Poems, Quotes, Sayings & Other Creative Stuff.

[doglegg]

Dale I hope your sleep is better now. Very deep poem.

[Quick Steel]

Dale, Your poem has left me sort of speechless. Difficult to articulate my feelings about it. But gotta try. It's profoundly good; powerful and stirring. Intelligently conveyed, sharply observed. Going to stop here except to say that your writing, like all successful writing, moved me. I envy your talent. Thank you so very much for sharing this.

[orvet]

Thanks guys I appreciate the encouragement. I have more I have written over the years. I will share some from time to time and I appreciate the feedback, especially the encouragement.

[KLJ77]

I thoroughly enjoyed your poem, Dale. You brought out the essence of mankind when they are directed by the wrong influences and depicted them on the horses of Revelation. You portrayed the innocence of those who were in the path of these horsemen and conveyed the destruction left behind. Your insight of 40 years ago is just as real and truthful today. Thank you for sharing your feelings and thoughts of past moments. I look forward to any other writings you may choose to share.

[dlr110]

I'm somewhat without words. It's a great poem Dale and it brought up some emotions and memories from a long time ago. I would love to read more of your work.

[orvet]

To put this poem in context I will share a little of what was going on when I wrote it. In the process of getting a divorce to a woman I had been married to for almost 24 years. About this time I took a job and my commute was about 2-1/2 to 3 hours each way. I was in my car 5 to 6 hours a day. But the time I spent in the car was time I spent with the Lord. I said, "Okay Jesus, I believe you want to talk to me and you want me to talk to you. So you set right there in that passenger seat and we can talk." And we did talk a lot!
The following year the marriage ended and so did the job with a promotion moving me back closer to home. Any of you who have been through a divorce likely know how painful can be, especially when it's a long-term marriage and there are children and grandchildren involved. It was one of the most stressful and painful times in my life and yet those five or six hours a day that I spent commuting with Jesus kept my sanity and may be a better person in the end.

Hope you enjoy the poem.


I Almost Said Enough


I almost said enough Lord,
I couldn’t stand the pain.
But then my eyes went to the cross,
To see your Son there slain.

My trials & hurts though mighty,
were nothing to compare,
To the pain you bore upon that night,
As Jesus hung up there.

He endured the cross for my sake,
He had nothing there to gain,
But he bled & died in my stead,
So I might live again.

I look back upon the pain I feel,
The pittance I must bear,
Again my eyes are lifted up,
I see Jesus hanging there.

“O ye of little faith” he said,
As he hung upon the tree,
“No one comes unto the Father,
Unless he comes by me.”

“The servant’s no greater than his master,
In each and every way,
They hounded me & they’ll hound you,
From day to day to day.”

The pain will still continue,
It goes on without relief.
I cry “O God I do believe,
Help Thou my unbelief.”

Dale Vincent 7/8/97

[KLJ77]

I've walked in those shoes of divorce too, Dale. I know of what you speak and the inner pain you felt. It's not an easy burden to bear. I had to humble myself immensely and turn to the Lord for guidance via His Word & prayer. So your words in your poem struck the same chords in my life as it did yours.

Thank You again for sharing such a deep & personal trial of your life.

[KLJ77]

Many years ago, when I came to Christ and invited Him into my heart as Lord & Savior, I didn't have a strong group of other Christians to help me along, to grow properly in the Lord. I was but a babe in Christ, ignorant and unlearned, trying to take in the 'meat' of God's Word, without savoring the 'milk' of His Word first. That menu didn't end well...and I struggled for years with self guilt and doubt. Later on, I put pen to paper and wrote this poem about myself, along with the feelings and worldly perspective I identified with. After writing this, I eventually came across Romans Chapter 7, where the Apostle Paul himself gave testimony to the struggles he too had when dealing with his inner self. This was a major turning point for me in my life...for if Paul dealt with the same issues I was contending with, after all he had been through, then I suppose this was my own Damascus Road experience.

Maybe, in some way, these words relate to inner struggles others have had also. I trust you will be blessed. Amen.



