Category Archives: Love

On Mountain’s Face

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Across its face the river ran
all liquid grey and velvet-slate,
fell down the cheek of hanging cliff,
around the lakey eyes of blue…
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And out the other end it flew,
soft down on downy breasts of green,
thru meadows and thru softest thatch…
The river gathered fertile force

and ran down legs, insistent as
the wind that pushes clouds around
the world in days, it poured out fast,
it ran down mountain shins…at last
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it reached the heart of deepest seas.
It reached the inmost core of me.
It fed me with its journey-feast
and quenched my thirst to be set free…
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And then I my me offered up
beneath the summons of the sun
to become clouds pushed round the world…
And then, on mountains, me unfurled…

To fall and feed with heaven’s grace
And run again on mountain’s face.
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A Performance Lecture on the Theology of Gender

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I have seen this wonderful man in person and very much enjoyed his presentation.

I am posting this for anyone curious about a theological perspective about matters of gender, presented in dramatic performance and gentle words.

 

To Text My Heart

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Use this
to text my heart
to write upon
my sanskrit soul
and scribe your name
into my being

it’s the only thing
that can connect
with me, on my
wavelength

Say Not A Word

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Hush, Love…
say not a word
as I sit here in light
and desire is wafting
in shivery delight

see how it settles
and falls out of air?
Here, on my shoulder
precipitates there in
a silvery sheen of dewy desire
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my love a
melty hot flower of
mmmmmm
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say not a word, Love
but if you wish
you may bend close
here, to taste of my neck.

The Final Coming Thaw

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I am floating on free seas held captive
in the ice of your remove and shrewd appraisal.

My heart passion like living rock moving
red and liquidy, red like plasma pulsing
scorchy and inexorably drawn in hungry
longing for the icy stillness of you.

And where we meet, I melt
you, steamy/dreamy, and yet
you run quick-cold to the reaches
and rime-rimmed rocks and reefs…

And there I sit, captive in you
and waiting for the thaw of Love
to be finally completed.

Sanctuary– For JD

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Remember Litter-Mate…the fact that they other and police you affirms your authenticity!!

 

The Fall Of Ancient Time

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I am not a place
for the faint of heart
or blustery of soul!

But I do get lonely
as the night wheels past
my achey longing heart.
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Do you not suffer
the war in this world?
Do you not feel
all the pain in this world?
The loneliness and the
no hope in this world,
the boredom and fear
of failure, temptation
too strong to resist in this world?
when_it_all_crashes_by_spokeninred-d89cudw
Bitterness of heart
amok in this world,
not knowing fully
who we are or who thou art,
not knowing this,
just knowing thy love
is beyond every knowing.

No other love has power
to fall on us and make us whole.

No other touch can withstand
the fall of Ancient Time
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Here inside a civil war
between me and me.
all the time winning
and all the time losing

because I am a world,
a universe and I cannot
be explored in just one day

It will take seasons,
whole winters and
years of summers
to mount up on wings
and cascade over mountains
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talking with you
sometimes is either
a slap in the face
or a slammed door,
and yet the Void…gaping gulf,
it is but exhalation
in the Light of your shadow!

And falling
into that seeming nothing,
yawning and gulping, well
it is but a dropped stitch
in the Banners over me
of You.
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This Speckled Star-lit Night

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Ohhh Love,
it longs with me for thee
even though we’ve forgotten
thy name’s shape and feel and sound
and the way it breathes in me,
the way it speaks to me
in whispers, like wind
whispering between the clouds
to speak to earth
in breaths from beyond
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like the way
you touch my ankle
when we sit upon
the floor there,
by the fire
in the speckled-star-lit night
gathered close
outside the house
just like a mama bird who nestles
down so gentle on Her chicks…
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I miss you terribly
and ache so,
ever in this moment.

City of Bones

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Barcelona,
oh City of Bones
laying hot and dry in the sun
beating down on streets, on tombs
and tiles so red over white and so hot
and shimmering radiant still,
oh ye bones!
barcelona_above___revisited_by_coigach-d9h3eegBarcelona, City of Bones
Baking before the gates of the Sun,
I sacrificed my purity for thee, such as it might be
(my purity, not my sacrifice)

Purity…
of thought,
of mind,
of heart and soul,
purity of
song and deed
and strong intention.

