PIZZA DAY! 🍕 🍕
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Category Archives: Poetry
Chewing On That Stone
Prelude
I’m still caught on teeth, those yellow jagged teeth
surrounded by liver-lips drawn up and back
in such a snarl (or is it a sneer?),
such a scream (or is it a moan?)…those teeth broken
from chewing on that Stone.
You’ve been infected with Ginsberg disease
and you howl at Allen-moons for no reason at all
(No, I don’t say there’s no reason that you howl,
I said you howl for no reason), and that is why
you snarl and sneer, scream and moan
and gnash your teeth on Living Stone.
One
And me, writhing there and twisting, twixt your chewing jaws?
How does my blood taste? Like pusillanimous payback?
Like silver times 30? Like bright copper pennies
that make no sense…or something different?
Like strawberries in summer, cranberries in winter,
grapes in autumn…flowers in Spring?
Alas, you do not see those chosen chains that hold me there,
left wrist shackled, right hand extended,
left hand open in laughter, right wrist bound in life..
for there is room—and reason—for life and laughter…
and this you have not noticed, in your imitation howl,
in your false heroic snarl, your wild and bulging eyes
fixed ever on the chains you think hold me in jail
but are those bonds against which you strain and flail!
Two
Even in the air besotted by your breath,
your breath befouled by hurt and haunted by revenge,
there is Joy beneath that pain, a presence that is Present,
a winsome invitation all around us constantly that beckons
“Come participate, in spite of buried questions, be honest in conclusions
and philosophies you claim explain the past, present and future.”
You chained in pain, me in pain and chained, and rooted
by choices to remain…deep rooted, ever-grounded
in joy, in life, in laughter, wonder-imagination
as a child who can be startled by the One I’m looking for…
…and I stumble there, across it, flickering on rainbows,
on the razor’s edge and caught between the past and future…
and then it disappears as present becomes Brilliant Present
and then fades…into the next one (the next present into Present
it’s apparent as a parent and it’s hidden to a child),
this stark stripping of the clothes of coming future,
this discarding of the grave-cloth of the past.
Three
There is Wonder in this world, there is Laughter hidden here
deep within the very marrow of the dry bones long laid tender
in the ground to decompose, it remains, it ever-lingers
in the beauty, in the humor, in the unexpected joy,
in the child at play enraptured and delighted in each breath!
And it has a source, origin! Just as we do, there is meaning
to these fickle days that bob and weave
from logic unto laughter and then back again to wonder!
It’s the Image…and your railings and your rantings can’t deface it!
It will ever-shine so clearly, silver-startling against sunset!
It is resident inside you and it calls out to beginnings
in a loving Present maker who gives us immortal worth
in the image…in the image…in the Word become the Image…
Four
You are haunted by what’s happened, I am haunted by what’s coming!
You are chained by your distortions, I am chained by this great Hope
that if we lay our burdens by the streams of Babylon,
by waters dark with mystery, with nothing left to gain or lose
then merriment will come again, hauntingly…to waken us
and we will play again, at last, and make merry our hearts alive.
And so we come to where we started,
gnashing teeth and heroes chained
and villains caught on points of light
and the central Player in the drama,
Resurrected Son of God, fully human fully God,
and the ringing Invitation sounding in our desolation!
Five
We can set each other free, I set you free, you set me,
if we take the invitation of the Author of our story
and live full in our encounters, present in the desolation
drinking of the consolation that our present becomes Present
and the Gift is greater than the bitter rancid agony
of hope deferred and love-sick hearts.
And that door on which we knock? It will someday open for us,
swing wide and receive us Inside…Inside…where we will be Present…
So please come back from those fevered flights of fancy so infected
by the greatest poison ever known, the venom of a fallen Self…
seek and play, find and live, and be noble in the giving
of ourselves to one another new in every radiant dawn.
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 9th 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 8th 2015
Graceful Forever (Haiku #555)
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 8th 2015
Spring’s Happy Song, My Tender Heart
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Who Speaks For You?
…in baseball bat threats,
and shifting blame bloviations?
there is a narrative constructed
and characters are run thru the mill
Procrustean beds wait, rimmed in razor words
and made up in straight jacket axioms
of hero killing Zeus, Medusa slain
but ‘ware the mirrors lest the true face be glimpsed…
…and you, you both have hitched to this?
your bones know, don’t they?