“I KNOW WHO I AM”

I know who I am
Yet I don’t really know
The person inside
Seems to just come and go

It’s sometimes confusing
To see who I am
As hard as I try
I just don’t understand

The thoughts of the person
I know I should be
Keeps fighting against that
Which is not really me

I’m frightened to discover
As I look deep within
The truth of reality
Nothing but sin

I battle against that
Which I should not be
But the flesh is strong
And I become the other me

The two different people
I know I’ve become
Rages inside me
Which one will succumb

One must be stronger
Yet, why can’t I see
That the one I desire
Is not meant for me

For the one I do choose
Is the one I disdain
And the joy of the moment
Brings me down again

And the battle rages
On deep in my soul
Constantly keeping me
From reaching my goal

For the person I truly
Have a desire to be
Seems like a vapor
I can no longer see

And the harder I try
To become who I please
I become who I’m not
And become it with ease

And the miserable wretch
Whom I see is me
Will continue to battle
Against who I should be

For this life is not easy
But it’s easy to tell
If I don’t get it right
My life will be hell

But there is One
Of whom I do know
That will guide and direct
If I would only let go

For In His Power
I can find sweet release
If my eyes would just focus
On the Prince of Peace

For in my heart
My choice is to please
As I humble before Him
And go to my knees

It’s then that I realize
My struggle becomes nil
And His Power flows in me
As I yield to His will

Only then do I know
Who I truly can be
The way He desired
As He walks daily with me

And now the battle
Is much easier to fight
As I deny the darkness
And stay in the Light

I know who I am now
And who I can be
For the person Inside
I know now…is not me

© Ken W. Littlejohn

[dlr110]

Dale I've never been down that road, I've never felt the pain of divorce, but I am profoundly touched by your words.
Only someone that has experienced such hardships can fully understand and express it in such words. Thank you
my friend for sharing your words and your heart. God's Blessings.

[dlr110]

Very good Ken. Before coming to the Lord and receiving His gift of salvation I think we all go through those same struggles within ourselves. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, feelings and words. You and Dale are very good at expressing your hearts in words we all can understand. God Bless you brother.

[orvet]

Thank you David, I hope there are others that can benefit from my experience and my words just like Ken's words and experience in his poem.

Ken, that's an amazing poem I could have written one very similar, so it was especially meaningful to me.
One of the neat things about poetry is that it is unique to the individual who writes it. This type of poetry especially is built on life experiences, it is not fictional it is almost autobiographical. Great work my friend!
One of the verses I find most comforting in Scripture is Roman 7:24: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

I also really enjoyed the fact that you wrote it in rhyme!
Thank you my friend for sharing your heart.

[KLJ77]

Thank you, David & Dale, for your kind comments. I appreciate your insight.

[TPK]

Dale & Ken those are both very touching poems. Thanks for sharing those deepest of thoughs & feelings with us.

[KLJ77]

Thank you, Tom.

[orvet]

Dale & Ken those are both very touching poems. Thanks for sharing those deepest of thoughs & feelings with us.

Thank you Tom.



This poem was long time in development. I worked on it probably 25 years or more to get it to flow properly.
This poem is about war, specifically Vietnam. If you're a veteran of any war, please consider your own mental health before reading this.

Writing about Vietnam was a way that I was able to get my head around what happened and turn from being a bitter person who really hated this country into one who would go to war all over again and die for it if necessary. And I know now what all that entails and I would still do it because I love our nation and our Constitution. Our nation is not perfect, it is composed of people and people are not perfect. We have the unique idea of rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. That is never been tried before in history. The times we live in and the events happening now may well determine whether that unique concept of of the people, by the people and for the people will continue. I believe our current political environment and division our country may be a test: "Testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." – Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg 19 November, 1863


The first stanza of this poem was probably written in the mid-1970s. I headed to it a little at a time. In the 1980s I worked with a group call Pointman Ministries. Was a group of Christian veterans reaching out to other veterans. I met a lot of broken people that were in the process of healing. And I saw the miracles of healing that can only come from Jesus Christ! That time helped me prepare for the last 10 years of my work life as a Veterans Representative for the State of Oregon and four years of working in a VA Vet Center with the veteran clients in the Incarcerated Veterans Program. About 55% of my clients had a prison record and probably 70% of them had PTSD. It was one of the most humbling honors in my life to work with these people and in a small way to continue that to this day.