Barcelona, my sacrifice
so droll, so dirty is actually
sterility masquerading
as purity and thus is merely

the absence of jazz,
the absence of spice,
the absence of that
jagged noise of exultation
and thus there is no
purity and nothing
quite acceptable
enough.
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Gladly do I lay it there
(my sacrifice, not my purity)
on the bony altar of your burning eyes
hung there above the freezing flames
of your sharp haughty sniff and thus
do I seek sanctuary in the fires of
your hunger, games appeased and satiated.
Image 002 And these words I leave
(my longing words so red, so sharp)
along the edge of your wet teeth,
hard teeth so white and glistening,
and there, blurred,

there they mingle
with your breath,
with the liquid you
and thus become
inflammable and ready
to leap up like the Phoenix
to take their ease in air and be
us, there, us there
be us there in the air.
Rise

And this city here,
right in plain sight and swaying
in the salty breeze blowing in stiff
off the racing aching blue seas,
this City of Bones dancing on air

with my words
there in air
like banners in the wind,
like thirsty golden kerchiefs
flying midst meteors, comets,
midst stars in the night

flapping in the solar flares
and furies of the sun and lapping
up the finest purest beams
of silver, argent grey moonlighttumblr_nw4iwesgqi1s2clnyo1_1280

And those fires
(of the night)
my words those silver fires
streaking, shooting across
the vast expanse of velvet
black thick nothing, silver flames
curling, licking at the bones
of the City hanging
in the deep dark void
shimmer And the music rounding there amidst
those handy banners sounds like owls
talking soft and hooty in the wind-torn branches
and our hearts are slender limber flexing long flagpoles
and we fly our flags of love like maidens flying
tokens for our champions…tumblr_o03sa8dubM1unv2uco1_1280Together we all

(words and banners and bones)

shine upon your battlements

Barcelona
City of Bones
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Heaven Or Hell

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So many people these days judge me…they dramatically confuse my gender journey with some sort of sexual expression and/or indulgence…and there is not any sort of intersection between these two.  Let me try to explain.

Like the graphic below says, sexuality for me is an expression of, a following result of something far greater and grander.

I think that sexuality is sacred and precious…and also the ultimate powerful created thing, for from sexuality a human being created in God’s Image can emerge…and no, that doesn’t mean that I think sex is for procreation only.  But because that potential is there, the act itself is an act of being, and as such it is transformative…

…it is gonna change you, in essential fundamental ways.

Thus…for me?  Sexuality that happens apart from true and lifelong committed love is simply hell, for it ultimately serves to sever the human soul from all relationships except relationship with self and self alone (which is the best description of hell that I can think of)…

Sexuality that happens in the context of a committed and lifelong monogamous relationship?

The closest thing to heaven that I have experienced this side of its Eternal Shores.

I know I am in a vast minority of people…those who both celebrate sexuality and its essential vital importance to a whole life…and also advocate its selective expression…as a symbolic act of worship and fidelity.

I love you, my Dearest Darling.
Forever

Champagne Kisses

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I long for champagne kisses
to be given to me
your mouth the open bottle
me goblet gaping, me

so thirsty for an altar
and vows once said renewed
and toasts in night air ringing
and union Reunioned with you

and champagne from your sweet lips
pressed gently onto mine
our love Their wine so bubbly
and life, so sweet, so fine
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Absalom At The Bridge

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There on that narrow spike-span stretching
between what shall be and what has already been
he stands, my Absalom, hair blowing breezy in the wind…

golden glow and fierce mane shaking itself hard
in anger, pride, in sorrow, ache, in Nine gods’ names
Oh Absalom, Absalom my son, my golden glowing son

standing ‘neath that terebinth in blackness,
without way forward and none behind, no back-ness on the bridge,
and masks(ness) stuck to your face and laying limp there at your feet

I walk to meet you there, on that stark narrow span in air…
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Horatius stood in that same place
and felt the things that pulse in you
and waited for the enemy

to show itself, fierce, solid, real
and fear, resolve, thrills did feel
as he a country stood to save

But Absalom?  He has no place to go
Forward into what’s not known
but back is not permitted

for there’s nothing to go back to.
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You know the pain of what’s been robbed
from you, but you have no idea
the ache that throbs here, deep in me

And rueful choices’ symphony
resounds below you, ‘neath your feet
and make that thin bridge sway

This way, that way, but you just ride,
time’s red-black surfer on time’s tide
and riding staves across the past’s deep cold and unforgiving waves

I take a breath and I step out towards you.
Image 001
And walk…slow and deliberate
towards your angry broken face
and swollen heated broken heart

my fingers stretched for just one touch
to tell you I forgive all words
and need forgiveness for all loss

and all my failure’s litany
that, written in your eyes of me
and my dull inability, Oh Absalom, my son!

My son! Would to God I died for thee!
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Turning Inside Out

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my skin is stained by your lips
stained red, stained wine, crushed grapes
delicious between your white teeth.
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my skin is blue from your touch so cold,
so hot within ice cold choice austere,
your love so cold it’s hot
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my skin is purple, it’s smeared
with your tough tenderness, your fingers
painting in loops and whorls
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and I, tattooed by your love
and thinking it done, it forever
indelible fait accompli…
Matthew Joseph Peak-www.kaifineart.com-1
But it washed off in the rain
of days, of years, of lifetimes
until I was white as snow

*as if untouched*
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So I turn myself inside out
and I wear my soul for my skin
and I’m stained always and again
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by your lips
by your words
by your touch