Or do they? Crawl inside your skin
when you feel the truth dissolve
and lies (half and whole cloth)
kick like something wicked waiting
to slouch towards Bethlehem
in the kingdom of Ozymandias?
Your silent disengagement lets our history
be Big-Brothered in Orwellian style scripts
and becomes tacit agreement with things
that go against your grain like sand paper.
Oh may your grain glow gold and run deep
for ruin holds this day and devours the moon.
Marooned Midst Bones
that wave, it was a sneaker-wave for sure!
standing by the ocean, rhythms, pulses
aligning and consonant.
I thought I could turn my back.
I thought space meant the same thing
to me as it did to you.
I didn’t know it was a place-holder word
for displacement, for excoriation
for vituperation and vitriol.
I looked at cliffs high, formidable,
but scaleable, niches in sandstone
hidden but implied in long familiar places.
But that wave, it came outta nowhere
and it was slick and befouled in the dark
by the contents of leaky toxic ships foreign and domestic.
It nearly killed me, but even more startling
was how it devastated those sandy heights (bluffs)
and obliterated every way up, no matter how faint
and took all that sand in its oily slick greedy grip
and washed it into my sanctuaries, tender and sacred,
as I foundered on bones where the beach once lay soft.
Imagine my shock and horror when I dragged myself
back home only to find the Sahara had invaded
on cirocco blasts of hatred wearing masks of honesty.
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 7th, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 6th, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
In Charissa’s Kitchen April 6th, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
My Only Response, Ever
Constance…the timing of God never ceases to amaze. Events of Holy Week this year…events of great import and significance took place.
And on In The Grave Day, I heard a missive written about me, a little to me, or maybe indirectly all to me, I don’t know.
It was the worst thing I have ever heard in my life, and as such it chokes my heart. I guess what was ultimately most sorrowful was to see how deeply broken and in pain the writer was in spite of what were my best and highest efforts and intentions…and obviously woefully short of the mark in every single facet, bar none.
It cut off response, for it declared all of who I was null and void and all of who I am pathetic and weak.
Well, I left that missive in the grave on Sunday, and simply have no choice but to go on, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to be more yielded, more surrendered, taking hold of Them Who have taken hold of me.
But I will comment in this one way:
I love you with inexpressible beyond understanding love.
I miss you terribly.
I am so sorry that so much of what I desired, intended, was received and twisted into this present snarl.
I get it now, Papa…why Your one and only answer to every question hurled in Your Face by Your creatures was to take on our form, and come to our existence, and be crucified horribly suffering all things in Yourself.
Oh Love…if I could do that, and give you back yourself I would do so and gladly.
As You Are Writing (Easter Heart For Someone Special)
As you are writing, pouring out heart
onto the pages in fits and in starts
I am right there, so quiet and soft
and Heart is the flag that we unfurl aloft.
I know to be still and just rest there in peace
while furious storms you capture and release
transformed by your spinning skills, straw into gold,
while I look on in wonder and glory behold.
You shift in your seat and blow that wisp of hair
that falls crost your brow towards your face ever fair.
But I keep my balance with liquidy frame
and wait til you’re done and you call out my name.
I am so happy to sit there and pour
out my glad joy to a friend I adore
and warm up the cold places in your deep core
and follow our Mama Who goes on Before.
All my love…your Sis
A House That Gleams
Thru misty morning
dimly in trees
a House There is Gleaming
thawing the Freeze.
A House of Eight Gables
(the extra one Risen)
the stamp of Forever
broadcast to the lost.
The mist speaks of Avalon
Camelot too
but the House that is Gleaming
shines there more True.
It speaks of our Healing.
It speaks of our Hope.
A House that is Gleaming
shall cut every rope.
Rolled Away Stones
on this morning grey
just before the dawn
wakes up shell-pink, sleepy
and pokes out her head
from heathery hillsides
i think about stones
that choke every grave’s throat
to seal in what died
and ward we the living
from death’s steely touch.
hopes, dreams, and best efforts
shipwrecked relationships
killed by the sword-thrusts
of one-eyed sword masters
who wield their tongue cruel
and sharper than death
to slaughter what’s wounded
in time and by tears
and the enemy capers
in Opposite-joy….
indifferences, sicknesses
unto death both
end up in the grave
and stones are placed there
to protect us here.
but today I wander
thru fields wet and wild
I press past the burrs
and the thorns in the thunder
to find the grey gravestones
so stolid and still
just over that hill…
and rolled away stones
never cease to amaze me
because they will not budge
when I lean on them
or when I lean on Them…
the work of a Digger
the work of a Builder
the work of a Healer
the work of a Surgeon
the work of a Lover
Rolled Away Stones
Reposting My First Easter Poem: 1980
In Hell’s Hollow Halls
I heard it, from the deep dark
rank with such fright
and masked in mean menace.
