Author Archives: charissagrace

Selective Hearing

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We live in a world full of flaming individualists,
flailing consciences lashing out everywhere
except where it really counts!

It’s that individualistic ear,
at once so very deaf and yet
so quick to hear!

Deaf when thunder sounds towards us
but oh so sensitive to all offense
or lightning lash at others!tumblr_nsmq0xJbLN1qat5pio1_500

This is perhaps why the prophets had to weep
and yell so loudly.  We might be listening…
but only for someone else.

Our selective hearing leaves us dull
and blind and deaf to everything
except the symphony of self.

And yet the words still echo
down canyons of time
Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord!gggggHA!  How does one do that!?
Prepare the roads for God?
How does anyone do that?!

Make straight the paths of God?
What does that even mean?  Roads?
Make Straight?  Prepare…

Can you picture men and women
preparing roads *effective roads*
that bring God down to earth…

Bring God down to earth,
and who needs that more?
Them or us?tumblr_ns8q1lWXI11rr74i9o1_1280

Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord!
Make Their Paths Straight!

All the great promises, early/late,
reversals we anticipate
fulfilled because Their Presence here?

Beauty springing from the ash
Mourning turned to lively dancing
Waters flow from wilderness

Streams cascading from the deserts.
swords beaten into plowshares
spears transformed to pruning hooks,

wolves lying down to sleep
in fields with soft and peaceful sheep
and lions and lambs in love knee deep

justice rolling down like waters
and righteousness ever-flowing streams
the desert blossoming like dreams

the blind seeing
the lame at dance
the lowly lifted up

the hungry filled up with good things
the Road of God, my heart still sings
when I can hear that cry so clear

May we be cured, delivered from
our terminal affliction
Selective Hearing.tumblr_ns4zf4tBCu1s5neh1o1_1280

 

small collection of trans education resources

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small collection of trans education resources for cis allies who are interested

Note:  I am posting this as an fyi, and I expect that you will read this and parse it for yourself.  My posting it here is not necessarily an endorsement of any specific person/lifestyle choice, etc.

Rather, it is in the interest of educating you that there are far more variations in that gender spectrum rainbow that stretches between those 2 poles of humanity’s gender, female and male.

Pressure & Time

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Geology is the study
of pressure and time.
That’s all it takes, really…

pressure and time.

Psychology is the study
of pressure and thought.
That’s all a function, really…of

pressure and time.tumblr_np0l2kYa261qkb10mo1_1280Theology is the study
of pressure and Word.
That’s all it took, really…and

pressure and time.

My heart is the study
of pressure and grace
occurring in space

pressure and time.

flowing thru time
possessed by the Word
thoughts under pressure

pressure and time.

inhabiting Word
Gethsemane sleeps
and diamonds…at last.

Pressure & Time

The Blindness of Unbelief

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when He walked in dust thru the dust,
when He crested that hill, and looked down
and left onto the far side
of the valley in which He grew…

when He started down the slope
all the way to the bottom until
He was sitting in the barrel
of the synagogue to teach…6a00d8346998ff69e201b7c76f23e9970bwhen the common folk were amazed
and the ones who “knew Him when” astonished
and offended that the Jesus they knew
would act the wise man instead of the fool…

when the preachers and leaders felt His stick
and recoiled huffily, sniffing and smelling death
and their own breath breathing threats to cover
as they questioned His authority and mighty works…tumblr_n46wrjRIdA1roemwgo1_1280when the fires banked so low and unbelief rose so high
and Honor moved by hiding Her eyes ashamed
because He was in His own country and blanketed
in their judgements there…across that river…

when Jesus of Nazareth marveled…
and night fell blindly once again.Image 009

So Beautiful It Hurts

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“A song from another time
survived with me.
It follows me wherever I go.”
— Dunya Mikhail, from “Song from Another Time,” The Iraqi Nights (New Directions, 2014)

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oh america

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oh america, alas for me
once blind but now, alas!
I see…what I could not see before
safely ensconced behind my placid doortumblr_nlzzm3QWBV1sq9drqo1_1280of hallels, proverbs, judgements
assumed and (not) asked and answered
while Perry Mason spoke for me
Paul Drake got me off
Della Street hid me safe.

oh america, you hid from me
your bloody dungeons, grisly gore
your carrion teeth hungry for more
I weep in agony, I never saw that side
of you, rapacious, avarice-infected, ravenous

alas for you
alas for metumblr_ns93u6y7WJ1qllucco1_500oh america, alas for me
once deaf but now, alas!
I hear…not pop songs, jingles
and bubble gum ditties
but klaxxons and outrage
and death-dirges arising in cities

writhing in flaming hatred and strife
sirens screaming and bullconner bullhorns
in the tramping of jackboots and protests for freedom
I hear the desperate pleading for life and liberty
their chains rattle like thunder
but america, you hear only dice
rolling on your green table
of gambling and greed and
just be oh so nicetumblr_miy2lmQQy11qb5cdqo1_500I wish I could just rip myself
straight outta me, tear that
born and bred into ease
from my arteries, and my
narcissistic “I’m so vain”
from my veins and be fresh

be free…oh america…alas for you and me
as I watch our best, our brightest
still chained in our simpering
lobs of “be nice, calm down, be polite”
lobotomized and safe in facebook internments
prisoners in consumer kraalstumblr_noeogvQoQI1qas1mto5_1280and poetic deftness flees me
abandons me in this hour of my need
oh grace deliver me from selfish greed!
oh Mama let me run to truth so clean with godspeed
I lose mastery in the horror of this hour

alas, oh america, I lament for me
alas…I lament for thee
and do not know if you will find the courage
to face yourself in the mirror of your victims
the ones you killed and ate and burped
and called it good.

oh america, oh america
God have mercy on thee
and trip you up and toss you down
and take from you that gory crown
of racism, racism racism racism
from sea to shining sea and in betweentumblr_npxxyrZeCO1r38hk2o1_1280may God remove that hood that blinds
you to brotherhood, to good, to kind
give you eyes to see (oh god let me see)
give you ears to hear (oh god let me hear)
give you a heart at last and courage
to look at what you’ve done and left undone

oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america528483-Depression-1364630455-842-640x480

“I am torn in two but
I will conquer myself.
I will dig up the pride…I will take a crowbar
and pry out the broken
pieces…”
— Anne Sexton – from The Civil War

“Just A Word”…It Ain’t The Hokey-Pokey!