*by you*
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Advent Poem: Holy Wassail Wine

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God,
rest Ye…

here in the midst
of the mess and the malls
and the masses of middling
and the muddles of mercy
needed, so badly needed.
pdx streets
Let nothing

Masquerade as something
filling hearts so full
(of nothing…nuffin)
that they “feel full”
and still hunger for
bread become stone
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For
Jesus Christ was
born upon this day,

again in the sound of muzak
again in the tread of tired
tramping feet tiptoeing
around grapes of wrath
unstored in stores
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again…be born
again upon
This Day

O tidings of comfort and joy!
For the final word
is not dismay
and darkness shall not
have the final say!
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here is joy
enfleshed,
mingled with
sorrow like
Holy Wassail Wine
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The Lense Thru Which I Read My Lil Red Songbird…

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I need my small, meaningless lies. I need all my self-created semi-truths.
It’s the only way for me to keep exclusive parts of myself to myself.
Believe me, I do not even perceive them as lies.
It’s something different that keeps happening inside my head.
At the same time, I long to tell you the truth about me, always.
I want to share with you each important or unimportant detail and feel and fully embrace the very act of sharing.
But it occurs to me that it’s the hardest of tasks; I hate it.
I hate unveiling bits and pieces of anything permanent or temporary that resides in me.
I loathe it with my heart.
You can find more honesty in the smallest of my gestures rather in my words;
my words are too impatient, too loose, too doomed in some way.
— Anaïs Nin

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In Your Wonder

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Here I am
caught up in your wonder

and wondering how
it is that you have

written it all
over me and

around me.
I am here

inscribed by
your eyes, your lips

your hands have
writ large in wonder

upon my soul

 

Illustrated Woman

Advent Poem: Who Can Say?

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So long ago and far away
e’en though the miles are under one
and echo still in wonderment
we trimmed a tree with love and grace
and feasted on such shining face
that echoed 4 in that bright place…

and in my heart I live there still
and see the shine and smell the green
and on those wings I rise and thrill
above these deserts low and mean
while angels gather near the earth
and I wait for the Baby’s birth

and understand this thing…at last
I am here to see the sights
and feel the joy and hear the song
I’m here at last…it was sooo long
and who can say what’s best, and true
to be locked up and yet have you

or be bereft of everyone
and have the birth of me be done?
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Repost with Audio of Loon Cry

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From far out in the center
of the naked lake
A Lost Loon’s Loud Lament
Echoes the cry of someone.

My love, we did not arrive at this place
To remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like trees.

Trees are broken in winter and start again
Drawing up from
The Great Root.

Like Trees
We live again.

http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/107964/play/320

Advent Poem: Unfeigned Without Reserve

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In the midst
of this storm
of pain
these clouds
of hurt
these winds
of death

I stand and on
You do I call
and ever trust
and ever long

For You to bring
Your peace on earth
and those who call
upon Your Name

to lay down useless weapons grim

And lift their hearts
to Light again

and love unfeigned
without reserve

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“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.
I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.”
— Margaret Atwood, “Variation of the Word Sleep”

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My Baby Loves God Like A Boss!

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My Baby loves God like a boss!

She ain’t no red-light winker
or Fleet Street wanker
when it comes to
loving Them, HELL NO…

She’s a street walking swinger
as long as that street glows golden
and is called The Way, or just plain
Beautiful, or if that street is a market

and she will buy Their wares…
pearls here, pears there,
peas and poultry right next
to peace and praise…

Ahhh…

My Baby loves God…loves God like a boss!!
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Advent Poem: This Waiting Time

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Sometimes frost grips limbs
once lean and limber in the wind
now long grown stiff and creaky
and I hear them crack and groan
in those sticky clutching fingers
cold and frosty, fingers
cold and frosty.
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Sometimes ennui (cold)
grips my soul (grown old)
and in its grip I groan
(groan old) and my soul
(my waiting soul) runs
around my heart and
around my heart

as the clock’s tail
ticks and twitches, chases
its tail like a cat relentless,
(useless) and that (waiting)
that frosty cold difficulty of waiting
remains there clinging tightly
in the fading day.
But Advent…

Advent
Advent comes again
and gives her gift.
In the cold and dead of winter,
trauma seems to sting much deeper,
and healing for the broken parts
of my life…and the people that I love?
Seems so much harder to obtain…
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When it comes to these things
things so staggering and important,
healing, peace and goodness
on the earth, freedom from suffering,
well…waiting is hard, so hard and painful.

But in these moments I’m remembering
I’m troubled in soul and looking
for something transcendent, greater
than the hurt and pain and suffering,
something, someOne warm enough
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persistent, faithful, warm enough

to breathe on us
to break the ice
and give us life
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Long familiar sweet hymns play
wherever I go, I remember
I am poor, imperfect, waiting for
the God Who comes down,
Comes Down, God With Us
Emmanuel! Hosanna!
In the Highest Holy Fire!
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and I feel again
the gentle nudge
of a knock deep
at the door
of my small
and icy lonely
heart.
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Advent is the time of waiting
waiting for the One (the One)
Who embraced body, embraced sorrow
Came to show us all the fullness
of just being home, present, and real.

