Category Archives: Poem

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

 

My Heart’s Heart

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the way you talk, what you write
like acid in my mind dashed
against my face and in my eyes

I wish I could eradicate
the you you have become
and keep in tact the other one.

but you are blood inside my soul
you are my heart drawn and quartered
and existing here within, unbidden

inescapable because you sprang
off from my heart’s heart
from my heart’s heart

which hopes eternal for
the return of spring
and the red songbird to sing
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If It Were Not

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I remember a time
when it seemed
quite obvious to me
that God was
what I wanted.

God-shaped vacuums
hearts restless til
they rest in God
the Holy God of faith.

But did I dare to sit
before this God
without this mask

(the one I didn’t know I wore)

is this longing
in and of itself
an assurance
of God’s presence?

What would longing be
if it were not?
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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?
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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.
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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
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I Am Burning

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I’m on fire,
burning in words
burning in images
burning in thoughts
and torched again
by the why why why
why? Why do they say,
do, laugh, eye roll?

I honestly do not know

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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
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I wonder as I move from tree
to tree and touch the scratchy bark
concealing living wood within
and warm there in the cold
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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.
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Hear Me Screaming (Transgender Remembrance Day 2015)

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I am a ghost wandering in the dark
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.

Wandering lost and in sorrowful shades
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.

I am a wailing voice keening in grief
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.

Wrapped in a funeral shroud black and white
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.

You walk into the nook, seeing me here
but you don’t even know,
you don’t even see

you don’t even hear me screaming.

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.

I Don’t Need To Go To Paris

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I can stay right here,
no passport, no visa
no access to that fairytale
land of opportunity and liberty

I don’t need to go to Paris
to find those willing
to gun me down, blow me up,
kill me in the name
of their bloodthirsty god
called gender.

Those terrorists
walk the streets
of my world behind
white faces, middle class manners
and smirks to rival the Riddler’s.

Paris comes to me
everyday.

Your Waiting Pyre

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Go ahead…
light it, the match
and let the spark
fall on the twigs,
the tindre tenebrous

I will stand
on your perch
you made for me
under the sign
saying suffer not
a witch to live.

Even while
the flames lick
and curl around
my ankles and calves
I still see you clearly

From my perch
(your perch)
Standing on
Your Waiting Pyre

The Barrier You Are

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You sit, snide, sneering
behind your nicey face
feeding your inner mean-girl
bonbons and envy

You turn green and then white
As fingers of dread and doubt
Grab your throat and choke
Because you cannot spin

Or weave or throw clay
So you weave tales, innuendo,
wage war of resistance
and haughty head tosses

That brain barrier has
gotta go…gotta shatter
and I am just the girl
to break it.

Powerless Silly Random Facts

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Mont Blanc is the highest mountain
in Europe.  It sits on the border
between France and Italy.A black-headed gull walks in the snow
on a wall of the Palais de Chaillot
while the Eiffel Tower sings laments
in the background.The wetlands of Camargue are found
between the between
of the Mediterranean Sea
and the Rhône River delta.Image result for e wetlands of Camargue
Not one of these silly random facts
can unring that bell,
can unsay that hate,
can un-rip those shreds,
can mend up those shards.

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…

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

That Eternal Aftermath

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It’s burst,
that Red Balloon floating
over the spindly-legged delicate
black lace Eiffel.

It splattered balloony-guts
in violent gouts
so grotesque
it’s nearly absurd,
and their
rubbery red-joke streaks
on the side
of that squatty arc
are anything but
Triomphe.

That’s how it works, terrorism…
that shock,
that
out-of-the-blue-blow-up
and your life
is doomed to never
the same
and yet never
recover
rinse-repeat cycle…

That’s how it is…
in my own private Paris,
misogynistic othering
phobic policing
sacks of pure hatred
shitting swaths
of bullets from
gender-uzis
and bursting Balloons here
and over the rainbowtumblr_ml9q09f3Za1rlrdqeo1_1280

LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

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You come at me with your fancy eye-teeth
all sparkly and shiny and pointed behind
your smile pasted there friendly on the front
and ravenous in the rear, hungry for blood…

my blood.  the blood of my desire, of my fire,
the blood of what I make, create.
I feel like a rabbit frozen in the forest
trembling in the cold black.

