Category Archives: Charissa Grace

Your Tragic Tranny Chalice (dedicated to Costco)

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I was feeling fine, my day was good, and the sun shone outside.
As I walked the aisles looking for the stuff deemed so necessary
(after all, it HAS to be the Costco brand…cus KIRKLAND)
people smiled and we were soft on one another…

until I got to you, Checker, you with your fear become repulsion
become anger become hatred become revulsion become revenge
and your decision that I was a fraud and committing fraud
you who have let 5 ft tall dark skinned dark haired women
use the card of a nearly 6 ft tall blond norwegian woman
you who let half a dozen people use this common card,
the Holy Grail:  the Sacred Costco Card

and yet me, who most coincidentally and closely resembles the card holder
but happens to be trans, me…you choose to police.
And loudly, and publically and angrily, and relentlessly.

whoever you are, you hard hearted shrew, I hope you never feel the way I do
I hope it never happens to you, for it is worse than the underside of dog-vomit
which is about what you thought I was made out of, based on your words and tone.
and then when you called over the henchman to loudly flat out dehumanize
and disappear me into what you want me to be in…boxed in your word SIR
(as if sirs walk with flowers in their hair and flowing jewelry and trinkets and flair)

and everything inside that I was began to melt
it was your western version of acid in the face

thank you, Costco zombie of horror and hate.
you don’t even remember anything but
the spectacle of tears and your own sweet wine
of derision that you drank from my heart become your tragic tranny chalice

but I will never be able to forget, because your acid burns my face yet and still

and I don’t even know if anyone cared enough to hold you accountable
and that diminishes me further, becoming even more of no account or worth

may the Lord restore my heart and give again to me an unscarred face

Here Among These Ruins

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I spend a lotta time out here,
in these ruins made so soft
with moss and time’s unceasing flow
that rubs away the razor edge

and dulls the sharpest aching grief
that haunts and sanctifies those things
amidst the stones that sing of glory
here, abandoned and now gently

haunting precious mourning here

among these ruins
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At The Rim Of My Soul’s Furthest Reach

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There’s a universe inside me, bound
between my soul-yearn’s furthest reach
and my bleak body’s dullest beach,
a nexus edge, of light and dirt
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Bright pin-prick sharp stars pierce my heart
and shards, a thousand brilliant shards
release their shattered broken song
in full throat glory greater than…
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and I swallow my tears, my pain
and my hurt too and hope this gain
this extra gravity jars loose
those stars from my deep skies inside
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and shoot them streaming fiery
and hopeful and without limit
thru endless skies within my soul
until they finally hit that wall
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at the horizon where my body
and my spirit dance…just at
the limit…and if they, perchance?  Should MEET?
Oh…the Fireworks!! The GLANCE!
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And then shall the night finally
become complete and my soft eyes
shall finally close and come to rest,
my heart shall at last breathe it’s best
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there…
at the rim
of my soul’s
furthest reach
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Such A Gradual, Sudden Thing

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“It is a lonely feeling
when someone you care about
becomes a stranger.”

Lemony Snicket
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Of Such Hot Indifference

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when you walked into the room
you smiled and blew out your breath
upwards, at the locks that impishly
strayed into the wide clear fields
of your forehead.

they puffed backwards, but danced
on the verge of mischievous descent
back down into your field of vision.

when you saw my dusty hands
you smiled and thought pastry-thoughts
and rumbled your tummy in ever-hope
of tidbits, delectable deliberate sweet nothings
such as you had become accustomed to
and assumed would be ever-there…

but your hair fell again
across your face and in your eyes
and it fractured your line of sight

…and thus it was that you failed
to notice that the dust on my hands
wasn’t flour at all

but just the remains of the body
cremated in the fires

of such hot indifference

The Glance of the Moon

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as tears well

(it’s funny that tears
well most well
when I am not well)

up in my eyes
and they go all limpid
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I limp around the room
I see the angles, the planes,

the endless lines
and sharp edges

of your geometry
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and I am glad I am going
even though it hurts as much
being gone as it did being there

it’s just that my lines are round
my planes are spheres

and I have no angles
in the softness of my heart

and the glance of the moon
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“All Means All”: A Meaningless Circular Statement

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I love words…they are so powerful, so magical.

They are alive, they pulse and glow and they do things and go places that you might not mean for them to do and go…and this is especially the case when we use them carelessly and just spew them out because we can.