It woke me, from a sound sleep,
straight into stiff silent
screams bouncing off deaf night.
I listened, to the slow gait
shuffle shuffle slip late
and pondered what shade shambled there.
Then I heard, the slap of warm flesh,
bloody feet bare on stone,
cold stone worn slick and smooth
by great passing multitudes,
captives grim and without hope
bound for dungeons black and deep,
the sound of dancing holy feet
holey, bare, stepping light
stomping on a serpent’s head
as they walked down, down, down, down
over every cold hard stone
to the bottom to atone…
throwing open every door
shouting to all captive there
get you up into God’s Air!
And then the shuffle of a host
led forth from captivity
by a King in death alive
heaven inside death’s dark maw
plundering every taken treasure
sowing grace there without measure.
And I rested in this sound,
my heart echoed with each pound
on this day that He is crowned
with my past, successes, fails,
every sorrow past the pale
every shipwreck in the gale,
and I knew that at first light
I would place a tombstone bright
graven names there, writ just right
to show that I am me, not him
and that his life of sorrow grim
is laid to rest, its power dim
And in that grave I’d also place
the hateful words, a three-fold face
of judgement, lies and lack of grace…
and then tomorrow, when the stone
is rolled away with rocky moan
my forward path of grace is shown
and I will walk free without guilt
from that hovel judgment built
and live this life full, to the hilt!
I do not owe God anymore,
I do not owe you in your core,
I don’t owe 1, 2, 3, or 4
Because I am bought by that sound
of bloody feet on hell’s cold ground
So liberty in me abounds…
and thus I walk in grace
I’m free within my place
Delivered from the race.
Amen and Happy Easter tomorrow.
In Charissa’s Kitchen, Good Friday, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
This Shocking Interruption
on my way in, fresh from the country,
to Great Jerusalem, the Holy City
to celebrate Passover, thinking of freedom
and feasts and those deep songs,
ah those deep songs, the deep songs of Zion…
singing of our God’s core act in our history
when our sins were placed on that innocent lamb
and we huddled safe ‘neath that thick crusty blood
drying over our heads on the lintel…
and dripping down over us…
But I didn’t know what this day held for me!
A burden offensive I did not deserve,
A shame I did not seek to bear for myself!
I was suddenly thrust in the middle of angry men
and wailing women rushing to Golgotha,
the place of the Skull and such sinister lack!
I was seized from the crowd! What the fuck!
Take your hands from me!
Who are these crowds and who is this crushed Man?!?
Lynch mob? A Riot? What! A crucifixion!?
Take that crossbeam off my back and unhand me!
Why do you hurt and defile me with this offense?
Oh…cus my skin is black. That’s it…again
Black and dishonored, blatant offensive
and reeking with less than, no station in your sight
you burden me with this beam meant for that broken king
staggering there right in front of my eyes
so bloody, so beaten, such shame and affront!
I reject your hate burden and wash my hands clean!
But the soldiers and swords at my neck said otherwise,
and I walked behind the condemned shameful shamble
who clearly was cursed and would hang from this tree,
dishonored by Rome, so repugnant to me…
and then back we went, outside the city walls
climbing that desolate hillside so distant!
Wrong place, wrong time, how did I get here,
walking behind this weak beaten Jesus
and my beautiful Passover torn from my hands
in stark interruption and shadows of crosses?
There I walked, behind him and lost in my thoughts
and I ate the dirt gritty outside that great city.
Then Jesus stopped, His chest heaving in agony
and dripping blood, He turned to the women
who mourned there and wailed, and He spoke to them
something so strange and unusual, mayhap just farcical
In this absurd tableau, in this mockery here
of the beautiful Passover there!
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me;
weep for yourselves and for your children.
For the time will come when you will say,
‘Blessed are the barren women,
the wombs that never bore
and the breasts that never nursed!
