So…I was just talking to my mom on the phone, catching up on things.
Imagine my shock when she told me, upon hearing some of my poems, that there have been several established poets on her side of the family…all women!
Guess I lucked out and got the mantle, eh??!!
LOL! I don’t know if I am any good, but I do love it so!
Thanks for reading,
Love Charissa
“Good Gawd Charissa!” she said.
“Reading some of your stuff is like
picking burrs out of my sox!”
I smiled inwardly, and
rubbed my torn and tender fingers
together.
And yet,
through that shattered pane
there whispered a Presence…
an echo of days long dead
and left behind.
A time when the sun glowed gold,
the moon kissed all benighted
with her mellow silver lips,
and the wind sang instead of snored.
In the crucible of destruction,
Joy flits at the edges
like a quick-silver bird
and takes
residence in the ruins.
In her nesting
I find peace and
come to terms
with promise.
Skuttery winds were
huffing our hurt like
kids in the alley
behind the bar.
We trudged along over landscapes,
seascapes white and
grey and smudged and
our eyes were dulled
by unrelenting blur of
borders and divisions,
demarcations between
heaven and earth.
We were the Consigned Ones,
those policed and othered and
cast into chains
feigning freedom.
We were the Dispossessed Daughters
outcast by Acceptance,
cloaked in bleak black bindings
and hooded with the words of those
swaggering and unconscious creatures.
We toiled
slow between life
and the null.
My fire seethed,
I burned indignant and slow,
until I wanted
a flare to become and ignite
into blazing truth
the scope and shape
of that prison!
I seized my moment
and took pilgrimage
to that high ground
waiting for me, for us all.
And there
I lit my signal,
I lit my heart, and
sought to immolate
the Lie.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.