WAR TRAUMA
War drags men to the very edge,
Where they must shut completely down
All emotion, all caring, all feeling
Just to survive the experience.
Impervious to pain, suffering and death,
They blankly assimilate war's horror
And continue on as human shells
Who have experienced too much death,
Who have seen too much destruction,
Old men in young boys bodies
Who will never…be quite the same,
For they can never, ever
Come all the way back…
Some do not even try,
War has destroyed their known world,
Replacing it with the unknown.
Where they have bottled up
Reserved, suppressed, depressed
Their survival secrets
A whacked world stilted, tilted,
That has completely turned over,
It so hard just to hang on to.
Others, simply topple over the edge
To remain there forever.
In the poem written about the Vietnam War it is very deep,intense and dramatic. It describes how war leaves a permanent mark on everyone. The title (War Trauma) describes how dramatic war can be and all of the challenges that occur. The poem shifts from different perspectives of each solider. To me this poem means to me that each solider in the war has experienced something different in war that effects them in different ways. The tone that the writer uses a sad and he sounds very concerned. The person who wrote it was in the war so the poem is very realistic and describes the trauma of war.
War drags men to the very edge,
Where they must shut completely down
All emotion, all caring, all feeling
Just to survive the experience.
Impervious to pain, suffering and death,
They blankly assimilate war's horror
And continue on as human shells
Who have experienced too much death,
Who have seen too much destruction,
Old men in young boys bodies
Who will never…be quite the same,
For they can never, ever
Come all the way back…
Some do not even try,
War has destroyed their known world,
Replacing it with the unknown.
Where they have bottled up
Reserved, suppressed, depressed
Their survival secrets
A whacked world stilted, tilted,
That has completely turned over,
It so hard just to hang on to.
Others, simply topple over the edge
To remain there forever.
In the poem written about the Vietnam War it is very deep,intense and dramatic. It describes how war leaves a permanent mark on everyone. The title (War Trauma) describes how dramatic war can be and all of the challenges that occur. The poem shifts from different perspectives of each solider. To me this poem means to me that each solider in the war has experienced something different in war that effects them in different ways. The tone that the writer uses a sad and he sounds very concerned. The person who wrote it was in the war so the poem is very realistic and describes the trauma of war.