And we are long reminded in
our cold dolorous longing
what we’re longing for actually
a Who, Who, Who we long for,
God…always coming nearer to us.
tumblr_nxyvx0qB8d1sbg1lmo1_500I have found a place
inside (in Advent, inside you)
that place where once
you die, you…
you come Alive…
A place where pain
and pleasure weigh out
just the same
and all that’s left
is only Love,
tumblr_nveprpyg6U1tdo940o1_1280And every sorrow touched
by the wild gold Promise
that in this very place
(of waiting)
Jesus has been born
(is born)
and will be born
again and again,
and again
breaking thru
tumblr_nvtonjz7IJ1qam6uto1_1280that icy grip
thawing out
our longing hearts,
melting all
our sin and deaths
so we can
laugh again.

Amidst My Thoughts Of You

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I wake in the morning and wander
through the house in my skin
and in the warmth of thoughts of you

even though you are far away
and across that gulf
you won’t cross, won’t cross
my cross and yours

my coffee warms my mouth
my thoughts of you warm
my heart, flush my skin, touch
my soul with anemone filaments
and fires and goosebump caresses

here in the morning
wandering in the warmth
amidst my thoughts of you
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IRISH THANKSGIVING

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Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: IRISH THANKSGIVING


It was a year ago on this day that I read this poem, and I am struck just as strongly today as I was on that day a year ago…by this work of such stunning power and beauty and longing and fulfillment.

Melissa Shaw Smith is a poetess that I respect immensely, and a woman that I aspire to be like.  I have never met her, except thru her work, and thru a few emails in which she graciously allowed me to bloviate opinions about her work which in hindsight seems to me a bit like the 2nd grader who can do the times tables up thru her 5s talking to Madam Curie about the wonders of science!!

No matter…Constance, if you think my poetry is any good, just know that it is as if it were a child’s lego creation side by side with El Capitan compared to Melissa’s work.

Mel, if you are reading here…I love this poem with the marrow-bones of my tears.

Much much love…
Charissa

 

Your Approaching Presence

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Dressed in red
and wrapped in white
I wait in warmth,
wait in splendour
for the high and shivery
delight of your approaching
presence, in your silver
laughter, in your ringing
song that echoes off the stones
and reaches here inside
these ermine furs
so soft.

Advent Poem: To Go To Bethlehem

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Uncanny, peculiar,
uncomfortably strange,
I tend my fires and tell my story…
tumblr_n40izwKWgH1s5neh1o1_1280the story of
this quirky girl
overly-intelligent
and stuck in time
that is not time, so
unreconciled to time
so bound up in its realm.
tumblr_n5np124LJd1s5neh1o1_500I am strapped there
on Your wrist (watch)
a condor in a cage
passing from quick present
to some furious future
and thus so fast becoming
dim, and dark, and past
and wondering if I amtumblr_n3ng7oK9xj1s5neh1o1_1280ever?  present?
ever a moment?
ever a significant occasion
or an immeasurable quality?

I want real time!tumblr_nyhnrwYzEl1qllucco2_1280time which breaks through
with a shock of joy
like a leap into Crater Lake
on a snowy New Year’s morning,
time where we are completely
un-self conscious and far more
real in some eternal now
I thirst for a moment jeweled!
tumblr_nycmluCX5a1qat5pio1_500a moment
so sweet or magnified
it seems to stop time
but doesn’t because time
becomes a point so limply moot
and thus no longer dirty moat
between me and my true self
tumblr_mz5pbxrvwe1slvh08o2_1280And here I sit, beside time’s bonfire
tumblr_nvpeukM0QC1u7b31go1_1280and sparks fly up
and away so quick
to join the stars
and glimmer and
I poke at this fire
hot and tender
and tend it…
with my tinder636e5f6d27dbf806212c969a3560ca33and wonder how to be
here in this already
and not yet, between
That Eternal Now
and this one,
and the One
Who There Inhabits?tumblr_nxgij6jzXP1rnl2wvo1_1280wonder how to be aware
of life while I am living it?

wonder how to limp courageous
and relinquish all control
of self and self awareness?

wonder how to laugh courageous
and look for glory
in the storied
wonder of the ordinary?

wonder how to live courageous
and be surprised by One
who dares draw near?

wonder how to love courageous
and take off rings and watches?
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I burn calendars and open
my heart uncanny,
strange peculiar…
tumblr_nfi2j2A3Sf1t043jao1_500to see eternity in
the midst of time
to go to Bethlehem
today and everyday
in this time and place

where glimpses of the eternal
come quiet, unexpectedly
they come and they upset
our every notion static about time
and all we discover there within.
and in the east her long shroud trailing
I open
my Uncanny Peculiar
Uncomfortably Strange Heart
to the story of All and Ever
ending Never

I choose
to live somewhere between
the already and not yet,
caught and held
by the One who
dwells within Outside.
tumblr_ny2xn8zBkj1trdezwo1_540And so the fire burns away the moments
And we must choose our portion:
whether here we tarry or if
we choose to journey
Pregnant by some God

To Go To Bethlehem
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I Am A broken girl And I Am

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I am a broken girl and I am

not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.

