Dealing with a cauldron of grief emotions triggers poetic
reflection on past and present, hot and cold rage. What really underlies the fire and ice, the
sound and the fury? In Part I, “UNDERage:
A Father’s Volcano,” the Stress Doc ™ explores a past family drama,
fueled by shameful trauma (a father’s fifteen years of unspoken and likely
unnecessary shock therapy along with radiating effects) within and between
father and son. And what it may take to
break out of such secretive, toxic binds.
In Part II, “, “UNDERage: A Son’s Iceberg,” the Doc captures how “hot
ice” rage numbs personal sadness about love lost and seemingly freezes tenderness
toward a former lover. Prolonged, at some point, this open-wound iceberg rage, shadow-inducing frost
on the surface, blocking out stormy currents below, may pose Shakespearean
danger: There is a tide in the affairs of men (and women) which taken at the flood
leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyages
of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries!
The Stress Doc’s Resiliency Poetry:
UNDERage: A Father’s Volcano – Part I
The Volcano
My father’s rage
Never did fully age.
But now spewing volcanic steam
The gathering rumble toward Edvard Munch’s “Scream.”
Throwing up lava rocks…still
Better than the fears and years
Of mind-numbing shocks.
Me: asking tough
questions
About ECT, alleged bipolarity
About who are you…who me?
He: Keep Off the Brain!
Away from a gated ghetto memory lane.
Forget using my unspoken guilt
To weave your remembrance quilt.
Somehow not scared away
From the smoke and the roar
His vulnerable core
That pushed him to the edge…
A hunger for knowledge
Breaking down my locked recall door.
Poised to commit family sin
Bring on the fire and brim
Stonewall no more
Damn, let go…jump in.
Who would make an ash of himself?
Who cares…No more
stealth!
Two Titans at war
No need to keep score.
But when I didn’t cave
In the face of rant and rave
Despite owning my demons
Of childhood seasons
Oft bowed, muted, and frozen…
Who knows rhyme or reason?
In this fight to the light test
Trauma flashes laid to rest
In that old family grave
Now a born-again battlefield:
The home of the brave!
The red hot button stream
Cries from dad’s endless bad dream:
Hanging on by life’s thread
Medical wires to the head
A secret would hover
So much undercover…
Is it a shock to want to be dead?
Last chance…implode or explode
Just rip off the cathode.
Stop the hand-wringing wrath
Now exposed as a relic –
A dead-end subterranean path.
Wait…a smoldering magma spring
The healing fountain of shame?
(This is no ironic reframe)
For wherever you live – below or above
The dark veil of shame has no name to speak of
But your reborn rite of passage
As you stumble and crawl through that tunnel of love.
His wall of rage starts to shake
A mask that seemed never to break
No match for this father-son quake.
Eyes start to water
Tear down those borders.
Pulling his head to my shoulder
“Let it out”; scream and shout
Eons of self-doubt
It’s a load, but for me not a boulder.
No more need to save face
Wrapped in my embrace
Lava love flowed from my arms:
To purify Pandora Box
wounds
Ignite mythic brain
storms!
Back then…all the fury without sounds
Flying under the radar, no evil Vader
More silent darts seeping into heads and hearts.
Putting to sleep eyes and ears
After all these years
Finally to be cleansed
By our waterfall tears.
Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and
"Psychohumorist" ™, is a former psychotherapist and Stress &
Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service. The Doc is a Trauma Debriefing and Critical
Incident Consultant for variety of organizations, including the national post-earthquake,
Nepali Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative. He has led numerous
transformative -- silo-breaking and communications bridge-building --
Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for US Army
Senior Officers and Sergeants. He also provides international Stress
Resilience and Burnout Recovery Phone-Skype Coaching.
The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress: Healing and Laughing in the Face of Stress,
Burnout & Depression and The Four Faces of Anger: Transforming Hostility and Rage into
Assertion and Passion, and Resiliency Rap: The Wit and Wisdom of
the Stress Doc. His award-winning, USA Today Online
"HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a
"workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). Email stressdoc@aol.com
for more info.
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