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I wrote a poem recently about an experience I had…a painful one.  It was like gravity frozen and pulling me back to a place I had long left behind.

I was misgendered.

Now this, in and of itself, is not an unusual experience.  It happens fairly regularly, though not in any way frequently, and usually it happens when strangers are interacting with me and have not had a chance to really interact with me long enough to really get the flavor of who I am.  I have learned to not let it bother me, to correct the error, and then move on.tumblr_ns0hojuTZo1qas1mto7_1280This time though, it was different…vastly different.  It was from someone whom I highly esteem, and very much like…someone I am well on the way to loving.  It happened from a friend.

Now, it was clear to me that she had simply made a mistake.  Hey, let’s be honest…if you look at my profile here at all, or on my Facebook page, you can see the tall order that I have to overcome.  Well over 6 ft tall, currently well over 220 lbs, and my forehead well on its way to a 5 or maybe even a 6 head!  HRT is kind to my brain, and somewhat more cavalier with the rest of me…progress in important areas is slow.  It’s there…but it’s slow.

And then there is my voice, forever altered by testosterone in the same way that every single human being regardless of gender has their voice altered when exposed to that hormone.

So it is easy to be “tricked” by the outward package.tumblr_ns0hojuTZo1qas1mto5_1280But the insides?  The things I talk about?  The way I talk?  My emotions, my reactions?  I was once told by a fairly femme individual that I was “girly-squared!”  We both laughed sooo hard over that, because it is true.

So that is why when I was misgendered by a friend it cut me deep…and it destroyed my confidence.  Because here are the logical alternatives.  Either A:  I am doing something that makes everyone think “man”…or B:  I am neglecting to do something that makes everyone think “woman”.  And that is what just ran at me like water washing away a riverbank.  My friend who knows my heart and knows me, who has done great things for me and made a place for me…my friend misgendered and I don’t know why.

Is there a “moment of translation” when people interact with me?  Does everyone have that inner “pause” where they have to stop and carefully think things thru in order to “be polite?”  Is that all that the correct use of pronouns boils down to?  Politeness?  I have written before about the onerous statement of “support” that says “If that is how you see it, then I am for it.”

Grrrr…I hate that statement, because cis-women do not ever have that said about their own gender.  Well, being polite is the same in this case.tumblr_ns0hojuTZo1qas1mto4_1280And it has me wondering…do all my friends have that pause, that polite moment just before they humor me?  Or do they think of me as who I am, a woman who managed to get herself stuck in a dude’s body?

That is what “Just A Word” is about…and how all the internal progress I had made, all the ways I had listened and believed and trusted the words of people around me…and now felt like a fool for it!

Well…my friend is a spectacular person, and I don’t think for a minute she intended to hurt me or wound me, and I think that our friendship will continue to grow and blossom…but it did hurt.  And it did tumble me briskly down that slope and back to my beginnings in the valley of dysphoria.tumblr_ns0hojuTZo1qas1mto2_1280

Which leads me to the quote that prompted this post:

Don’t feel bad if you still wish your body looked different
or if your voice sounded better or if you can’t quite love yourself yet.
Self-acceptance is a journey. You’re not hopeless just because others may be ahead of you.
Appreciate yourself. Appreciate how far you’ve come.
You’re on your way, at your own pace.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what she…or anybody else for that matter, thinks.

I accept me.

I know who I am…I know!tumblr_ns0hojuTZo1qas1mto3_1280

Making Me Airtight

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Gold threads thru green fields
lead me on to yonder mountains,
this path beneath my feet
so friendly, so familiar
even though I’ve yet to walk it.tumblr_nsevvhl7sz1thfeewo1_500I am finding my pack
rests easier these days
though I still chafe beneath
those goddam toothy straps!

It is full of certainty and truth
but which is which…well,
of that I am uncertain.tumblr_n1h7bjMfIv1rcw6xko1_500No matter, that curtain
of friendly fog’s gently parting,
dancing on the merry winds
that tug, that tousle-tickle
frondy fiddleheads and firs
and I press on towards
those lofty looming heights.

Night approaches and I sleep
I whisper to myself in dreams
of secrets in my unknown heart
so certain and so true…

“Follow! Follow!” I sing to myself.
“Run in trackless wilderness!
Dance in virgin meadow green!
Find Her waiting…beckoning,
drawing out your fecund longing
into solid living flesh!”tumblr_ns2yd3nlx81u3uzjzo1_1280I am knowing that when I sleep
I like to go barefoot in my dreams,
I walk without blinders on my knowing feet
so they can see…no boots upon these eyes!

Then I wake and see muddy footprints
glowing brown, leading to the door and then
just disappearing into…When?
Or where…somewhere…like
the pregnant bottom of a well
the throbbing mystery of a cave
the trembly throat of a fresh spring…
somewhere.tumblr_ns6zneQsD91rr74i9o1_1280Maybe it is in my tears
and in the ocean and the wind
that blows the truth into my face
and from my heart, a living knuckle
where those two worlds join and pivot
in the light and in the dark…

and those muddy footprints are a map that I must follow
but only walking backwards and always loving forwards
and then return the way I came while walking forwards
and my love is flowing back to beautify the things I passed

beneath its tender touch…my love, my touch.Clare-17This journey’s making me airtight
even though I seep, bleed love and weep
in the day and thru the night,
thru the blood and in the bread,
with the babies and the bones,
in my tender waiting womb
all my yearning tears and groans…
It’s this heartbreak that atones

and that path shining golden…
and the mountains…
nestling me home.tumblr_ns1nl2rq0i1szrg39o1_1280

A Quintessential Quandary

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“Don’t take it personal”.

I get told this…believe it or not.  Hah.  As if you could read here for any number of posts and not figure out that I am passionate and sticky-hearted.  And I do.

Take it personal.  Everything.  Not just when someone says something cruel, but also when someone says something beautiful, or something funny, or something poignant.tumblr_nsmq0xJbLN1qat5pio1_500I once quipped that how can I take things any other way than personal, since I am a person.  How else can I take things?