I live inside a fortress and I hide

inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.
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Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?

Can you endure my very worst days and stand

me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror? tumblr_nycmluCX5a1qat5pio1_500
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”

Why would anyone?

I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?

Why won’t you chase me?
tumblr_ny2eewVQ1e1tbryhwo1_1280

Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?

Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
tumblr_nu4grakCop1rthbito1_540
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.

I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars’
commitment to shine in the night.

I am a broken girl and I am
dust_and_ashes_by_art_de_viant-d6ci8m9

Heartbreaking Every Time

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When I read that article…the gas-lighting kind, that retells my past in the worst of ways in order to paint the writer as the most burdened most fragile but simultaneously most strong survivor ever…we readers are all supposed to get all hushed and quiet and be in awe that somehow the writer survived such horrors…such horrors…

and me, my Baby, with thousands upon thousands of memories utterly different, totally opposite…

The only thing that gets me thru is what my therapist has taught me, that these things are not actually designed to try to tell the truth about history…

…rather, they are spoken in the desperate attempt to explain the writer’s own experience of the present, and much of that experience produced by brain trauma from the past…not the fabricated events.tumblr_nxkbeuPHhR1tpcnfko1_500
I get it…as a person who experienced epic brain trauma from conception…

But it hurts, and is its own form of erasure, of the theft of my agency.

It cracks me up in a way, because 10 years ago the stories painted us as lovey dovey neo hippy refugees from the 70s.  That fit the need of that moment.

It is especially heartbreaking that the hour of my becoming is the hour of unbecoming for the writer…and I am powerless to change that, and held by grudges and judgments in those chains in that place, but only inside the writer’s soul.  For I have slipped my leash at last, and now run free.  And yes…there is a holographic overview of how dysphoria affected those around me, no doubt about it.  They just cannot (or won’t) see the battle I fought to keep greater horrors away.

Yes, there are greater horrors.

I pray that someday the Truth can be partaken of together, and the Truth will set us free.
275ee585fa36e3a42337fbfcb3f030d1

My Heart On The Plate

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I love to cook.

No, I do not aspire to being a chef.  GOD NO!  Who in their right mind would want to put up with the awful crap that people who work in restaurants put up with?

*Although, I have to admit…if I were independently wealthy I would indeed found a restaurant and not run it the way everyone else runs theirs.  It would be in Charissa-space and time…and customers who didn’t like it would simply be sent on their merry way.*

No…I love to cook, because it is the tangible way that my love becomes incarnate and then consumed by my loved ones.

The greatest gift you can give me is to let me cook for you.

The deepest cut you can slash me with is to reject my food that I made for you.

And the strongest Othering you can extend to me is to deny me the opportunity to cook for you if I love or am in love with you.

This year, I am both happy that I get to cook for 2 of my loved ones, bereft that I cannot for the 4, and truly puzzled and drained that I have been denied the chance to prepare a feast for the angels in my life one and all.

My heart on a plate, carved up for you, and reborn in me as you partake and are renewed.

(No…I didn’t feel like making this into a poem.  It’s right there, in plain sight.  Have at her if you wish!  🙂  )
raison_detre_by_ezorenier-d5kixva

In Lonely Woods

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I walk alone in lonely woods
fading from fall to winter snows
moving from the warmth of home
to wander lost and barren
tumblr_nwnwb4dcit1t5g5c1o4_1280
I wonder as I move from tree
to tree and touch the scratchy bark
concealing living wood within
and warm there in the cold
tumblr_ny3xkfB8xB1qgo20mo1_1280
if I can find a home inside
this tree or that one, twisting in
the gloamy air I wander thru
and thus root down to earthMAC_AUG08_ 033But no, this tree is walking still
moving and not going there
stuck here but there and not here
I walk alone in lonely woods.
tumblr_nwnwb4dcit1t5g5c1o2_1280

My Peculiar Love, Arise!

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Look up, arise
my Peculiar Love!

You tumble still
wracking rocks
wrenching ravines
clawing cliffs
and scratching
with nails broken
and bloodied in the plunge.

No…I have not left
your side, your side
(it’s only bruised, Love)
so vulnerable to that lance
and the stinky rough
warhands of that coward
masquerading as a shepherd
covering for a rapist

And on that note remember
He who lays by your side
He who took the lance
He who went all the way
coming to common terms
with loss
blind as wind…

But I float now…see?
You will too soon…

And this is waiting…
there…and so I lay these words of care
upon your lips like mountain blood
white and clear and clean and cold
to slake your thirst with sop
(not hyssop)
of beauty, healing, Promise…

Oh my Love…my Love Peculiar
the day will come to
Arise

and join me in the Liberty
you prophesied when you spied
your baby’s heart eternal.

