I long for champagne kisses
to be given to me
your mouth the open bottle
me goblet gaping, me
so thirsty for an altar
and vows once said renewed
and toasts in night air ringing
and union Reunioned with you
and champagne from your sweet lips
pressed gently onto mine
our love Their wine so bubbly
and life, so sweet, so fine
Steeples and graves stand marked in memory,
by a crucifixion making way for the last to be first,
and the guilty pardoned, making way for
the creature and The Creator
(the Dying/Living One Living/Dying,
dying/living here, within me too,
I who lack in every grace
to just die already,
so full of Great
Grace to live
always)
it’s a sign so mysterious and standing
at the core of history the core of the world.
CORE:
suffering,
death, tragedy,
and sad sorrow He
(Supremely human He)
submitted willingly hanging
doggedly broken and bleeding
holding our infirmities in
His bloody Holey Hand
(He’s Got The Hole
World In His
Hand)
it’s a gift of forgiveness
and assurance, depiction
of the depth of divine mercy
and hope of God and us.
Is this querulous song enough
to quiet restless running thoughts
and ease unanswered questions’ ache,
that burn so cold in hearts laid low
in suffering, hearts whose hope is seized
and despair left laying in its wake
(suffering-wake)
But we must carry willingly
defeat and thirst and emptiness
through to the end of darkness, to
the end of self, and to the world’s long waited end
bringing meaning to suffering and peace to hearts in pain
in this symphony of blood
in this song of loss and gain.
There on that narrow spike-span stretching
between what shall be and what has already been
he stands, my Absalom, hair blowing breezy in the wind…
golden glow and fierce mane shaking itself hard
in anger, pride, in sorrow, ache, in Nine gods’ names
Oh Absalom, Absalom my son, my golden glowing son
standing ‘neath that terebinth in blackness,
without way forward and none behind, no back-ness on the bridge,
and masks(ness) stuck to your face and laying limp there at your feet
I walk to meet you there, on that stark narrow span in air…
Horatius stood in that same place
and felt the things that pulse in you
and waited for the enemy
to show itself, fierce, solid, real
and fear, resolve, thrills did feel
as he a country stood to save
But Absalom? He has no place to go
Forward into what’s not known
but back is not permitted
for there’s nothing to go back to.
You know the pain of what’s been robbed
from you, but you have no idea
the ache that throbs here, deep in me
And rueful choices’ symphony
resounds below you, ‘neath your feet
and make that thin bridge sway
This way, that way, but you just ride,
time’s red-black surfer on time’s tide
and riding staves across the past’s deep cold and unforgiving waves
I take a breath and I step out towards you.
And walk…slow and deliberate
towards your angry broken face
and swollen heated broken heart
my fingers stretched for just one touch
to tell you I forgive all words
and need forgiveness for all loss
and all my failure’s litany
that, written in your eyes of me
and my dull inability, Oh Absalom, my son!
My son! Would to God I died for thee!
SPOILERS!
If you have not seen the movie and want to see it without any pre-knowledge of the film, then don’t read this post.
Frankly, I do not think spoilers will detract from the movie’s power and beauty.
This was by far the best of the movies…it starts with Max Von Sydow speaking “This will help put things right” or something very like that…and it does…explain so much.
The surprise revelation of Solo and Chewie…the new characters and the various things they bring…
Best of all to me is that the hero is a woman, named Rey…She is indeed a Ray of light in a time when the universe is indeed dark with an ascendency of the dark side of the Force. She is always shown in light, she is powerful and tender all at once…she is just great in her ability to take up and let go.
It was healing for me to watch her be released, and to fight the physically strong rotten to the core male antagonist.
The film dealt also with parents and children both gone bad, both failing in their roles, and that struck me to the core. Han touches his son on the face with his dying breaths and pledges his undying love as he falls to his death…and later the son is scarred in battle exactly where he was touched.
We try to give our kids our best…only to find out that whatever our best was, it was the kids’ worst because of what it wasn’t. We endure the passage of time and the loss of our children to themselves, and to their own losing of themselves. All we can do is cross the abyss out onto the narrow bridge where they stand in their pain and anger and angst, and extend love into the face of loss, into the face of failure, and then take whatever it is they choose to thrust into our heart: words of forgiveness and acceptance, or fiery jagged crystal energy flamed in anger and rage.