But what I think, is that people are really saying to me:  “Charissa…when you show your emotions and reveal your heart in an unashamed and unabashed way, we get uncomfortable and we don’t want to be uncomfortable.  So please have some savoir faire and conceal your emotions behind a bemused and distant facade like the rest of us do.”

I think you would all be somewhat shocked if you knew how often I actually do this very thing…but the cost of this to me? Just everything that makes me uniquely me…such as sensing someone’s pain and sorrow…such as seeing who they are in a glance and processing years of history in one taste…such as having a timely word that is bloody and rich in healing…such as the funny saying and humorous word that releases and sets free…such as the honest and direct pledge of being present whenever called on…

nuffin’ real important…just the freaking bleeding bloody essence of me.tumblr_nsmxkyabc41qat5pio1_500It gets confusing really fast.  Because here is one thing that happens regularly:  Something happens that is painful, and I do my best Lady Gaga and work on my poker face…and the astute in the area will sense that I am not being genuine and will upbraid me as not having been forthright.

So I go ahead and honestly reveal what has hurt me…and then get told to not take it personally.

See what happened there?

Today is an equilibrium regaining day…events of yesterday were hurtful…no one’s fault, just the way it is in this world…and I wrestled with an admonition that I had said something was okay and sorta tried to pass it off when I was in fact hurt and very confused over why something had happened that happened…and regarding those same things another exhortation to not take things personally.  Be authentic and show the hurt…but don’t take it personally…

I confess that I do not know how to do this.  I really do not know, and am gonna have to learn what that all means.tumblr_mtqvyyw8oN1qe0lqqo1_1280But then again, there are a lot of things I don’t know…like why people who knew me for years now think I am totally insane, or possessed, or that I am involved in some sexual practice (HAH!  God knows the absurdity of that!)…like why people still misgender me regularly and not knowing if this is due to something I am doing or something I am failing to do…like what to do about a frame and a voice and all that stuff that has literally nothing to do with my true essence and self.

It’s a raw day…and Grace Notes is where I work thru things…writing my heart out…writing my pain out…clarifying to myself what it is I have experienced and what I think.  So far, hundreds of you have chosen to come along on the journey…thank you for that…and I give you permission to take the things I say to heart.

If you are an emotional person, that may look like taking it personally…and if you are a calm person it may look like thinking things thru and changing behavior.

Either way…I am pressing on, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on…tumblr_lwastw716F1qmtc74o1_500

Describing Our Reality

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“Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted,” for centuries
by the refutation of our experience and our instincts
in a culture which validates only male experience.

“The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us.

“We therefore have a primary obligation to each other:
not to undermine each others’ sense of reality
for the sake of expediency;
not to gaslight each other.

“Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience.
Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake,
beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.”

— Adrienne Rich

tumblr_nh3hebZlLQ1ts7x8eo1_1280I read this quote this morning, and instantly gravitated to it…because it is shocking to me just how fast my insides shatter and my heart just crumples, with just a word.  It scares me when this happens…because then the ripples start, and I begin to question the prior words, deeds, experiences…were they real?  Or were they careful camouflage and thus by their very existence invalidation of who I am because they were needed to provide cover?tumblr_nsr37bWK4G1qat5pio1_500The mind says they were real…but my unprotected heart recoiling in the shock and pain so unexpected begins to fly so frantic at the bars of its cage.  And like a small captive bird it beats itself bloody against those bars that suddenly are there…just like that…because now I know there is that “step of translation” between who people see me to be and who they then speak to me as…truthfully that shreds me inside when it happens, because I have been free in myself and flowing…until with a thunktumblr_nh1c03OrOL1qzif7oo1_1280this flying bird hits that static glass wall, invisible, unexpected, but no less devastating and seeming inevitable…and I do feel insane when I cleave to the truth of my own experience after I have hit that wall of misgendering.

Adrienne Rich speaks of the undermining of each other’s sense of reality…

…mine is suffering right now.tumblr_lu09df5BDy1qadujfo1_1280Oh…not who I know myself to be…but rather who others know me to be.  That feeling of insanity that she references above.  Because when people are around me for a length of time, they do indeed experience me as female in my brain, my heart, my emotions and expressions, my love and affection, my orientation towards co-operation and collaboration…tumblr_nkhj1rFi2Y1s8tx41o1_500…but then that male pronoun just flies out seemingly unbidden, and for the life of my I cannot understand how it can be…except that it must be that the gravity of my body and physical self is too powerful for the evidence of my heart and soul and spirit to overcome and I am chained to that outer shell diminishing…and thus diminished and reduced to mere outward appearance…and doomed to the dirt…yeah, it hurts.

I don’t know what to do about it, because it is beyond my control.

I guess just surrender to this reality but in the Name of Jesus…and let Mama work it to my good and bring me peace.tumblr_nlzzm3QWBV1sq9drqo1_1280

Just A Word

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…and just like that
with just a quick word,
a pea-sized hard pebble
nudged over the edge
and tumbling down
the beckoning slope
and picking up steam
and skittering bouncing
off rocks and off hearttumblr_ngn4uaICOj1s6gw9vo1_1280the slide starts unstoppable
the whole slope is sliding
en masse, sorta slithering
and chunking and pouring
and ka-bunking til nothing

can be done but just try
to survive the earth leaving
disappearing ‘neath my feet
and keep my balance
and surfing the wave
of disbelief made of
stones rather than watertumblr_nsoybcYvjf1qat5pio1_540then i am that pebble
pea-sized on that mountain
and falling away from
my fellow climbers
as they watch me bounce
on the rocks down below
and tumble so quickly
my white skin scraped red
and my heart cut so raw
on the jagged scree falling
around me like raindrops
of stony and ancient
hot volcanic weeping.tumblr_nrp4dlCcno1r2zs3eo1_1280and the bottom is waiting
the same place i left it
and the summit is laughing
so high up the mountain
silhouetted against
the bright blue sky quiet
and gleaming in light
underneath my companions
looking down where I lay

so near, yet so far
untouchable always
and never crossed over
to join them on high
tumblr_nofjtrJWjm1s2q8feo1_1280

That Moment Boundless

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It’s when the grey wind
blows warm across
cinereal waters and
picks up pearly moist brushes
to push ashen stiff clouds
outta shape against cerulean canvas
of sky and space

It’s when dark grasses
and yearning branches
and leaves and needles
moan in jealous longing for
the fingers of that grey whistling
wind tasting of granite and glacier,
slow flows and sunlight
and dappled fruit quick
and sudden

It’s when I sit on the porch
and think of those times and spaces
and I remember your faces and my own
grasses and branches
and leaves and needles
stand on end stiff and electric
to catch anything…anything
blowing across my waves
in the grey wind

What I Am Trying To Say

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“Between Voice and Thought,
between Thought and Voice,
between Presence and Absence,
oscillates the poetic pendulum.”
— Paul Valéry, from “Poetry and Abstract Thought,” The Art of Poetry(Princeton University Press, 1958)

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You Can Only Go Forward…

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“I am so sorry to all the people I hurt while I was hurting.”