Cartographer of the Heart

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Come to my town, my street
come to my house, to me.
Come find me, bags packed and parked
in the hall like puppies puddly-wriggling
to take a walk…come take a walk with me.

I will ride shotgun with words for shells
And heart for sound and I will
hit the target every time.

I will sing to you, for you
I will sing of the roads we wander
and make each strange unknown place
known and forever written in your heart

for I am a
Cartographer of the Heart

I am a Poetess, and I would
belong to you and you alone
if you would but just stop by
and say how you stroll.

I will make you groan,
I will make you thrill,
and bring you home again
and again and again and

your fire will never go out
for I will feed my limbs
to the licking flames of
your desire

for I am a
Cartographer of the Heart

I am I, and waiting…

To My Judges…

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…you who wrote vociferously to deny me becoming, deny me growth…
…you who wrote to deprive me of my innate destiny to have a perspective, walk thru life and the years, and then have a new perspective from a new place…
…you who wrote to deny forgiveness by telling me that I was unforgiveable…
…you who wrote in denial of a Grandfather’s wisdom that a wise person changes their mind and a fool never…

…this post is for you.

I am free of your judgments.  Take them back to the grave you choose to live in, I want nothing to do with them.

Give me a chance to be responsible and to give and take and live and learn and forgive and be forgiven…give me a chance to be the person I allus was and not this fabricated golem you have created to tell yourself what you think you need to be…give me that chance and I will take it.

But to gas-light me, castigate me and condemn me all the while denying me any means or opportunity to walk forward?

No…Charissa will not play that.

Take it all away and best of luck to you…as for me, I will live in forgiveness, give forgiveness, receive forgiveness, love, laugh, and know that I am perfectly imperfect.

I mourn that you deny me the opportunity to walk a life with you…but from the looks of things you are far more the loser.

To The 3 Judges…Regarding Dysphoria

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When you’re given a diagnosis later in your life that somewhat explains for some of the terrible things you did,
mistakes you made, behaviours that make you want to bang your head against the wall.

You can’t write a letter to anyone you’ve ever cared about and say,
hey sorry, part of my behaviour back then stemmed from this apparent mental illness.
It doesn’t work that way. It’s not an excuse, it’s a mess.

But, for the rest of my life, I will search for moments full of you.

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The Truth About Transgender Suicide | Brynn Tannehill

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“Suicidal behaviors in LGBT populations appear to be related to “minority stress”, which stems from the cultural and social prejudice attached to minority sexual orientation and gender identity.

“This stress includes individual experiences of prejudice or discrimination, such as family rejection, harassment, bullying, violence, and victimization. Increasingly recognized as an aspect of minority stress is “institutional discrimination” resulting from laws and public policies that create inequities or omit LGBT people from benefits and protections afforded others.

“Individual and institutional discrimination have been found to be associated with social isolation, low self-esteem, negative sexual/gender identity, and depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders.

“These negative outcomes, rather than minority sexual orientation or gender identity per se, appear to be the key risk factors for LGBT suicidal ideation and behavior.”

Source: The Truth About Transgender Suicide | Brynn Tannehill

This.

I am sharing this truly scintillating essay, and the pull quote above is the core for me.

I just wanna say that I was raised white…but I was…raised white. Fortunately for me, I was never inculcated with racist bull shit, to the point that in college in the 80s I had a dear friend literally shock me when he told me I was the least racist person he had ever met…and yes, I did hear and note his use of the word “least”…which said volumes to me but in a language that I could not decipher or understand.

Well…since coming to terms with myself and understanding my gender journey, my life has changed in shattering ways, stunning and transcendent ways…but most importantly of all I was delivered from the ocean at last…

and became aware of so much that I never knew, could never see, even as a fish in the sea has no clue that it is in the sea.

I understand the comment of my friend now…”least racist”.

I wish I had the words and ways to let my friends, acquaintances and loved ones who are subject to that which they are subject to for the absolute worst and most insignificant of reasons KNOW that I get it now…

Oh, I will NEVER get it for the reason that they are made subject, anymore than any cis-gender person will ever “get it” in any way other than developing a deep and sincere sympathy and resolute commitment to love and live that love…

But I do get it now, the persecution, the othering, the abuse, the hatred and the fucking demonic unreasoning irrational stupidity of those besotted and drunk on the luck of the draw and the fate of biology.

My friends, and you know who you are…this post is for you…may I always find the joy I have found in solidarity with you and the love of your deep suns of being that shine undefeated and undefeatable! May I always have the heart, the eyes to see and to be inspired time and again with your indomitable spirit, will, but most of all your LOVE which just fucking never quits, CAN never quit.