The biggest problem we face with words is that we forget that they mean something…and when we do that, we set them free to impose a meaning in a situation that controls and distorts reality from what is consciously heard on the surface of the words.

For instance:  saying “everything is red” is a meaningless statement, by definition.  “Everything” means all conceivable existing things without exclusion”…and thus, red would not exist, because how could there be any state of being or place of perception that was other than red and thus giving meaning to red as something distinct and identifiable?

We only know red in contrast to other colors…thus, it is impossible for “everything” to be red.  The more accurate statement would be “It was red as far as the eye could see” or some variant on that approach.

Recently, I heard someone posing a so-called logical argument that “All means all”, and thus there was no need to delineate who is included in “all”…imprecise shortcut thinking that ultimately is lazy and sloppy given this society we live in where “all” has meant white anglo saxon and protestant for about 300 years.

“All” needs some defining additions, some inclusive categories, because in America (alas) we have lived in blatant contradiction to our incredible founding documents…and in the church we have followed the way of the culture and turned out the poor, the needy, the wrong colored wrong gendered wrong orientated…

So what does All mean?

Let’s define it with something that says “included in our list, but not limited to just this list”…yeah, intentionally worded in an awkward way, because there are some really beautiful crafted statements extant that can be adopted…such as the great ELCA “Reconciling In Christ” statement…it gives specificity and depth to the platitude “All means all”.

As to the fears of “being branded?”

I think it would be pretty cool to be branded with the ideals of RIC to the point that when people saw me coming they said “Omg here comes that Charissa…she is branded with the Reconciling in Christ position that all are welcome to come to Jesus!”
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I Like The Rhythms When We Love

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i like the rhythms when we love
the way we move in time as one
and yet distinct and separate
and yet not separated

they come, the movements, just like waves
we wash up on each other’s sand
and drink up each one’s offerings
from shallows and from fathoms deep

and fingers move like lacy spray
and arms and legs like breakers sure
and hearts like rocks, like booming waves
and souls like everlasting sand

yes…
i like the rhythms when we love
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Enough Water

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“A tear is enough water to float a desire to God.”
— Charles Spurgeon

Oh God it is on oceans that
I float my heart to you,
my heart tragic and Titanic
and full of broken dreams

my tears feed every ocean that
ships sail upon so free
and so, will my desires, prayers,
and longings come to Thee?

as the passenger disembarks
and clambers from the boat
so I distinguish me from my
desires, they mere ships

to sail the oceans of the heart
to catch those winds so strong
and carry me home to You, God…
for this I ever long.
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Lingering

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in the forest, thru the mists
under grey clouds on the moor
I wander, wander…I linger

even though my time
here has passed and
so has day become night

and I a woman of the night
in all its mystery and splendour
and thus imbibe its secrets and its wonder

yet do I loiter…here in the forest
near the old house once filled
with glory and light and music

but now just an empty shell
under grey clouds on the moor
in the forests thru the mists

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RECongress “Transgender Lives in the Church” Talk (Transcript)

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Wow.

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever read, and I cannot recommend it enough. Please please PLEASE take the time to read this.

Thank you Anna…brilliant and beautiful like you.

Cold Comfort

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As it unfolds in front of me, that river
that river of green-streaked golden brown
that flow unceasing of time…that goes around
and comes around and goes around again
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I can just make out in the flotsam and jetsam
all the refuse there that everyone has refused
to snatch up and drink and make a part
of their own will and way

I can just see those things that we threw
in together, wishing upon twinkles and glints
star-reflections ripply and quick on the river-folds
and they roll in time and show me their bellies to scratch
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and I do, with recollections of willow days wandy
and star-nights silver thru the open window
wafting in the cool night breezes
that were the only blankets that we wore…
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and the birds, singing songs of light, of times
coming hopeful and bright and all full of promise
and trees reaching, straining to drink the cool peaceful night
and so standing tall as our example, bending graceful

in the wind and standing strong in the rain.
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And now, your hope and promise has arrived,
drawn in reed baskets from that river
and denial done, death thwarted
(for some time anyway, a go-round or two)

and I sit for us both, on the high bluffs
that overlook that flow,
that go round of time relentless
but constant and thus of some cold comfort.
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That Space Between

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it’s that space between
light and darkness
that rare mix
and combination

it’s in shadows I sit
in shades I live
and grey is brilliant color
variated and diverse

it’s the inbetween
that I relate to
that I am

Such A Long Way Home

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I have such a long way home
such a long league of the sea
the last one, longest of them all
as I swim home to my True me.