Regardless…our heart is theirs, and what they don’t yet know is that it has been theirs since they were born.
I was touched by the weighty and obvious tribute made to the passage of nearly 40 years since the first movie came out! This was displayed on offer right up front…and I could not help but think of friends who are huge Star Wars Nerds who had ended up dying before getting to see all of the chapters…this made me cry.
The score, the technological choices, the simplicity of an archetypal story…I loved it.
May the Force be with you, and may you find the balance
I laffed so hard at this because it was on a blog and had these words:
“Woodpecker: ‘Fuck THIS tree in parTICular!'”
I laffed so hard.
my skin is stained by your lips
stained red, stained wine, crushed grapes
delicious between your white teeth.
my skin is blue from your touch so cold,
so hot within ice cold choice austere,
your love so cold it’s hot
my skin is purple, it’s smeared
with your tough tenderness, your fingers
painting in loops and whorls
and I, tattooed by your love
and thinking it done, it forever
indelible fait accompli…
But it washed off in the rain
of days, of years, of lifetimes
until I was white as snow
*as if untouched*
So I turn myself inside out
and I wear my soul for my skin
and I’m stained always and again
by your lips
by your words
by your touch
*by you*
9 questions gay people have for straight people
got there on the back of a woman…
I cannot shake this snowflake-season
and its many unexpected discordant moments
of Christmas preparation somewhere between
red hot errands at the mall
and
the soul felt its golden worth.
But this discord can be a door to the kingdom
where Jesus is from, Jesus that Heavenly Immigrant,
Jesus that Redemptive Refugee come to our
dark little houses of trinkets and treasures
and useless electronics of technicolor
sentimental uselessness.
We wait like stones wait
(gritty and granite and grey)
to cry out in loud refrain…
we wait, we wait but we wait not
in vain and not diminished though we are
discomforted while we wait earthbound and heavy,
and grow large in excelsis deo expectations longing
for redemption and relief,
for peace on earth,
goodwill to all,
release from darkness
loneliness, disillusionment,
we wait for God comes near
to this world as we know it.
The reality is that the concept of “biological sex” — along with gender, money, and traffic laws — is entirely socially constructed. […]
Source: Sex And Gender Are Actually The Same Thing (but bear with me…)
Okay…follow along with the logic: The writer is basically attributing physical expression in the world to an “origin point”…namely, being.
The author argues that if one knows oneself to “Be” a particular gender, then by definition and without application of the social constructs of definitions, one’s physical being “IS” that same identification.
It is a lot to think through, and certainly was for me…but the logic is sound, and the results of failing to apply this logic do certainly end up in the destructive ends the author enumerates.
Worth the time and thought to read thru…
The end of exile and darkness
began at the manger of Jesus,
where seeds of sorrow sprouted
(sorrow Theirs and ours)
in Joyful Birth, and drawing
near to earth from heaven
as angels’ song is hushed
in holy hesitation
as Jesus Christ is born.
He, God’s seed of sorrow sown
into the earth in Hope
of such Divine rejoicing
and harvesting of many
children returned Home
and exile at last over,
that exile self-imposed.
God,
rest Ye…
here in the midst
of the mess and the malls
and the masses of middling
and the muddles of mercy
needed, so badly needed.
Let nothing
Masquerade as something
filling hearts so full
(of nothing…nuffin)
that they “feel full”
and still hunger for
bread become stone
For
Jesus Christ was
born upon this day,
again in the sound of muzak
again in the tread of tired
tramping feet tiptoeing
around grapes of wrath
unstored in stores
again…be born
again upon
This Day
O tidings of comfort and joy!
For the final word
is not dismay
and darkness shall not
have the final say!
here is joy
enfleshed,
mingled with
sorrow like
Holy Wassail Wine
I am the nest from which the great blue heron springs.
I am the stones upon which stinging ice-churned runnels ring.
And there, those fires hot from which the Phoenix rare takes wing.
I’m scintillating embers, coals ablaze and life giving.
They named me foul pale heretic and laid me down to rest,
outside the white-washed churchyard walls, outside their ruddy fold.