You have no idea, the moments you have dragged me thru…you bearing the hate directed at you due to skin and me bearing the hate directed at me due to a variation on skin but essentially a common thing we walk in…times I was on the way out, and I would read sumfin, hear sumfin, think of sumfin…and be inspired and lifted up in your heart of hearts.

Now? I can at least have the means to find the remaining privilege I have and divest myself of it intentionally…it doesn’t always go, it is stuck to my skin color…but at last it is not stuck to me.

I regret only that it took as long as it did for my understanding and seeing eyes to catch up to what my heart must have known for my friend to tell me what he told me. We intersect…and for the rest of my days on earth I am expanding that intersection with every ounce of love, faith, hope, grace and mercy that is mine.

To the rest of my friends: please take it in faith that your privilege is there, is stuck to you, and is a legacy that you can use if you will but set your heart in a frame of humility and ask that your eyes be opened…hopefully you will gain insight without experiencing it being ripped away…but if that is what it takes, it is better that this occur rather than go thru your life blind while thinking you see.tumblr_lh6nzks1YS1qgnixvo1_1280

Grace In The Gulf

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It is in that gulf
that vast distance
between

that meadow hanging
on the wondrous mountainside
beautiful for situation

and cupping the wind
in its song-chamber bowl
and sounding like angels

and that desert looming
that desperate dryness
and filled with the winds

and the wails of the desolate
and the bleach-ed dry bones
that confound Ezekiel

That gulf is witness
and proof of the Heart
that freely pours Grace

until it is full,
that emptiness stark
repulsive in being

Charissa the Graceful
Full, overflowing
and liberal of gesture

Charissa Bereft
and so empty and jagged
and a curse on the lips

Both of us Mama’s Girl
One speaks of Grace Given
One speaks of Grace Needed

Lord
In Your Mercy
Hear my prayertumblr_nxpoelGzkM1thfeewo1_500

The Manse

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You stand there, so distant, so stark.
You glower, outlined in the dark.
Your face the knife, my heart the mark
you leave with your hard stoney glance.

I look for a way around you.
A way beneath, around, not thru.
You standing there like hellish dew
or maybe a wrecking crew dance.

I need the trees, grass, the peaks
of high snow covered mountains and leaks
of stars, birds and wind, they all speak
of the Grace that grows, given a chance.

But you, standing there on one rock.
You on the sand near the clock.
Your words either silent or chalk
and your heart just an empty black manse.

 

This Knowable And Yet Unseen Fine Line

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What is this mystery
that imbues us with mercies,
that makes us worthy?

What Hand unbridles us,
makes us like fire
sweeping quick and inexorable
across dry crackly pampas?

Is calculated bravery even that?

Calculated?
Brave?

Or is it that opening,
limitless in love,
that casual bravery that
sets apart stark and unique
and truly free?b1673501d5fca66b3e993d2bc501e1e0The bright light and sounding fury
of your sharp inhalation as you stand
just on the verge of this blessed virgin
landscape, uncharted territory and at last
without a method for its mapping!

Your miraculous secrets
can now be made known,
open to the depths
of your deep core!
God,
the planet’s very core
trembles at the prospect
of you unearthing your mysterious you!

Face them down, confront them,
hair gleaming in the moon,
eyes ferocious, feminine
in the sun and perfect chaos
of a new creation being born!!
Image 001Wreak havoc in the hearts of those
who fear lord foul and want to break you open…
they only serve The Sacred Heart
which alone can touch you only
with the Mercies and the Grace!
They hate what they cannot control
and deem you far too much
but I ask them how could you
ever be too much
or anything but
too much

when you can fly above
those lofty snow-graced peaks
and you can warm those
star-kissed ocean-swept
beaches and speak to trees
in profound whispers in
the dead of night
or in the desert
at dawn?c50b02754305b6be20888171bf70747bChange and transformation beats,
a drum within your soul,
that elegantly crafted
straightforward chorus
and procession of passion
and purpose and melty-love!

The notion of you resurrected
sends battalions bowing, backwards
and rejoicing that they caught sight of you
there beside our Sister Joan
and the silver noble mantleb5473fdc349efbc7662f819b33488761
she wraps you both within!

Oh Ship Graceful!
You with the stubborn faith
and ridiculous courage to dare
the tempestuous seas of transformation!

Oh you dark and light pulsing!

Oh you unstoppable hurricane spinning!

Oh you warm rain and gentle embrace
glowing with Mama’s swaying rhythms
and untameable electricity and containing
the very formula for birth!

Let your passion become elixir,
life-force, fuel of legions of the lost
destined to be found!

Let jewels drip from your lips
to the mouths of we your sisters
and send us sailing on clouds
and lay us basking in light!

Let your heart be a home
and golden chamber
of comfort soft
and yet unyielding!
But now, sit in deserts
and wrap yourself in silence
while your spirit howls at the moon
and sings the songs of freedom
from the palace of yourself
restored to you.