I saw this quote online this morning.  It captures my feelings about that long, long past, much of which I am only dimly aware of having lived, but more like an observer than a participant.

Certain parameters have been laid out…and sadly those preclude forgiveness.  Apparently, there really is more than one “unforgivable sin” (and really, each human being sorta gets to decide what sin is forgivable and what sin is not, no?).

But the truly fine thing about being a human being?  The power of understanding embodied in choice and become action.

And I am…so sorrowful that the hurt that I was in…that I was in my “not-being” resulted in hurt to others.  And yet there is nothing to be done about the then, and the to come has not yet arrived.

There is just the now…finally and at last the now…and I am in it.

Glad, Grateful and Free…
Charissa Gracetumblr_ns4qrdBTDC1rl1a4zo1_1280

A Purposeful Work

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Ho!  You who are broken
in your maddening, modern conformity,
squeezing into the oh too tight tenny shoes
that pinch your toes and chirp at your soul!18302092788_3558d38c2e_oListen…take off your shoes and wander.
Aimlessly. Abandon agenda!
Give up your goals (just for a moment)
wander with no purpose on purpose.andrc3a9-de-dienes-nu-1949-via-liveauctioneersAfter all, there is so much to do
that you cannot afford to not wander
away from the overflow days
and the many demands on your time and attention!
Toss out your check list and check yourself instead
and spend time pursuing
the unplanned quick moment

right now…in some eating, and drinking,
and wandering…tumblr_ns1w85ECR51qas1mto3_1280…from paths and from business
and rest, and withdraw
and pray with your passage
from boardroom to garden.

See the fat flowers
frolicking violet
hear the bees rockin
in time to the wind
listen for stories
and look at the birds
and see the white lilies
give life and give strength
and thus rescue your being
delivered from doing!tumblr_nsccig7Euk1sooy9go1_1280Stop to notice
let your thoughts
prayers rise and fall
with your breath
and your step.

Wandering is
purposeful work
without purpose
done on purpose.
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My Bucket List

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The other day?

I heard some men yammerin and scratchin
an sniffin each other with words and noises
and hey hey ho ho how bout them Cowboys hearts!simp2They were talking about bucket lists.

They didn’t know I was there (I was in a dress so I was invisible).

Well…a bucket list.  I didn’t have one.
So I wondered, I wandered, and I decided to make one!
Yaay me!  See?  I can keep up with the boys!tumblr_n1h7bjMfIv1rcw6xko1_500So check this out!

Mrs. Reety-Doe has a great bucket!
It’s new, shiny, and oh wow does it sing
when her high pressure test water
shoots from that shiny raygun nozzle
and splashes its cymbalic sides and bass bottom
and then when the pressure of the water spilling in
gets so great it sings higher and higher and higher
and sounds decidedly like it hasta go poddy!!solbwqjke2bk8lq3civiMiss Fuzzy Gyrtle, now her bucket is wood
with metal bands and soldier staves all regular
but gentle curved and carved just so,
cradling the water gurgly and gentle inside
as its contralto hums and hugs the wet contents.tumblr_n4bm5qdPvL1spq83no1_1280Ms Tidy-Hand, tho…wtf is up with that bucket!??
It’s really nuffin more than an oversize porcelain diaper pail!
Remember that sorta crazed ivory shiny dull white sheen
with the thin blue Germanic stripe around the bottom
that just comforts with its defining authority?
Thick, heavy, awkward…but so solid that dirt
just sorta gives up and leaves and when it drinks
from the hose it sounds like lederhosen in alpine
and beer steins clinking contrapuntal
to clakking autumn clogs.Image 002But my favorite was old Granny Walker’s
worn out rusty bucket filled with holes
and memories and flowers planted in each.
Half-buried and cock-eyed and full
of Black-Eyed Susans and Pansies rioting
and ready to blow that chicken coop and run
for Tidy-Hand’s oh so ordered beds
and dig their toes into her perfect compost
like tourist ladies toes in Jamaica Brown Sugar sand
and stretch out ta rest…

Oh Granny…you know sumfin the rest of us
have forgotten we ever knew, don’t you?tumblr_n22860yx8C1s2z59jo1_1280

So yeah…I have my bucket list now, so I got that going for me!

But I think
I will just keep on hiding in my hobbit wonder
beneath the magic cloak of unnoticed and smile to myself

thinking about
those neighborhood buckets
and the containers they use
in their gardens.

Zizzzi Gloucester

Zizzzi Gloucester

Confronting Your Own Privilege

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“Is ‘heterosexual’ a slur? No. It describes an identity and experience. Because straight folks don’t typically experience their heterosexuality as an identity, many don’t identify as heterosexual — they don’t need to, because culture has already done that for them. Similarly, cisgender people don’t generally identify as cisgender because societal expectations already presume that they are. […]It’s an incredible and invisible power to not need to name yourself because the norms have already done that for you. You don’t need to come out as heterosexual or cisgender because it is already expected. Since it isn’t a derogatory term, those who take exception to it may be uncomfortable with trans issues, or perhaps they are unwilling to confront their own privilege.”
— K.J. Rawson, interview via the Advocate

One of the greatest acts of advocacy you can partake of…confronting your own privilege.
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My Other Hand

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My one hand?
It’s what you see here
on the page making funny marks
that become funny meanings
in your musing mind.Image 003But my other hand, well!
It reaches outside in the smoke on the wind.
It gropes in the night for a dear not-here friend.

it touches heaven
it waves at eagles
it feels the raindrops
and cries with seagulls
while the waves tumble in
and in…it is washed in them too

my other hand,
well it awakens you
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Check Out My Hair

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I lead face forward, my hair trails behind me,
smelling of all of the longings and seas
that evaporate in the hot sun of the rest
who think playing in shallows is safest and best.