I have come so far across
the desert sands so red, so hot
no water any where to dip
my tongue, my pen, my deepest thought
But here I am, the sand and sea
embracing in an endless dance
where there is both and neither here
as I transform in this last chance

to swim the promised depths, my home
in waters full of mystery
I have such a long way home
but I will get there, true and free

A Different End To The Story

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All full of himself and stiff
gait wobbly, bopping up and down
walk waggly, blipping circley side-side
aggressive lean forward looking
for something to pierce, to rip

pent up all day inside the clothes of decency
but out now, unleashed now from the world of men
and striding like Colossus thru the realm
of women and children and all that rage
and self loathing his ticket to intoxication…
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just looking for a reason, a place
to vent…and vent that place, tear it
to shreds and bloody ruination plunging
his vicious teeth deep into soft innocent
flesh not yet on the planet 5 years.

He wore his privilege like porcupine quills.
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And then his tongue, bullwhip cracking
his pig eyes squinty and squealy and sweaty
and his anger was only surpassed
by his sanctimonious self righteousness
and utter unawareness of anything but himself.

And I?  Constrained by bonds of love and consternation
responsible for hearts and souls, and yes his own as well
I bit my fucking lip until it bled, and imagined
my nails raking his face to shreds
the way his words tore the heart

from my precious precious angels
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and here I sit, impotent work
with keyboard and words and tears
of sorrow, of ruination, of rage
and longing for the day when a man
won’t be such a dick.

I sit longing for a different end to the story.
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My Exodus

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I moved away while you weren’t watching
(it was easier than I thought it would be,
escaping past your X-Ray eyes
that look for flesh and blood and thus
missed my exodus)
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I live by the sea, now, high
above the sandy shore and on a bluff
that looks like it leans out
but really tucks back in
and stands in stone throw
to the singing sea-grass.

My house has seven windows
my house has one pure door
thru which no shadow enters
(for you won’t come to visit)
straight from the greenwood do you run
straight past my house without a glance
because the sea has given voice
to great desires, and great hungers

but you fail (as you once remembered)
to grasp the truth…these waters sing of me
my ever fall and rise, my adoration of your eyes
my ever in and out, my weeping heart, my spirit-shout
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because I live between the forest and the sea
on a bluff there…I live
I live in that gulf between
you and me.
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What Transmisogyny Is Like

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It hits out of nowhere

It can strike at any time

It is hard to get back up afterwards
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My Vibrant Words

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it’s strange, how my words
are vibrant now, and safe…

my words are safe in themselves
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they used to need your eyes
like vines need their trellis
eyes constant and seeing
and singing in the wind

like that trellis
whose sharp point
kisses the depths of earth
with its piercing pressure
insisting on being
a root descending
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that trellis whose strands
thrum beneath my words,
and echo them to the singing winds

but they
(my words,
not the wind,
or the trellis,
or your eyes)
are strong now
and own-rooted
in depths and dirt
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and though they
feel the twinge
of regret in your retreat,

they don’t mourn or weep

they are own-winded
in their own-rootedness

they are own-trellised
they are own-sung
they are own-caressed

and the sorrow in the wind?
it is the wind’s tongue in the gap
where my teeth-words used to be
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Heart Words Passion

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that thing where people
cover their bodies with
ink and needle kisses
and waterfalls of memories
become tangible roadmaps
into the past thru the mist

well maybe that will hit it

but it has missed my marks
and maps and mists
because they are tattooed
in your heart
in my words
in my passion

The Blood Of Its Escape

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the cry of the old house crawled out
between the bars and scrabbled
hard up the frozen-bone branches

it wrenched itself from the icy
grip of frosty-crystals and leapt
into the wind

into freedom

but the blood of its escape
remained running everywhere
and that lock still snikked shut

tight against the chain
and those cold long links
that stood arm in arm

against freedom
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while the blood of this effort
was left in trails
smeared everywhere

in gory evidence of how
you turn it down over
and over and over

true freedom

 

 

 

I Generate Content

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Dear Constance…this is not for you, as you are demonstrably here because you enjoy reading.

Reader…this is for you:  I produce the content of Grace Notes for my own sanity and therapeutic mental health.  I write what I want, when I want, and how much I want.

