started to read,

and then I read some more,

fulfilling more than ego need

Seeing the wondrous minds at work there,

the brilliance of their concepts, laid bare,

their surprise endings often haunting,

sometimes a little daunting.

I’m don’t think I’d call it jealousy,

but I do experience ink envy.

I have to wonder why I’d bother,

with so many marvelous pieces each issue,

a million beautiful words in play,

why should I write, submit?

What’s one more poet have to say?

I tell lots of stories, so

that’s no problem, and

it’s too late now to worry about

too much exposure, fear,

regrets or even doubt.

Ultimately, there is only one choice.

I will write because I have a voice.

I will write for the pure expression of life,

about my joys and fears and hopes,

certainly about love,

of the Grace some refer to 

as from somewhere else above.

I will write, inspired by the writing of others,

especially by Veterans, my sisters and brothers,

by the natural world in constant motion,

by speechless days at the nearby ocean,

by the sun and the moon,

their setting and rising,

their colors and moods

sometimes surprising.

I will audaciously write of

great hopes, of grand schemes,

daring to be the artist

of my very own dreams.

Not really fearless,

not in any way,

I will write to discover what

I don’t otherwise know how to say.

As age has flattened me,

as humility has claimed me,

I now write more about Spirit,

about oneness, about transition.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I’m simply sure I will write to be near it.