And there my hot blood flowed rich-red to feed their bloodless grass,
I deep red died upon that emerald sward of murder bold.
And I do let my bones peek from the curtain of my skin
and thus do I me nourish every living thing herein
with my authentic self and my unconquerable song,
my passion unquenchable and my me a sacred throng
of birth from death and life lept up in winds, in rain and dew
I am nest, stone and embers singing always clear for you.
and thus it is unholy ground is cleaned, hallowed once more,
and every living thing’s communion, ever opened door
“The best revenge is to move on, get over it, and continue to succeed.
Never give someone the satisfaction of watching you suffer.”
when your history is called lies by liars…
“The saddest thing that can happen to a person is to find out their memories are lies.”
— Juan Gabriel Vásquez
“In a single scale, I broke my own heart.”
Ohhh SAM!!! This.
THIS!!
This article captures it so very well. In a single article, he made me weep!
Source: When Your Violin is Supposed to Be a Cello | Let’s Queer Things Up!
Here I am
caught up in your wonder
and wondering how
it is that you have
written it all
over me and
around me.
I am here
inscribed by
your eyes, your lips
your hands have
writ large in wonder
upon my soul
Directive
Robert Frost
Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry –
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there’s a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods’ excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone’s road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you’re lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.
First there’s the children’s house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny’s
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,
So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.
(I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.
This exposition of a Robert Frost Poem is really enjoyable…please head over and contemplate.
So I was reading Robert Frost’s poem, “Directive,” about getting lost in a small, old town. He mentions Panther Mountain, so it is probably set in the Catskill Mountains of New York. It is full of Frost’s individualistic syntax, starting out:
“Back out of all this now too much for us
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather…”
My college freshmen would probably oversimplify this to “back in the day” but then we would lose the photographic detail and the lovely iambic pentameter (five feet of unstressed/stressed syllables) that is at the heart of much great poetry in English. He goes on to say:
“The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—“
And this…
View original post 351 more words
| “J’aime la nuit, j’ai les idées plus claires dans le noir.” |
| — | Serge Gainsbourg |
I have been a little lax in the quality this Zodiac Fact speaks of.
Just because I have found my destined homeland doesn’t mean that every one there is acting with good intent. I have wrongly and too quickly assumed that all mean well…and have discovered that fear, anxiety and jealousy still drive some.
I must be more wary without being distant and removed.
So long ago and far away
e’en though the miles are under one
and echo still in wonderment
we trimmed a tree with love and grace
and feasted on such shining face
that echoed 4 in that bright place…
and in my heart I live there still
and see the shine and smell the green
and on those wings I rise and thrill
above these deserts low and mean
while angels gather near the earth
and I wait for the Baby’s birth
and understand this thing…at last
I am here to see the sights
and feel the joy and hear the song
I’m here at last…it was sooo long
and who can say what’s best, and true
to be locked up and yet have you
or be bereft of everyone
and have the birth of me be done?
From far out in the center
of the naked lake
A Lost Loon’s Loud Lament
Echoes the cry of someone.
My love, we did not arrive at this place
To remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like trees.
Trees are broken in winter and start again
Drawing up from
The Great Root.
Like Trees
We live again.
In the midst
of this storm
of pain
these clouds
of hurt
these winds
of death
I stand and on
You do I call
and ever trust
and ever long
For You to bring
Your peace on earth
and those who call
upon Your Name
and love unfeigned
without reserve
“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.
I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.”
| — | Margaret Atwood, “Variation of the Word Sleep” |
So…I used to be a jazz player waaay back in high school…trombone.
One year, we brought in this odd group as a fund raiser so we could go to the Reno Jazz Festival.
They played a bunch of songs, but the only one I remember and will never EVER forget is this one, “Clea”.
There is a sung line or two in the song…but the only part I remember is this:
“One with myself, one with myself, finally I am one”.
When I first heard that I burst into tears and wanted to explode in the instant…and it haunted me ever since…years and years and years that line haunted me and I knew not why.
I do now, though…know why. Thank God I am closer…day by day.
My Baby loves God like a boss!