Let your temple you
be that magnetic masterpiece
of completely unconscionable strength
and grace and majesty untwisting time
with every bump of your Holy Hips,
every twist of your spine fro and to.

And do not neglect your softness
at the heart of you, of your force.
Carry yourself like breezes in sweet meadows,
swaying like the willows in joyful moving hymns.f7e25dc7979f521a11c72e4d682257f6Remember to be small
when you speak stars
from your very lips.

You are a walking
breathing, living
temple in whom
our Mama
dwells
and
beautifies
so stark and lovely
that the very stones
give up their tears that
lay so petrified and still!f4c2fcbd902e9591ccb29be508b5d1eaAnd so…sister exhale gently.
Let your lungs blow ancient magic
and conjure blooming flowers in the exhalations.

You are Mama’s Girl and are becoming
as a goddess by comparison to the dead
who shovel shit upon their brethren
dead and buried.

This is my solemn promise and exhortation,
I who have dwelt a season at the heart of a scream
and now stand ever in the Red Wonder of Her Heart…

join me here…
the water is just fine
in this knowable and yet
unseen fine line.c224a8d81d3e2f32afa2f3931428ca2b

 

The Future of JP

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a heart that’s purged is empty
and yet full all at once.

stuff and nonsense banished
pomp and pretense vanished

and only there remains
windows stained and clear

and incense in the air
and just the cross…just there.

Only Different Now

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Be yourself only
different now
somehow
with all
that
grief.tumblr_mubepqA5O41qznczoo1_500In case you ever
thought that
you were just
a being, just
a humble
presencetumblr_lx4e3kosSN1qzwaddo1_1280you are not just
anything, you
mean something,
more than that
you mean
everything,tumblr_mplmt2mrm41rfp1lho1_r2_500because everything that
means something
beats inside
of you.Image 003

My Secret Strings

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Will any
fingers ever find
my secret strings
stretched taut inside?tumblr_nk4pmaU8hn1r3lgr9o1_500Intricate, delicate,
intimate, articulate
invisible to any eye
not naked, any heart
still dressed in sheaths
and robes and layers.tumblr_nxevjufjwU1turrjgo1_500I am
layers
I am
robes
and sheaths
(or rather,
I am
hidden
in  those swaddles)tumblr_nxf4g61Dqi1qat5pio1_500I am
those strings stretched
from Terebinthia to Gondolin
I am a song
played by wind
on window panes
by drops of raintumblr_mplmt2mrm41rfp1lho1_r2_500and lightning fingers
dancing cross
the crests of frothy waves
silver in the light
of hidden stars
and stormy moons.tumblr_nq5t0x2gLp1u1sz1oo1_1280I am
not accessible
to just
anyone,
and if you
find yourself
become bored
easily, then
shove off,
move along
go and listen
to the Beatles
or someone else
like them
(there are a million wannabes).tumblr_nf6v639d5W1txde3xo1_540But until
the Time
might ever
come, I still…
wonder…
will any
fingers find
my strings,
hands caress
my neck?tumblr_lx4e3kosSN1qzwaddo1_1280

Irrevocably Loved By God

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there dogwood lingers
lost in long and cooling nights
side by side with sassafras
brooding over browning grass

and sumac stands
with red oak and sheds
leaves in broad daylight
while maples paint

in crimsons, scarlets, purples
yellow brush upon the air
and splashed across
the transom of my heart.tumblr_nxd364udX81qat5pio1_500winds and rain come now
and colors muddle, fade to dull
and make their ready to fall down
into the soil dark that croons

and calls them to their fall.
and I am shattered in this fade
of yellow birch and maple red
the flower of spring is there unmade

and frost laments now come in lace
and nibble at my tender face
and precious profound beauty
here and gone and metumblr_nx6vxz9xeX1rum5sfo1_1280that hardest of hues to hold
as my life falls in leaves of days
is here and gone in just a wink
and nothing gold can stand untouched

and how is it, Eternal One
can love so strong and fierce this shade
who passes from the day to night
and fades into the mists?tumblr_nwyhsqnAN61rf0rtjo1_1280

 

 

The Seams of Our Beautiful Story

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And all this time
I thought I was
building you up
as you grew
and became.

I really never
realized (really)
you were breaking
so unbecoming
and I was failing bad.

It breaks
my heart to
know you were
ripping apart the seams
of our beautiful story.

And now
tatters, shards
shatters, shutters
mutters and
clogged gutters

and it
is too late
at last
I realize
alas.tumblr_nx8qibvnSO1rum5sfo1_1280

In Time To Come

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Touch me
with unconscious hands
Unaware but
not unknowing

Find me
with yearning heart
untroubled in
the mists of time.

For I am here
dying, Love,
dying on
this slum’bring vine

And I know
myself alone
now and in
time to cometumblr_nx65io1dU41qbwdm8o1_1280