I see the bones hidden behind the flesh
beneath the blood, I see the lurch
of your skeletal undisciplined hands
as you tear and clutch at me and my tasks.

Why can’t you just leave me alone?

It’s So Easy

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It’s so easy for you, isn’t it
just pull the rip cord and disappear
anytime conflict draws near

or anything that threatens
your lil cis-gender heaven
where everyone is just like you.

It makes me laugh how you stand
at a distance and make ooey-gooey
nicey-nice noises and cooes

that are supposed to tell me
how great you are and how
much you love me

but when there is even
so much as a fart in a light breeze
(god forbid the shit ever hit the fan)

you march right to the trenches
along with those who attack me
because you all are gender pure

and they are your gender relatives
and like must stand with like after all
and you might get struck or cut beside me.

Yeah…delete me when you don’t like
what I say (or what I am) or when
you don’t want to do the work to really understand

what I am saying, what I am doing
who I am…or just ignore me
just don’t look here and go away

Look…there are monsters in this world
and they want to hurt me, but they will
settle for you if you are in the way

I think you are beginning to see
that I am not your token tranny…
being my friend?

it’s not so easy.tumblr_nxmc5rLgC31ty8kogo1_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

 

A Plea To You

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Constance…

A while back I posted a page called “Help Charissa Transition”.  I have not pushed it whatsoever, but wanted to have it there.  I have been blessed by a couple of contributions, and they mean so much to me that someone believes in me that much.

But I wanted to bring it up…as I have recently passed 500 followers, and the issue of being a trans-ally is a hot one right now, what with Qs about what can be done that demonstrates being an ally.

Well…here is sumfin to think about:  if each of you contributed $100.00 (which is about 10 hours of work at minimum wage), the fund would swell to $50,000.00…and just like that all the othering and obstacle of gate-keeping insurance companies is overcome and I would be able to get my Gender Confirmation surgery.

If each of you contributed 10.00…well, I could begin some of the FFS surgeries that I would greatly benefit from.

And if you gave more, the balance that I did not need for my own surgeries would be donated to a few trans-women that I am connected to.

I think things like this will be the future, ways to do and to be what is needed in spite of the way that the system seeks to other us.

Just think about it…perhaps it is foregoing Starbies for a month…or skipping dinner out 2x, or…fill in the blank.

And thanks for even thinking about it, btw…it is exciting to contemplate and dream about.

Much Love,
Charissa
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Advent Poem: The Season of Hope

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I set off on this journey full of hope.
And wrapped in splendours of belonging here…
or there…it doesn’t really matter there or here
which far exceeds being nothing nowhere
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But as I walked the crowds all fell away
and cruel branches raked across my face
disfigured me, tattooed with brutal scars
my garments stripped and used to block the stars
and so my world grew dim and I alone
and my companions left me trapped within
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The last straw to which I desperate, clung
was dashed from my hands, hope was trashed and flung
to the four winds and blown away in dust,
left me un-moored, an object of disgust.
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But hope is funny, indomitable
and it is sneaky, looking empty, full
and when I dried my eyes, what did I see?
But hope returned to heal and rescue me.

That Absent God so silent and so cruel
had made a move, become the Supreme Fool
and suffered as a lost and lonely peasant
and in absence became Supremely Present

It’s Here, in this fog, everything in shroud
Listen, hear that coming footfall loud
Lion, Lamb and Baby through the smoke
Paying every Promise that They Spoke
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There…wet…thin…starving and alone
that’s me abandoned wet, drenched to the bone
and nothing beautiful, nothing of worth…
to this manger…that’s me…comes Christmas birth

And so I will press on, and I will grope
thru deep darkness in this season of hope.
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Advent Poem: The Season of Reunion

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To a meeting long destined,
long remembered and yet
ironically never lived…

well, that is not quite true,
my Heart, T’was lived
repeatedly apart…
you in your chamber,
in the air…and me?
Marooned and shipwrecked
here!