The story in this poem is not all my story, though part of it is. Many of the people here are composites of two or three people I have known.
I was not a grunt in Vietnam, I never had to crawl through a rice paddy in real life, but it seems I've crawled through a thousand miles of rice patties in my dreams.

I think the dreams are part of most veterans experience when they return home from war.
I don't think it matters which war, The Global War on Terror, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon (a good friend survived the Marine barracks in Beirut, 1983), Bosnia, Somalia, Vietnam, Korea World War II, even World War I. I have known and talked with veterans that served in all of these wars, the dreams seem to be a pretty common occurrence among veterans. The effect of war it's not unique to Americans.
War is very personal, and it leaves a person changed. Some change a little bit some people change a lot and sadly there are many who never come home. But the saddest thing are those who come home in body alone but their minds remains captive.

If you're a veteran and you experience these dreams, flashbacks, hypervigilance, startle responses, etc,
#1. know you're not alone there are millions of us.
#2 There is help. The VA has programs that help with sleep disorders, with TBI, with PTSD and they are very helpful.
#3 There is healing also. It is through Jesus Christ. By admitting that we're not the macho man that we once thought we were and by relying on him and his strength to get us through all of the crud in life, no matter what the source is, we can find complete restoration and healing. Sometimes it happens instantly, but usually it takes much longer.

If I haven't talked you out of reading the poem by now that I probably won't be able to.
I hope the poem was a blessing to you.


DEMONS

The horror of war is not death and destruction,
Nor rockets and bombs that fall from above;
It lies in the fact of the cruel abduction
Of the hearts and the minds of the men that you love.

I recall with much fondness the new kid named Hadley,
From California down Monrovia way.
He lost both his legs in a muddy rice paddy,
Out on patrol on his very first day.

There were good men and bad, I served with them all,
Fred's now a cripple and Johnson's quite mad;
I watched them fight and I watched them fall,
But bullets can't tell the good from the bad.

Drake couldn't make it when he returned to this shore,
A good man with a gun, he had a good eye;
He fought his last battle in a hard liquor store,
Now he's locked up in some prison to rust and to die.

My friends, and I we sowed death and destruction,
The horrors and sounds we remember so well;
This is the cause of our mental abduction,
Our souls seem haunted by the demons of hell.

These demon are memories of men we saw die,
And memories of men who lived on;
Of death and destruction that rained from the sky,
Though the war has now stopped .......... the demons live on.

The cold sweat at midnight that shatters our slumber,
The scream of the rockets, the burst of the shell;
It holds our minds hostage once more to remember,
The months and the years when we lived in Hell.

Dante's Inferno was never more vexing,
Than the anguish and torment that battle has caused;
Now I set and I ponder and find it perplexing,
That the most evil of evils has broken no laws.


There are minds of our brothers that will never know freedom,
From things they have seen and things that they have done;
Condemned to relive these dark scenes forever,
Caring not if the battle was lost or was won.

The look of the Old Man, he had seen it all,
With a thousand yard stare, his dad’s only son;
He was the oldest of all of my buddies,
This ancient of ancients, his age? - Twenty-one.

No, the horror of war is not death and destruction,
Nor rockets and bombs that fall from above;
It lies in the fact of the cruel abduction,
Of the hearts and the minds of the men that you love.

- Dale Vincent

[KLJ77]

I can't even begin to imagine your experiences, Dale, and the heartbreaking moments you've had with vets who made it home, but came home lost within themselves. It takes a strong person, mentally and spiritually, to minister to men like these and to provide the guidance, assurance and pathways for them to begin healing. Even still, I'm sure you experienced many victories too. Your narrative set the stage for the words in your poem, and I can only try to understand why it took years to complete a writing such as this.

Once again, Thank You for sharing another part of you. Much respect is given...