My face is my sunscreen protecting my heart
in the winds and the rays of a place where it seems
that people don’t care and are not really there
and call daily connection dumb fairy-tale dreams.

It lets me go out and look normal and fine,
it lets me get by in a style called “all mine”
and it holds my eyes steady, they’re seeing and seen,
but my hair’s smell hides my secret “what I really mean”.

My hair holds my longing, it carries my ache,
my hair holds my grief over those who just take
and it doubts those who promise that they’re truly there
when it reaches to touch their face, but just gets air.

It’s perfumed with desire, and fear, and some hope.
It is curly and flies around, feels like a dope
because it tries to cross chasms on that taut tightrope
of belief in belief or some other dumb trope…

but that feeling of authentic being…that strength
of choosing a style that is me come what may,
when my hair is undone and is free in the wind
but still anchored to me, well my hair is my friend!

I am anchored to it! I think my hair is me!
It’s my soul’s silver banner unfurled by this sea
of humanity streaming and nose to the ground,
my hair pops in the wind and brings heaven around!

So be circumspect when I walk by you today.
If you wanna know anything about the way
I think or I feel…or I purpose to be?
Jus check out my hair…if you wanna know me.
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And in Honor of Amelia Earhart’s Birthday Last Week

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I simply haffa reblog this. I won’t blather about how incredible it is…that much is obvious even to turtles who haven’t peaked out of their shells in a month!!

writerspilecki's avatarbuildingapoem

 amelia

So I wrote this admittedly brilliant little poem in a white heat on the train in to my summer job many years ago. It is one of the few poems that I only sent out once before it got published. Sometimes the magic just happens. I originally wrote it as a prose poem and that is how it was originally published. In the coming book it will appear as free verse. I like it better this way. There is more nuance with real line breaks. It is rare that I get chills reading something I wrote, but this one is special.

.

Flying Lessons with Amelia

.

I met her the day of her first crash.

The stars in my eyes reflected the flash

of the cameras, the sun kissing her

silver pocket compact. The photos,

shades of grey, didn’t do her justice.

Storm clouds only capture spring

by…

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Singing To The Bones

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Speak to me gently…

I am listening with my bones,
instruments of hearing
my companions…

I listen by the fire.

Speak into my soul with touch and glance
while I walk to and fro and spread a feast
that’s fit for angels to consume and dance
under stars and with the silky moon.tumblr_nrwiwkeKcl1rcf4reo1_1280Bone-music vibrates
from my bone-core deep,
emanates from my sternum,
surrounds me in its sticky grasp
and to its gentle bosom I am clasped…
in drum, in harp, in whistle call and
in that dance on puffy clouds in fall.tumblr_nqgtlmEydT1u051b5o1_500Hear its cry in my heart’s every pulse
and I must answer or I will remain
bereft and longing, agitated, always

and seeking in snows aslant and serious
and in ocean floors murky mysterious
and in that desert deep and in the forest strong
and beneath the breath of emerald wind’s ever-song
tumblr_nsbugs8L3B1t5g5c1o1_540Finally, I simply rest
sitting in the shifting sands
and singing over long-dead bones,
my song arising, flying here and there

and hear the song of mountains and
the thrum of reefs against the waves
insistent, fresh and ancient
in the days, these days

that I am

Singing to the bonestumblr_nnz1apfjc11sqc6b1o1_1280

 

My Coffee Speaks To Trees

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it was a whisper soft, it was a song
at my neck’s nape i felt it trill along,
the answering conversation swirling by
my cheek in double time, so fleet, so spry,

and dancing round the rim of my red mug
and steaming coffee, rich and fragrant there
and laughing with the sounds come in the air.
i realized my coffee speaks to trees!

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it listens to the message in their leaves
and steams its answer back in song, relieves
the longing of the root, the trunk, the bees
just bumbling sleepily along with ease.

what did they say, i wondered, so i sipped
and into that community i slipped
and heard the leaves, the gossip of their tongues
and saw the wonder of those fronds so young

just wondering what were they meant to wear
when autumn came, what would the color be
that each would take upon their limber self?
what dress?  what blouse would scamper from Her shelf?

beautiful raiment, heaven sent and free
for each leaf to receive, to wear…and me?
I sat…and sipped…and marveled in the day
that I discovered this small secret way

of beans, hot water, roots and branch and bees
and leafy giggly gossipping ballet…
a secret language, dance, a brilliant play
and I now know my coffee speaks to trees.tumblr_nrklaeno7F1roirddo1_1280

 

Miracles of Modern Medicine

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This used to be me…it isn’t anymore.

HRT works.  My brain is soo much happier.

Constance, it is something so simple, and yet so profound.

I am glad I made it, and I am thankful to those who valued and recognized the essential me regardless of container/package.

And those of you who didn’t…wow.  I don’t know whether I should pity you more, or those in your life who are similarly falsely assessed.  That must really suck.

I am free…and oh God the flying!

 

The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday

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**(See the note at the bottom of poem please)

I deferred entropy yesterday,
with jaundiced yellow summer thoughts
that lingered in mid-air above
my head…then rose on winds…

Seraphim speaking at heavens brass
and brazen, silent skies yet become
broken by my desperate thoughts
and yet to become wild throat-shatt’ring cries!tumblr_ns8f87gHlH1qllucco4_1280I was silent with them until they
were just not silent with me!  Nay!
They called out to Isaiah, Ancient
Mariner sailing seas of grief
and beauty in the winds of time
and loss…

“O that You would tear open the heavens
and come down, that the mountains
would quake at Your presence!”

And then time halted, entropy
deferred to my voice ignited in
screams for the speechless
in songs for the weary
in shrieks for the despairing

How FUCKING Long oh LORD!
WHEN Will You SHATTER Brass?
Tear OPEN Silent Faded Blue Skies
and COME DOWN AGAIN and
LAY WASTE TO INJUSTICE
and harsh LACK OF MERCY!!tumblr_nj8axqwRES1rx3qvso1_500

slavery still happening
right here in River City

sex-trafficking thriving
looking up in Kansas City

poverty and addiction
meet me in St Louis

racism and genocide
above the fruited plains

all ignored while we obsess
over Facebook Fights and Twitter twatfests,
both garbage and cheap gossip dished,
in equal measure slung and sung
to show tunes and to shanties and
to soft-shoe shuffles
on Broadway!