Nothing to give except this scrap
of paper brittle…it’s a map
to an island lost at sea
X marks the spot to look
for me!

Yes?  You know where to dig, right?

in the hubbub, hullabaloo,
Reunion waits for me and you…
That towering act of redemption
Resounds throughout all of creation.

so with that in mind…

a perfect advent season
would involve this place
that has this room,
and other corners
full of cushions
and spice piney boughs
(and incense heart bows),
and it would be

a small place so large

where we
would sit,
and sip

(coffee, tea,
you and me, and
writing…writing…

of what could be,
should be
will be

and writing…),

silence would be
such sweet symphony
as voices ancestral
and ancient and future
speak in silken tones sonorous
and thunderous tenors trumpeting,
the old grandmother clock
slowly keeping time

(I am so grateful
for grandmother
who keeps time,
she saves it up

for us, dear)…

and then this room unfolds in space
to wonders in this magic place
of fireplaces stoked with wood
and laughter warm and food so good
and families mingled full and wild
and always watching is the Child
who designated you and me
and whom we love, and that big tree
there, frosted perfect with excess
surrounded with the gifts to bless
each other and to bless Them too

Reunion there…of me and you.

This is my heart’s Christmas wish
Reunion is it’s serving dish.

Love you…me

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ghosts of christmases past

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just an ember
in the ashes
in the hearth
in the midst
of a fireplace

cooling off
stones grown cold
in the midst
of a big
empty room

full of sheeted
furniture still
petrified ghosts
frozen in the chill
of indifferent interest

and neglect so still
in the midst
of a house
full of voices
merely echoes

of those voices
long ago
when the ghosts
were thawed and human
and limber in

the room so warm
the fire bright
the stones so hot
and embers glowing
and their skin shining

and their bones throbbing
like maps of knowing
to the way that heaven
felt back then
and where they’d gone

and where they’d been.

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Advent Questions

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Where is the promise and news of The Coming?
Where are the answers we need?
Where is the end of suffering and fighting?
Where is the peacemaker’s pen?

When will we find deep reconciliation?
When will our cynical lies
Cease and desist so true transformation
Delivers from deadly despair?

Is there a hope in remembering Advent?
Waiting for God to show up?
Is there a reason to watch and to wait
For a God who arrives in disguise?

Advent proclaims God is born in the manger
Of waiting for Them to appear,
But as what? A King Mighty?  A Warrior?  A Sovereign?
A helpless baby laid there?

Shall we accept Advent’s great Invitation
And wait for this God to draw near?
Shall we allow our masks to fall away
And lift up hearts and our faces bare?

Dare we celebrate Christmas instead of consuming
like ravenous wolves on a Kill?
Will we with shepherds and Kings and with peasants
kneel and beseech the Babe there?

tormentas_by_alterlier-d4821bv

Five Fold Blessing

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The poem I just posted…“Her Door, Her Red Door” …

Dedicated to and written for a helpful person who disappeared…

to me
mother      teacher
warrior     sister
friend

Lady Grace Be Upon You
Lady Grace Ward You
Lady Grace Sustain You
Lady Grace Succor You
Lady Grace Challenge You

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Merry Christmas

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And I sit, pondering today,
tomorrow, but yesterday
Yesteryear looms large.

The shadow cast of those events shines
inverted and bright
Light on Darkness Backdrop.

Crystal clarity and
pure purpose precipitated,
linger now,
surge now,
stay now
inside me.

I face fears,
uncertainties and self-centered acts
that will wound and rend.
People of agenda which is
dark on light’s backdrop,
people of ignorance
who assume all things.

My heart quakes,
my bones are water,
my thoughts are anxious acid
that etches my soul.
I pray thee,
Precious Christ Child,
cover me in such a way
that all that is
etched away leaves you
Shining thru me
The Christmas Star.

LK072