[WillyCamaro]

I have no words to describe what I'm feeling right now gents, so all I can say is;

[Quick Steel]

Dale.

[TPK]

Outstanding poem Dale! My dad was in Vietnam & I saw the things that he went through so your words really do hit home. Well said!

[KLJ77]

On a lighter note, here's a poem I wrote for a co-worker when she was walking bare-foot and walked into the leg of her coffee table and broke one of her toes. Although she was in pain and discomfort for several weeks, she thoroughly enjoyed the poem and humor. She even had it framed as a reminder.

I'm sure every one of us has, at least one time in our life, done this and can relate quite well to the experience.

Beware...and enjoy!


TOES

We toes are just the little things
That help you walk the line
We make you stable and balanced
I’m sure glad I have mine

We love our socks and stockings
That warms us from the cold
Snuggled up within that shell
Within a cotton or silky fold

But there are times we tend to hurt
When choices you make and choose
We’ll make you scream in dire pain
When you put us in tight shoes

We’ll cry out, “Take them off!”
It’s just too tight of space
If you continue doing this
We’ll put you in your place

But the biggest thing we toes don’t like
When barefoot you tend to go
Is when you stub or hit us hard
You’ll put on quite a show

We toes don’t like the furniture
Coffee table, dresser or chair
So if you don’t have attentiveness
We’ll remind you that we’re bare

And then the shouting, crying comes
When you’re limping around at large
That single itty-bitty toe
Reminds you who’s in charge

And then the desperation starts
The pain is so intense
We’ll make you hop around and round
Acting like you have no sense

And then we’ll add on even more
We’ll make you pay your due
By swelling up and turning red
And then turn black and blue

You may even cause more harm
By breaking one of us
And if that happens, ‘oh stand by’
We’ll make you scream and cuss

So treat us like the kings we are
Even though a lower place
The more you chose to baby us
The better we’ll keep pace

© LJ
*2017*

[dlr110]

Really creative, love it!

[Stanwade]

Boy, there's a lot of really talented poets here. I've enjoyed reading this thread. I never felt comfortable sharing as I'm not much of a poet,
myself. Well I'd like to share this one today. It came to me fast, out of thin air in about 30 minutes. My brother passed away when I was 12 and yesterday was his birthday. I've been going down memory lane yesterday and today because of that and other reasons. So here's what I jotted down in memory of my brother. I think it's a little amateurish, but I like it.... thanks for reading.. Ryan

[KLJ77]

Ryan,

That is an awesome heartfelt rendition of your love and emotions for your brother. And, it's NOT amateurish. When thoughts and words come from the heart, with pure love, you just can't ask for anything better.

Thank you for wanting to share this part of your life with us. You conveyed Love, Joy, Hope, Sincerity, Grief, and Faith, all wrapped up in one poem.

Blessings to you and yours...

[TPK]

Boy, there's a lot of really talented poets here. I've enjoyed reading this thread. I never felt comfortable sharing as I'm not much of a poet,
myself. Well I'd like to share this one today. It came to me fast, out of thin air in about 30 minutes. My brother passed away when I was 12 and yesterday was his birthday. I've been going down memory lane yesterday and today because of that and other reasons. So here's what I jotted down in memory of my brother. I think it's a little amateurish, but I like it.... thanks for reading.. Ryan

Very nice Ryan! Thanks for sharing that with us Buddy! You did a fine job!

For me, poems were always a way to capture or maybe to release the thoughts & feelings of a certain occasion or moment. A way of bringing my emotions to paper.

I read, hear, understand & feel what you said about going down memory lane. John's loss of his father has also sent me down memory lane this past week. Think I'll just leave it at that.

[orvet]

Ken,
Great humor. I have written a few pieces with a little humor by but nothing so epic. Nice work!

Ryan,
That was very touching, emotional and a bit raw, because I too lost a brother when I was young. He was about 4 years old and had severe cerebral palsy. He could never walk or talk but was very smart. I used to play with him and he would try to play too but couldn't control his muscles.

I am looking forward to seeing him in heaven, maybe we can wrestle like we could not do on this earth.

Thank you for sharing about your brother.