How long, O Lord!
When will our
Purple Mountains
quake in Your Majesty?

And yet how shall I voice my cry
so bloody and alone? With deeds
just like some pile o crap, some smelly
filthy rag? With prideful blood-hoard
boasting buried in a pirate’s chest
so goddam deep?tumblr_nmykoqcspH1qz9bu3o1_1280And my heart faded like a leaf
and blew away like dried up failure
in the scheming eyeless winds…

And my vain colors oh so bright
and oh so pretty, my heart faded
in the face of all

the unjust things we do,
the things we are,
our inconsistencies and
our postmodern so ironic
ways so petty and deliberate,
so destructive and so cruel!tumblr_n0caivXHen1to3s33o1_1280We stand before God today
even though entropy deferred yesterday
we stand before God as Their Potter’s clay

the urgency of the present moment,
shaped not by nostalgia for what once was,
but remembrance for who God was,
and is, and ever will be.

that fierce urgency of the now
within a world in need
not of more pointing fingers
and dividing speeches, but of
people willing to rise up
and work as if we now already
are God’s people willing
and surrendered.

 I deferred entropy yesterday

It was the least I could do.
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**Note to the reader:  italicized words are meant to be heard in your mind to the show-tune they are from…
Google is an ally if you don’t know your show tunes, as is You-Tube.
If this were read aloud, the reader would sing those phrases,
voice dripping sarcasm and anger.

Oh…and if you don’t like it?

Defer Entropy

The One Who Knows

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When we touch
The One Who Knows
we touch our own
pearlescent core
transparent and so brilliant.tumblr_ns0lfqW1Bd1t224ibo1_500We find That One Deep
in Elysian Fields of frolic,
upon the face of mountains,
and in the deep bone deserts,
we find The One Who Knows
in our fires of becoming.tumblr_ns7kdpZXJF1sicac5o4_1280It is the Valley of Dry Bones,
the charnal parched and bony strand
with bone-dust laying down for sand
that walking comes The One Who Knows
and singing re-creation songs
and the truths we tell make harmonies
to reach the very stars.11703225_10153476958486972_1918529818571726955_oThe One Who Knows is in the eyes
of dying children, hateful men
and weary women burdened, stripped
of womb and wonder, chained and whipped…

The One Who Knows is lurking deep
inside the secrets that we keep
and clings to every prideful steep
to conquer every peak and peek.MamaIn our insistent blood They Speak,
in our starved souls, in raven’s beak,
in padded paws and jungle roar
The One Who Knows waits on Their Shore

calling
singing
crying
sighing
knowing

showing the dead how to live backwards
into forever and before the day.Image 001

My Sisters N Me

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We stand at the shore in confidence.

Our feet rest on sands
but we walk on the waves
while everyone else thinks
that we are still slaves
of the old ways and means
of the city of dirt.

They have looked in my eyes
and seen me hopeful there,
and they called me out
singing that I walk on air
with them, light and free
even while being immovable
We are the fruitful vines
planted for new wine.

They hear my voice
and they touch my quick heart
and they lend me their beauty
and they stand apart from the
dull and the lumbering fools full of words
that just club and just crush…
they are for me and with me
and full of Kind Art.

We stand on shores, we wait for it,
the coming of justice and mercy
the liberty song

My sisters and me…

My sisters and me

Tears Of Grace

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This time of day…“l’heure bleue.”
I know it as “the gloaming” and was conceived
in it’s glimmer glisten and was born
in its radiant dark glitter-glamouring.

It’s the glamouring that the earth casts
when she hides from the hunters who roam the world
and gobble up the quiet dark and then rough-belch
their choking smothering counterfeit-communion

*non-light*tumblr_ns40g3DiCp1qas1mto3_1280Outside her glamouring, round about
shuttering houses and shuddering hearts,
gardens darken and grow quiet within
while the ravenous rave and wander wild

and hunt,
brandishing their bluebeards
and pulling
stars from the air.

Gardens crouch and sing silent
dirges to sounds of hunter-horns
and thunderous hooves, clatter-hoards
who ride and murder

*the tender sable satin night*.tumblr_ns5yflHIfR1t8tvpvo1_500But inside,
safe in L’heure Bleue
I wander, and
I think of you

*not-lost*

I slide thru grey grass
lining the sinewy river,
I slip thru shadows like
a cat rubbing against

*your limber long lingering legs*

The gloaming dark,
the never ending
extension of a day
that never ends

*and never arrives*tumblr_nrcag3O1421tp8egbo1_1280 but instead just stretches in this endless summer hour,
this full blue one full of blue light
dark and thick and more potent in its indigo flourish
than any wagging threatening bluebeard.

It’s the hour when the earth tries to hide her sorrow,
hold back her tears and so I slide down her face
instead, quiet like a swan upon the surface
of a silent-blue snow rimmed lake

while she glows in the dark-blue
light and gloams, she lets me
fall upon herself blue, like
tears of grace.
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The Poem You Write

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It’s in the spaces between words,
in moments you do not do,
it’s silent sounds of what you say
*that sound of what you utter not*

When I describe it, it just twists
and stands akimbo and aloof
sings of itself above your ears
there…it’s the poem you write yourself.

To set your pen to page and speak
your “Let There Be”, it gives a shape
but that leaves so much shaped behind
*the space your body takes in water*

when you dive in and swim and the space moves and disappears

Tomorrow I will write again
and let the vision in my pen
pull apples from the very air
and sprinkle heaven in your hair

but today, it’s the poem you write
in what you don’t say, don’t do, that kite
invisible and flying high…
your poem surrounds my heavy sigh
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For Lynda Carter’s Birthday

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Auuugghhh!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!

writerspilecki's avatarbuildingapoem

wwlc

And for That Writer Fellow, I give you a portion of a poem from the upcoming book:

Postcards from the Amazon

a celebrity correspondence

I.

My exercise routine?

I practice on

the parallel bars of I am

woman and hear

my golden lasso roar.

I beat Superman

at arm-wrestling, every time.

II.