She ain’t no red-light winker
or Fleet Street wanker
when it comes to
loving Them, HELL NO…
She’s a street walking swinger
as long as that street glows golden
and is called The Way, or just plain
Beautiful, or if that street is a market
and she will buy Their wares…
pearls here, pears there,
peas and poultry right next
to peace and praise…
Ahhh…
My Baby loves God…loves God like a boss!!
this seems like an unattainable thing
Sometimes frost grips limbs
once lean and limber in the wind
now long grown stiff and creaky
and I hear them crack and groan
in those sticky clutching fingers
cold and frosty, fingers
cold and frosty.
Sometimes ennui (cold)
grips my soul (grown old)
and in its grip I groan
(groan old) and my soul
(my waiting soul) runs
around my heart and
around my heart
as the clock’s tail
ticks and twitches, chases
its tail like a cat relentless,
(useless) and that (waiting)
that frosty cold difficulty of waiting
remains there clinging tightly
in the fading day.
But Advent…
Advent
Advent comes again
and gives her gift.
In the cold and dead of winter,
trauma seems to sting much deeper,
and healing for the broken parts
of my life…and the people that I love?
Seems so much harder to obtain…
When it comes to these things
things so staggering and important,
healing, peace and goodness
on the earth, freedom from suffering,
well…waiting is hard, so hard and painful.
But in these moments I’m remembering
I’m troubled in soul and looking
for something transcendent, greater
than the hurt and pain and suffering,
something, someOne warm enough
persistent, faithful, warm enough
to breathe on us
to break the ice
and give us life
Long familiar sweet hymns play
wherever I go, I remember
I am poor, imperfect, waiting for
the God Who comes down,
Comes Down, God With Us
Emmanuel! Hosanna!
In the Highest Holy Fire!
and I feel again
the gentle nudge
of a knock deep
at the door
of my small
and icy lonely
heart.
Advent is the time of waiting
waiting for the One (the One)
Who embraced body, embraced sorrow
Came to show us all the fullness
of just being home, present, and real.
And we are long reminded in
our cold dolorous longing
what we’re longing for actually
a Who, Who, Who we long for,
God…always coming nearer to us.
I have found a place
inside (in Advent, inside you)
that place where once
you die, you…
you come Alive…
A place where pain
and pleasure weigh out
just the same
and all that’s left
is only Love,
And every sorrow touched
by the wild gold Promise
that in this very place
(of waiting)
Jesus has been born
(is born)
and will be born
again and again,
and again
breaking thru
that icy grip
thawing out
our longing hearts,
melting all
our sin and deaths
so we can
laugh again.
I wake in the morning and wander
through the house in my skin
and in the warmth of thoughts of you
even though you are far away
and across that gulf
you won’t cross, won’t cross
my cross and yours
my coffee warms my mouth
my thoughts of you warm
my heart, flush my skin, touch
my soul with anemone filaments
and fires and goosebump caresses
here in the morning
wandering in the warmth
amidst my thoughts of you
You
write
I love you
with your knife in my back
point point point point point point
bloody pinpricks and slashes
on my skin, in my heart
across my face in
careful cursive
curses
you
make
a mockery of
any love but self-love
which like Narcissus intoxicates
you obsesses you, captivates
you with yourself, and that
a pit of empty nothing
filled with
death.
You do
“Mean Girls” so well…
Are you a secret Broadway Agent
searching for locations to sell yourself
to Hollywood and pitch your script
as Lindsay or Tina? Yeah,
TINA…Though Lindsay
has a certain
trashy
pull
as
your knife
throbs like a tattoo gun
that backfires and messes
your malformed middle with
toxic black hate and my
blood blows back in
your face
when
you
Love
At
Knife
Point
When someone comes to me and implies that I am something I am not…when they are projecting their own judgment onto me, I don’t like it.
When someone has gone behind my back more than 5 times in a couple months, then denied that activity, and yet thinks they can speak something to me that is critical and based in their own personal prejudices, I don’t like it.
When someone else who sees what is flawed about the backstabber then tells me how I am supposed to have understanding for the other person because of all the burdens they have that drive them to do this wounding, I don’t like it.
I don’t like it.
I don’t like it.
I see your actions…I know the crap you talk behind my back.
And I think when you tell me things to my face like you did? I think you do it to hurt me and tear me down because of your own insecurity and anxiety that drives you to try to feel better by destroying others.
And I Don’t Like It!
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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