If it is too much for you, then fade away.  Others have before you…and others will after.

For I burn on helium and hydrogen, I am a halogen torch and I am flame and flame…

I cannot not write.  I cannot moderate for some expectation or desire.

So-called friends have given up, gone away.  Well…you can go too…or just get in the boat and ride the rapids.

Besides…the ride will give you the smallest inkling of what it is like to have this flow come OUT of you!!  If you think the navigating is sumfin…imagine the containing and releasing of it.

Hey…Ima keep following hard after Mama…in a dry and thirsty land.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa
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In The Darkness Of The Night

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in the darkness of the night
the night sublime, silent
the night stark, solitary
in the darkness

I stand outside your house
(in the darkness of the night)
and smell the fragrance wafting
to the stars above inhaling
the darkness
of the night
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the smell of baking bread
the smell of your warm bed
I look into the window
and see your lips are moving
while you laugh and you talk
to someone in the light

so I turn up my collar
and turn away in tears
and grab a double handful
of sable velvet lonely

in the darkness of the night
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We must protect rights of society’s marginalized | The News Tribune

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We all have a responsibility to end sexual assault. Denying transgender people their civil rights is not the way to do that.

Source: We must protect rights of society’s marginalized | The News Tribune

A truly stunning well reasoned defense of my right to be.

Do you know that in most places transgender people are not recognized as who they are unless they have surgery…and at the same time the surgery is classified as “elective” and thus not covered by insurance…AND is also denied unless the person who needs the surgery obtains the permission and affirmation of 2 separate psychiatrists and surgeons?

Can you see that double bind?

“You are not a person unless you are committed enough to have surgeries…but we are gonna make you pay for them with your own money and they cost in the mid to high 5 figures…AND we are gonna make you prove yourself to at least 4 separate people…only then are you allowed to be a real person.

“Oh…and before you can even start this process, or get hormones or anything else, we are gonna require that you live as your claimed gender identity at least 2 years, after which we MIGHT give you hormones…

“What’s that you say? By requiring you to live as your claimed gender while denying you the means by which you can physically fit in we are endangering your life from transphobic transmisogynistic men? Well, you are wrong. WE are not doing that…YOU are…with your damn stupid insistence upon being a person who is differently bodied than you are gendered.”

You see the double bind?

It reminds me of how amateurism was created in sports to try and keep POC out of the leagues, because only the rich and privileged can live and train full time and not need to be paid, because they already have their money.

In the gender area…only the gender-rich and privileged can make the rules that shut us out.

And then we are told that our life matters, that we have worth, etc…just not enough worth to be made whole. Just not enough

another way of saying not enough is

worthless

And that is why it is important to let us go peepee like any other human…that is why it is important to speak of us as subjects (you/I/we/she/her) and not objects (it/that/he-she).

“That Is A She”

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window
my home lies
deep in the forest
near the roots
of the mountains

it is a space
from which eternity
pours effortlessly
right alongside sorrow,
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longing and giving
and receiving,
that one unity
of space and going

to and from
that receptive deep
opening within
passing from
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this world of woe
to a deep place
that’s not a place
but the echo

of my home
deep in the forest
near the roots
of the mountains
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Salty Faithful Circle-Heart

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The seasons of my heart are on display
thru the rain-flecked windshield
and the squeaky blinks
of the wiper blades

thru the tinted window glass
underneath electric humming singing
of the sleepy crickets sleeping off
a sunny lazy hangover day

thru the tines of the thrumming rake
so red like my cheeks and sharp
like my nose running to the tune
of winter’s coming tramps
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thru the falling snow so silent
against the dark so thick, transcendent
pointing to the circle never-ending
the seasons of my ever-changing heart
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thru the wonder and the hope
thru the suffering and love
thru the dying and the crying
thru the healing and the rising

salty faithful circle-heart
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Afloat In Holy Black II

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in the silent frosty middle
you know the place, it dangles
from a frayed and rotted rope
by its twisted, broken neck

never climbing to the heavens
never rising, never sinking
finally to hell…suspended
still-born in the dead black moment
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struck hard by fiery unjust suffering
lightening bolts of frozen mystery
electric silence of a God
who seems to become floaty-fog…

…and go missing in that moment…
that cold and lonely hour of greatest need.
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And Defiance?
And Hope?
And Memory?
And Wrath?