And oh, the boys,

my colleagues: tights

bulging, faces half-hidden,

capes cracking in the breeze.

Their voices deep as a well.

Their jaws so straight and sharp

you could shave with them.

…

VI.

All women are gymnasts,

swinging

themselves from one necessity

to the next,

swinging, like Jane, from vines,

like me

from golden lassoes. Women hurtle

themselves

over every obstacle made by nature

or man,

break free from steel-forged chains

or do not.

This last is why women have

sisters.

…

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Precious Time

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All the places of the world
that call and beckon me,
the wander lust and longing heart
to travel there and be.

Be rooted in such rare terroir
and taste of precious life
unfurling right before my eyes…
but Time…that silver knife

has cut me off from my own heart
you there, and me out here
I’d trade the world and all its wonder
just to have you near.

Present and Uncontained

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It feels so fiercely good
to be free, to be found
in the reds and swirls
and sweats of my sisters
wise and strong
and wild and welded together
in the midst of bare trees
and empty pots
and dusty dirt.

We are living flesh,
we are alive and well!
We send the puppets of clay
back to the pile
from which they fell,
and now so impotently they yell.

My sisters strong
receive me, brood over me,
warm me, inspire and inform me,
challenge, elevate me!

Here
in the dust
in the wind
present and uncontained
by anything
except living flesh.

We Are Come At Last

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Marshal your forces, you protectors of the crown,
send your dogs running, your dogs of dreams,
your dogs howling, full noses of my fur, my pelt!

Bring on your hunt, your horses in full gallop
and chase for all you’re worth, your lust and fear
of free blood running red, and full, liberty’s blood!

Your coats, scarlet!  Your smirks, affixed with tax,
and become terrible twisted rictus in your sweaty efforts
to hunt this free fox leaping, yipping, dancing on the dawn!

They shall come to me, your dogs, and wriggle ‘neath my touch!
They shall hear my dog-whistle words, too high for your dull ears
but so keenly attuned and pitched to their own straining hearts!

And they shall call to their comrades, your horses, who will alert and thrill
and leap into the air to gallop freely there…and you unhorsed…you laying there
upon the blood-stained grass of yesteryear…

Your time is up, for we are come to hunt you down
and tear that red coat straight away right off your back
and tossed into the sky, our banner free unfurled and our war cry…

No Longer!  Not Anymore!
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Don’t Worry…

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…in truth people are far too preoccupied with themselves to ever truly be interested to really know others.

“Don’t let people know too much about you.”  (found online).

It is the rare human being who is free enough from self to even want to know the empathic experience of another’s life.

Just think:  so many ills that plague us would simply fall by the wayside…

Oh wait.  I guess there was a very wise and kind person who walked the planet a couple of eras ago who said that all the teachings and commandments of all the religions and all the prophets and laws were summed up thus:

“The greatest commandment is to love God, with all your heart and soul, strength and mind…and the second commandment is just like the first one.  Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others only those things that you want others to do to you”.

Like I said…you don’t need to worry about letting people know too much about you…they are not really interested compared to how much they are focused and obsessed with themselves.
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Woman Under The Smiling Moon

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I finally did it,
worked my hungry nails
underneath that hidden edge
along the ridges of my heart

and got a grip
on the flesh of my face
and ripped it clean off
and heedless of the cost
though I had counted carefully
as I knew how to count.

Everyone says I wore a mask,
I was a mask, and I just shake my head
and laugh, because they live out there
and they know nothing (what a pit to know).

That face?  It was me so not me
and it held me in its grip so fiercely
and so furious in its keening hunger
to fit me to itself and find its being finally in me

But when I tore it from me
and snapped its parasitic drain
I saw the moon above me
and knew its secret then and there:
there is no man in the moon!

I am woman and I am free…
the moon is gentle in the night,
swimming ever above me.

Shadows and Silences

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you consign me to shadows and silences
when you look away from wonder
when you sit and ignore joy
when you know what you don’t know

you put me behind panes
separate even though somewhat visible
I can see them there in front of me
by the dew of the morning fresh

you will always think you have measured me
but you have never really bothered
you dodge every questing tentative hello
and your twisting just says goodbye

but light is a funny thing, it changes
when you think it’s rays, it is drops
and when you see drops it is beams
light is never shining as it seems

you know i will sit here, still
because I do not go away
but I hunger in shadows and silences
just stuck here by your faint halfway
Image 006

Intention

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“People show their true colors,
unintentionally. Pay attention”
*Quote found online*

in what they do?
in what they don’t do?
in what they speak?
in the spaces between those words?
in what they do not say?

what are colors, true?
what are these intentions?

I think people mostly don’t,

intention

gosh it’s lonely sometimes
mine-field1

A Hot Summer Day And A Deck

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a hot summer day and a deck
the sun it glints off of my glass
the sweet-tea ginger peach muddle
the mint wafting from sweaty ice cubes
floating, melting, disappearing

my peach is sweet, tart, it’s just right
fuzzy-firm against longing loved lips
I turn perfumed pages so eager
the story unfolds right before me
on a hot summer day and a deck

the book of you writes itself page at a time
it expands in my hands and the cover wanes old/new
it waxes familiar to my touch then *gasp*

“I never knew you”

every turning page snatches my breath

because I’m not quite sure if the next one
will be there, it could be blank or worse
it might write itself while I am reading
words forming from nowhere, just scrawling
in the high summer light on that deck

I can’t put it down for the life of me
I smell you in air as I fan those thin pages,
flip backwards but not ever reading ahead
(there is no ahead to be read in this book)
I miss you this hot summer day…

Kind, Beautiful, and Foolish

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“beauty will save the world.”tumblr_n8ifvafz7z1tqm397o1_1280I read that and went on tilt
tilt permanently.

And when I repeated it?
I discovered this:

“beauty is an incommunicable mystery”Abstract-Illustrations1we worship Her simulacrum
in fashion/beauty businesses
we dissect Her til She’s become
a body flayed and labeled, neat
or purely abstract notion sweet
or distinct but distant divine Tweet.

Beauty, oh Beauty,
my blood and bones
inescapable essence
of my inmost being!7d72d822f5ac322c9286b2d3af488ca5-d8z8ojpYour hand gives help not harm,
mercy sweet for malice-charm,
forgiveness never ending
in the midst of endless non-forgivings
who think me idiotic because
I will not join them in their feast
disparaging, destructive
and ugly in the noggins
and practice of those thoughts!

