Loss of Innocence, Preservation of Soul

in #war6 years ago (edited)

This sculpture portrays the existence I faced during my first deployment (to Iraq).
I never felt bad or immoral, just as if my soul descended to a deeper level within myself.
I performed my day to day duties using the golden rule as my compass.
The gas mask represents the isolation one feels when ones moral foundation is under attack.
It protects life against poisons, but also creates a narrow field of vision.
Anything not protected is corroded.
However, the corrosion itself presents as a beautiful patina on this sculpture.
Sometimes even the harshest of life's lessons can have a silver lining in the wisdom and advanced perspective they leave us with.
The model used for this bust was female, and this piece is a tribute to everyone from any race and gender who have survived and endured.

loss of innocence 1(b).jpg

loss of innocence 2.jpg

IMG_3304.jpg

I figured that here is a good a place as any to share a poem I wrote at the beginning of my first deployment, when I was beginning to grapple with some large existential questions.
This was before I suffered the first of many concussions that would eventually pare my writing and reasoning skills down considerably.
So, don't feel bad if you don't know what the word "isostatic" means. I had perfect verbal SAT scores.
Here's the defintion: an adjective referring to isostacy, Equilibrium in the earth's crust such that the forces tending to elevate landmasses balance the forces tending to depress landmasses.

Destiny rolls in unmeasured tread
In an expanse of isostatic souls.
Poised in bubbled trepidation,
Unseeing the thundrous onrush
Of seraphic omnipotence (a winged
Billow of lightless flame, rippling
Bullwhip fingers, unleashing furious
Justice and eddies of mercy, and
Reaping the fruit of existence)
Souls of men tremble and drift like
Terns in an
Arctic wind, calling out
Petitions and praise, swept up into
Billowing heights of black storm-power.
Woe to that soul, safe in God-blessed
Blindness, unaware of existence's
Bleak monstrocities, who feels
Secure - swift will the knotted grips
Of death crush complacence and cripple
All illusions of self-ordained significance.
But the humble soul will by act of
Soft consignment realize what place
The winking raindrop has amidst the hailstorm,
And allow cavernous drafts to exhilarate it
In escalating heights, before transfiguring it
To an Act of God; and the stubborn dew
Must, never less be flung the selfsame way,
Though what peace it holds will be by the
Godhead destinely determined, despite.
What, then, becomes poor mortals, affronted
By the puzzle of their own being, caught
In conflicting covenants of timelessness
And temporality?
Usher in a hush of grace,
A sun-gilt brink of precocious height,
Upon which souls will poise for flight:
A torrentuous plummet to dismal depravities,
A consummation, another fight,
Exposure to elements divine,
Repeated
Confluence of men and myth; fire lizards
Douse water, to confound their essence,
And raise cacaphonic cry, to ken what
Strength animates these limbs.
Children
Behold mothers, stooped painfully
Beggaring a harsh world to sustain them still longer,
If only for the sake of love;
And the men of the mountains sit serenely,
Facing east, meditating mornings onward
On what brings the sun, so regular to rise,
Hoping that their patience may outlast
Their plight, fearing that a sudden dark,
Dusk into day, may prove the circle a
Slanted joke, a boundary line between
Slavery and insanity.

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Sometimes the best poetry and art comes out of the terrible reality of war.
Wilfred Owen would be proud of your work.

Thank you for serving and protecting as well as sharing your bountiful artistic talent.

Good stuff, man. I like the symbolism. And thanks for the new SAT word 😛

Thank you for surviving and enduring. And for going on to create art that is so representative of what it must have felt like to be there.

The mixed bag of a post was a very enjoyable read @corpsvalues . I'm glad you visited my page so that I could find you. "I'll be back..."

Yeah glad I found another veteran artist! @dollarsandsense is another one of our veterans that contributes regularly to my contest (and his shit always cracks me up so definitely worth checking out) and he runs a contest of his own. We can thank @guiltyparties for running his veteran content post which is how I found you. I used to count on @socent's veteran curation but I think that discontinued so I didn't know that @guiltyparties was doing it also.

Yes; @guiltyparties recently picked up on me. I submitted a veterans notification a long time ago and got no response, so perhaps it was with 'socent' or some other account, and not with GP...?


This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.

It's good to see that your deployment inspired your artwork. I like the name you gave to your sculpture: Preservation of soul. It's very poetic..

And your poem is great. Who would have thought that such great work can be done during the deployment? :)

Thank you for sharing!

What a powerful work! The eyes looked real for a second lol. And of course, I love the gold paint in your works!

Thanks <3 I had a couple people viewing this piece get scared when they looked into the gas mask eyelets and saw the golden eyes sparkling underneath. Had an old lady accuse me of trying to give her a heart attack.

Yeah, great job on the eyes, really! It adds another story (instead of just having the eyes look like a closed one, or nothing at all).