Or Mercy?
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God’s absence…ever-present metronome
clicking seconds tangible
but measured in life’s lurking horrors,
haunted concentration camps

shrieking dust-wreathed empty chairs
silent tables lacking breath
just one long open exhale
lasting always occupied

by aching absence of the Loved ones
gone…just gone…replaced by absence…
lurking pervert, shadow present
of God Absent in the hanging

in the hollow hanging black…
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Or is it
Holy Black?  Yes.
Afloat in Holy Black.

In the times of Holy Black…
This Holy Black when God seems absent
in our need, we are too small,
inconsequential lost in mystery

I ask where is God? Where am I?
Where is Divine Mercy Sweet?
How can I (or anyone)
Slip that rough coarse choking rope?
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I go forward
They are not there,
backward, but
I can’t perceive Them.
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When They act on the left,
I cannot behold Them;
They turn on the right,
I cannot see Them.

And yet I find in anguished cries
against God’s absence, They are present!
Present in my blank assumption
that Their Silence equates absence

and tenacious faith in God
who seems so distant from our pain,
and silent to our acrid cries,
and absent from our acid world.
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In the face of certain suffering
how else can I affirm God’s presence
in my midst except by taking
issue with injustice in this moment

of God’s long apparent ringing absence
God’s abandonment in the midst of towering suffering?
My protest against God’s pressing pregnant silence
would be deprived of dignity and meaning

if there were no Presence behind the Silence.
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mercy and justice are enthroned
in a higher heaven still
and in this Lenten season,
in our hungry self denial
as we blindly grope around

in that towering Spiraling Darkness
of our own imperfect vision
and our wakened apprehension
of our God, we will to wrestle
with God’s absence so we can come

to experience the presence
of God in a different way
not that hanging purgatory
twisting in the idiot wind…no
Us and God…Afloat in Holy Black

“I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen you.”
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Fungus

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i tried to explain
the majesty of mushrooms
who grow best in darkness
and thrive in the damp
and flourish midst breakdown
and live in the bullshit

but he just laffed derisive
and opened his wolfmouth
and said you are still
just a fungus
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Gravity That Rules

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…perhaps this could be me.

Right now?  Sadly, it is still gravity that rules
and in times like these?

It’s hard to see
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I Am The OtHeR

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they sit beside the brook
its merry song tinkles around them
music from the heart of
the earth’s blood clearer than diamonds
more fierce than oxygen
and all they hear is the sound
of piss bouncing off stones
and fouling the dirt
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in the presence of waterfalls
roaring with the immanent joy
of the void becoming UN-void
and spray like pearls on the way
from nowhere to as yet pregnant
oysters in deepest seas and
deeper sees
all they hear is a vague
annoying buzz of
an insignificant tramp.
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and at that shore vast
that shore that makes them
wistful, hopeful, weak, strong
in, out, shrinking, growing
never changing never same
and the thunder of the deep
calling to Deep…
they cast their trash
and drop their gum
after taking my picture
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Sensitively Fashioned

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I am posting the paragraphs below because they describe me, inside. Oh no…not on the outside, I am large and just…well, Ima avoid saying.
 
But I am really struggling tonite…it was a very tough week since Monday…on Monday I was traumatized and humiliated in the course of living my life. Someday I will post about it, but for now I think discretion is of the order.
 
Here is what I don’t get tonite though: why do I always have to “prove” myself, when others do not have to?
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Why do I have to:
1. Prove I am legitimate…who I know I am
2. Prove that I am “safe”…cus the assumption is I MUST be a pervert.
3. Prove I am a person…not an “it” or a “that”
4. Be met with suspicion
 
“I asked God why He made me sensitive, and He promised me that it wasn’t a mistake. He told me He purposely made me delicate, not so I could shatter easily, not so I could be frail, not so I could be told I’m “too soft” whenever someone tries to touch me…it was so I could know of the gentle beauty in living.
 
“And in my tenderness, I can love in a way the world may not know of yet. My compassion has the power to speak raging waves to calmness and I can appreciate the little things He created that go unnoticed. There is something special in being fragile, and it has nothing to do with weakness, and everything to do with strength.
 
“Being sensitive is a gift, He answered, and I shouldn’t be ashamed of it.” 🌿

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Residual Benefactor: The Purgatory of Dying Friendship

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“As an undergraduate, I first heard the term “residual benefactor” in an economics class. A residual benefactor is the chump who gets whatever is left over when a company is liquidated — typically, not much.