Beauty, let me take what’s cruel,
what’s discarded by the fool
and spin it into treasure bright
and I will caper in the night
become Sweet Beauty’s Ever-Fool!tumblr_nrkyd44pqv1sooy9go1_1280My blood, beautiful foolish flow
spilt from this creamy skin so torn,
stripped away and splattering
upon the dismal dusty ground,
each crimson drop hung glittering
in crystal sun and pregnant with
the chance to drink of God right now
and They imbibe our Grateful Vow!

My face, my bloody hands, my crowns
once mourning, heavy ashes dark
now shining in Her presence sweet,
I cast those crowns down at Her feet
I wash with Oils of Joy and praise
that repair ruined cities there
and step into the gaping breachtumblr_nr0nudVxoI1qas1mto9_r2_1280with cups of cool water sweet
with words like stained glass murals bold
my heart a great cathedral, gold
me with my shards sat at Her feet
my offering of helpless thrall
for She is become all…my all.

And Incarnation sounds that horn
Participate, and come partake!
Imbibe glory, intoxicating!
For it’s Beauty, Beauty saving
all the crushed, cut down, outcast!
Day is come!  Night is passed!!378e8e09c257b65920602dcbf1f17dbc-d8vi64lFor Beauty will push through and soar
high above this broken shore
transcending all our ugliness
in our following, courageous
and pressing thru the mystery
to find the stairs of transcendence
and be reflections of that Beauty

“beauty will save the world.”tumblr_nr8uf1duJA1thfeewo1_500

 

I Shocked The Snow

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When it fell certain,
so sure in icy curtain
that always found its weighty bosom
enough to smother any flame
and quench any taper burning,

it was shocked to touch my coal,
it recoiled from those embers
and gathered in itself
and gained in substance frozen
and thus renewed its fall.

But when it touched my petals
(those tulips in the snow)
with icy graspy fingers
around my petal’s throat
to choke out warmth and heat?

It found itself diminishing!
It found itself becoming flowery
losing all its crystal majesty
and melting into cool waters
that I drank to slake my thirst

And thus I knew myself, and sure
that I could withstand cold and ice
and still bloom in winter, hang the price!
My roots go deep in fire and joy
amidst the snows so white.tumblr_nylql1rkyd1qat5pio1_1280

On Leaving Behind “Too”

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“You are allowed to outgrow people.”

I found that quote this morning…and it startled me, scared me, and then I was quietly excited about its implications.

I have never had any friends in the past.  There are a lot of reasons for this…some are due to me, and my own flaws and stinkeroo heart.  Some are due to others who saw me as a pile of treasure to be used and exploited.tumblr_n6q9lekvjJ1tsgjavo1_500But mostly…I never had any friends because the people I wanted to be friends with were women…and I was stuck inside a biologically male body!  This automatically shifted all friendships into the “potential romantic partner” realm…or the “creepy dude being overly friendly realm” (which I never was but was always terrified that I would be perceived as)…

…or with males, it put me in the realm of absolute befuddlement:  they with me and me with them.

My therapist has helped me to see the ways that males treated me just as they do other women in our culture and this revelation has been key in accepting and forgiving myself.

But in the past 6 months, I have been gaining friends.  Amazing, towering women (who would shout derisively at me that I call them towering lol) who have opened their hearts and spread their wings to me…earthy, rooted women who have twined their roots into mine and have stood with me present…every day.tumblr_nr0nudVxoI1qas1mto6_1280They are teaching me to value myself appropriately and not sell myself so cheaply for bread crusts when there is a whole feast of friendship on the table.

So I am gaining in perspective…in experience…in confidence…and in direction.  I don’t think I want to be part of relationships that are not substantive and real.  I don’t want to be in connections where I am thought of as a bother, a chore to be tended to, or a minor annoyance to grasp (like a pineapple).mine-field1I am a very unique person…and I am a force.  I have been called “too” in the past…”too much”…”too intense”…”too passionate”…”too hard on myself”…”too high a standard”…

Well.  Let this be known:  I am not “too”

I am me.

If that is “too” to you, then likely we are not gonna really connect and grow together.  I have tried to slow down, to sit down, to tone down, to quiet down…and I die inside in guilt, doubt and self-judgement.

I am not doing that anymore…taking that label to myself about myself “too”…

and I am knowing that I am simply me.

And that is the best and only thing I can be…

Those who will shall find me and in these new lands I will become even more…and less.  Less that “me” that is self-judging and critical and self-hating…and more in their wonderful offering of themselves to my heart.Image 001But especially less…for it is in the “less becoming” that I truly become.

I have been knowing this for sometime now, without really knowing…
well, I am getting there…

Gosh it feels so good to run barefoot!tumblr_nmxzr28pzd1u38l26o1_500

Shattered

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things i thought
held me up
and help me up
i found out are shaky

i am thought odd one
guilty of excellence
called by the many
unreasonable girl

pieces are breaking
from the mosaic
but where they hung
there is nothing but grey

all around me the bricks
that I thought were solid
turn liquid and broken
and leave me hung, shattered

The Day I Turned To Stone

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I remember that hard day,
the day I turned to stone,
how my heart filled with such dismay
horror-struck to the bone.tumblr_nqg8ww6JTv1txrs0no1_1280Words floated in the smoky air
and zeroed in on me
and stung me in my fleshy-chair
word-wasps and angry bee.

I broke out, far down the road
so many years gone by
and there laid down that heavy load
of stone, beneath blue skiestumblr_n6imzhXUXg1qzvg5fo5_1280and put on my warm softest flesh
and bloomed in my true form…
me, grown in stable gender-creche
and at last here…reborn.tumblr_nqj5bvampN1t07z8ao1_1280

Feather and Fur

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It’s puzzling…
the sheer effrontery
of those raucous rooks,
those rapacious ravens…

they flock around
(why?  I couldn’t say)
and act all furry and red
and soft and they think
their beady close set eyes
are so foxy…

I act bored and disinterested
but I watch them carefully
with slitted eyes
and coiled muscles
ready to jump away from
blood-thirsty beaks

and harsh cries
that tear the air apart
and leave feather and fur
in their wake.