Poetry by Martin Willitts Jr

                    Mike Fritcher CC


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​Vet PTSD Group Session: Jimmy Made a Breakthrough
 
Jimmy has been in the group for a long time.
He used to just stare straight ahead, not blinking.
He’s made some improvement.
Let’s give him a big hand.
 
Now, he’s moved on to repeating the same phrase:
my buddy got creamed my buddy got creamed my
buddy got creamed my buddy got creamed.


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Group Sessions for Children
 
Tell me a story where words dance
and I’ll draw with crayons. We could
work together like big people do.
 
I’m a big person.
 
You don’t count. You’re not so big
you can touch the sky to finger-paint.
Tell me a story with bears and birds
in trees playing music, but
I don’t know how to draw guitars.
Where’s all the happy crayons?
 
Once, there were words that dance
like ballerinas lifted by clouds.
 
Remember, daddies need to not be mad.
I don’t like the red crayon for that reason.
 
But there were no angry daddies
while listening to bears padding on their bellies,
pum-pum-pum, and birds strummed guitars
while hiding in the gumdrop trees.
 
Remember: the daddy has to come home,
so that mommy don’t stick needles in her arm.




The Room has a Fever
 
It’s important to address what is in the room:
the silence in their hands;
the words they cannot say;
the days that rend.
 
Some days there is an hour of silence
no one decided to have.
They don’t have words
that don’t turn into silly putty, and stretch.
 
It is important to address what is in the room:
a heartbeat; a sob;
a candle wick of belief blown out;
hopelessness staring them in their face,
eyes never blinking.
 
No one can ignore either one.
No one can stir it like a cauldron,
or swat it away like a gnat.
It is always present and it always absent.
 
We all wait for the uncomfortable silence to break.


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Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 16 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent book is "Unfolding Towards Love" (Wipf and Stock, 2020).