“When we’re not careful, the people we care about often become residual benefactors: We leave them for last, giving them whatever bits of time are left over after we’ve attended to everything else.”

View at Medium.com

On The Way To Scarborough Faire

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by a frosty window, cracked
just a bit to let the roasty room
(and our toasty toes) sip some
air so fresh and crisp and clean
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that air, smelling salts cast up
and out and in by the sighing seas
that rose and fell contentedly
as you lay there…asprawl by me
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our night so many years ago
and yet it never happened
except in our hearts twining
(or in mine anyway, cus
I am allus pining for what
has never happened but could have)

and me saying “I am in love with you”
and you asking “does that mean I love you?”
and me answering with lips, with tongue
and you opining with moans, and lungs
yours, mine, in, out, heave, sigh
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and the seas…so content
and so restless
and so content
and so restless

there on the way
to Scarborough Faire
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It’s On…

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it’s on the naked branches
stripped bare by winter lashings
frozen crushings and dim light
dark night and the howls and owls
and the lonesome silent music
of lost longings and long waiting…
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it’s on the roof built solid
so snug against the cold
and cupping all the golden warmth
that glows inside the heart
and sings inside the soul
of Spring returning fast…
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it’s on my face that Mama splashes
all Her Love, Her Grace and Peace
She beautifies my ashes
She oils my grieving heart
She clothes me in Her Raiment
and purifies my spirit

and I sing once again
reborn and free again.
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My True Name

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the sun scurries from the rim
of the far horizon, hurries
up to its important stage above all
things beaming.
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it’s gonna have a helluva day
throwing shade at everyone
especially me, this moonchild
that sunshine passes thru.
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the sun forgets everything
but its self-important run
to heights to glare down from
imperious, impervious, and naming.
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I could look straight at it
but if I did, it would be quenched
in my knowing, darkling gaze,
my look that sees the backside
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so I look away as it names me
wrong, other, afterthought
aside, and that old flame would
just as soon burn my ass.
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but in just mere moments
when I lower my gaze, the sun
forgets I ever was, except maybe
to laugh and snicker at the moonchild
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but the moon remembers
and so do I
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the moon, soft, beautiful
receives me
knows my name

my true name
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That Line?

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that line?
right there.

the one stretching out
from somewhere to nowhere

i crossed it
but not just stepped across

on dancing feet
i danced across

and caper on its grave

Demure In That Sunset

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you looked out on our landscape
the one we saw outside
that just mirrored the one
we share between our hearts.

you said that it was beautiful
and though I did agree
I said nothing, and did defer
demure in that sunset.
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the winds blew cold, freezing
like un-freeze-able ice
that twisted round our toes
and nipped sharp at our nose

but it did not seem to phase you
there in that beauty sprawled
as stars began to sing
and blood began to bring
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you to my yearning soul
that never will be whole
in this night breaking bright
we held each other tight

and then our lips did meet
the wind paused, then attacked
and drove us closer still
love you I ever will.
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In The Still Hush

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in the hush, in the still hush
of the dying day, the waning day
see the sun, ohh the setting sun
shining rays, rays trickling
down the winds, on the breeze
to the beach, in the reach
of ocean waves, wild waves crashing
to the sands, the sparkling sands
in the cold, the rush of cold air
all around, and fresh in us
on that quiet, quiet darkling
winter evening.
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A Gulf So Imperceptible

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the distance between you and i
is the same as that distance
between myself and me
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a gulf so imperceptible
two souls that intertwine
and yet a smokescreen intervenes
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and my heart never to be touched
my inmost parts so liquid, so creamy
laying fallow, uninhabited
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thinness, membrane thinner than
a butterfly wing, or maybe even
just one molecule thick
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but never can be broken thru
never can be jumped across
to stand there with you
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That Sacred Mountain

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“I reckon she tours 45, 47 weeks a year” he drawled
that soft spoken voice crawled out of wiry limbs
and a throat red and wattled and jiggly while he
wagged his chin.

“Why, she may clear two hundred thousand a year”
and those words drew my eyes lifted, my ears
and I couldn’t decide if he was more
Richard Farnsworth or Robert Duvall or
just a one-off salt knowing everything about nothing.
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“What’s it gonna take, til she strikes it hot, clear
and becomes the next Joan Baez?”

I stifled my own mirth, jammed it deep
like musket balls tamped down the barrel
of an old long-rifle and lowered my gaze
like the sharp winter moon bending to earth
to harvest tides and turns and yearns.

But when she came out she was clothed in midnight.
She wore night sky round her shoulders adorned
with stars golden and shimmering in arpeggios, waves
rippling, flowing as she mounted the stage all gawky
adolescent walking into high school for the first time,
all snowy egret eternal and established and impossibly thin.
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Thin, lined with years like irrigation ditches dug
by needy and loving hands from her dirt and her face
a sharp, flat smooth blade fierce, angular and unrelenting

until she sang, and
Mama picked her up and
she became more diamond brilliant and
turning than tossed tomahawk whirling fast.
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She spoke
of the Sacred Mountain,
she spoke
of Blue Lake
and the Holy Hallowed
ground made ready
by the steady
devoted padding footsteps
of the people of the lake.

Her voice was red,
red smears on blacks and deeps
crimson moans in velvet folds
and bright cardinal ever song
over the burlap of everlasting deep.
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Snow, rain, wind, beauty
swirled her round and fell
from her slopes in glitter-jets
and flocky-flecks and cloudy bunches,
fell to our listening hearts
yearning in the darkness.

And my tears fell as I heard her,
tasted her in this present sacred singing moment
while she spun her tales right down the rails
and into our true heart amber and yearning
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and I recalled the Sanctuary she built for me
from her pain and need and naked suffering trust
that temple of holy hurt that I dwelt in, grieving
mourning the coming loss of love and sweet devotion

I dared not leave that place then
I did not want to leave this place now
but she reeled them off and some brand new
and rose from that folding chair grander
than any sovereign throne fashioned
from naked blades or fragrant petal

RedRedRedRedRedRedRedRed

And like a mountain
just up and walking off
she strode, spare glorious
slopes cloaked in snow
and feet clothed in rain
and wreathed in wet and

the blossoms of many trees
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Walk On Daffodils

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I can walk on daffodils
barefoot, light and free from ill

See, I have feet, light, beautiful
feet that walk on top of things

and yet so sturdy under me,
feet that will not crush flowers
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yet will trod on serpent’s head
impervious to fang and tooth

impervious to words and hate
feet stained carmine with grape blood

but never wrath, never that

cus I just walk on daffodils
and tread the yellow golden road
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Blessed Meek

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Hemingway said that one should write
hard and clear about what hurts

but what if what hurts isn’t that
which stony lays heavy and dark?

what if tend’rest touch and rest
is what hurts deepest, what hurts best?

intimate soft whispers, silk
and lacy heart of cream and crunch

quiet whispers over head
of breeze on branch, what brutal punch

is gentle beauty, soft and blurred
by grateful tears, my precious pearls

slipped down my velvet slick white cheek
I write for all we…blessed meek.
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I Burn So Free

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Unmoored in the white expanse
chained by air and frozen flats
white as far as eye can see
and just one speck revealed there…me

red on white, no blue in sight
carmine bold against the night
a blood smear there upon that face
so cold, so neutral…blooming grace
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I burn there in this gelid place
and nothing here to burn but ice
that smothers every spark and glow
and so I turn my heat high…slow
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and steady, burning every flake
and fleck of frozen haughty glance
I use as fuel your silences
and melt the emptiness of chance
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that random stark coincidence
of when you turn and look my way
but lend me not even a branch
to burn, just more cold arctic grey
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It matters not, I burn my me
I choose to be a fire hot
and brighter than the silent white
I burn the ice…I burn so free
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This Morning’s Purple Fog

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this morning’s purple fog
slapped my cheeks hard
when I left the house
they were rosy red and pink
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but now?
deep purple–
bluish violet blush–
heliotrope-tinged–
by the purple fog.

it shocked me
with its iridescence
and made me
bite my lip to stifle
exclamation, exhalation
of purple mist breathed in
thru my clenched teeth
and open heart.
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and now?
with my mouth so bloody
so torn and pierced,
I seek to write and lips
my pen and paper yes,

I write with
my bloody lips
and scribe with
my bloody mouth
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as the bloody breath
of the winter-sotted earth
rises from those
spring-dreaming dirt clotted lungs

and slaps
my cheeks hard…again
with this morning’s purple fog.
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