They will say to the mountains,
“Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”‘
For if men do these things when the tree is green,
what will happen when it is dry?”
I recognized these lines as the words of a prophet
and spoken of old by our God Who would show heart
with love that would not quit or come to an end…
and then Jesus walked on, up that hill on that path
to the place of the skull where they stripped Him stark naked
and took His piece and mine, and nailed them together
and propped that cross in the sky and nailed Him there to die…
and me, stood there, dumbly
looking on stupidly
not understanding
this rank act so coarse
and bloody and final
Then I was shoved to the ground and they kicked at me,
told me my work here was done and it wasn’t
my problem or burden to bear, it was all on His shoulders
so get out of here! But I stayed, and I saw how His red Blood ran ragged
and dripped from those beams, His and mine there united
I heard Him cry out to His Father in Heaven,
I wondered if that was Our God of Passover???
I saw Him speak to a criminal there right beside Him
He told this man Paradise waited! He spoke to His mother,
He suffered in agony, said He was THIRSTY, so thirsty for comfort!
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”
and then they mocked and called Him King of the Jews!
Then He gave up the ghost to the Hands of His Father
And that lamb then, this Lamb now, merged one with the Other!
Now, these years later and older (and younger)
I think of the words of a poet disturbing
the beginning is often the end, and I think of that Cross
such a stumbling block to every toe of the living and dead,
and the Man who had hung there, and died,
and the earthquake that followed and the curtain of Presence
was torn from the Top to the bottom (just like my heart).
Twisting inside me, entwined there in red and white
lamb and Lamb, Passover and that odd “Pass-Under”
knitted together and stuck in my craw
in the echoes and memories of that long walk
that I took, there behind Him, and His piece and mine
and the stories of death conquered, stones rolled away
and a risen sun dawning on Risen Lord Laughing!!
I was on my way somewhere else…
the cross, this shocking interruption
on that day, on that red death day…
and so it remains now
and forever more.
“The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.” T. S. Eliot
In Charissa’s Kitchen, April 2nd 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Keys to “Scars”
Keys to “Scars”
Constance…pay attention to layout.
Number of stanzas, number of lines
then the offset section, number of stanzas, number of lines.
back to the margin, same thing
and then last offset, same thing.
HINT: In Charissa’s inner world of meaning the following numbers mean these things:
3= Their Number, the Number of God
4= The number of the earth (cardinal points of a compass, seasons, etc)
5= The number of grace (God’s work added to the earth)
6= the number of humans. one added to grace, or self-righteousness, one less than perfection
7= The number of Perfection, the summation of God’s perfect work and world that is Good.
Section one is comprised of 3 stanzas of 6 lines each
Section two is comprised of 4 stanzas of 5 lines each
Section three is comprised of 3 stanzas of 7 lines each
Section four is comprised of 4 stanzas of 5 lines each
The entire poem is in 4 sections comprising one poem, which adds to 5.
PS: This is only to those (fools) who are true fans of my poetry…all my poems are written with hidden gematria such as this laced thru them. Some of my poems have hidden vertical poems in them (!! No one has found these yet!).
As you can see, dysphoria does odd things to one’s mind, and yet, submitted to grace perhaps becomes an odd tool to address the oddness that is resident in us all.
Much, much love…and early Resurrection Day good wishes to you all, for I have never been able to get all sad and shit on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday! Even as a child I was chided for piping up in the midst of a dramatic Good Friday Service…that was all somber and the preacher was trying to work a real sorrow into the congregants so we would identify and grieve and mourn…and I was so agitated by the things he said that simply ignored the rest of the story that I had heard and just learned to read for myself…of that wonder of that morning when Mary went to the tomb, heartbroken and bereft, but went anyway, simply to cry and cry forever, and there He was, and she so blinded in grief and bound by the realities of “forever death” that she didn’t recognize Him…and then she does…
…well I piped up “Hey! Why ya acting all sad!!?? He rises from the DEAD you silly goose!!!”
Ummm…yeah, can you say spanking???
Well, it was worth it.
HEY!! Why Ya Acting All SAD?? He Rises From The Dead You Silly Goose!!!
love, charissa
Scars
Here on this side? See our scars.
Our wounds (both bloody and bloodless),
slashes (from sword-edge and word),
stand here stark, and they testify
in agonized aching hushed voices
of terrified troubling stories…
we hear them tell extreme tales
of widespread violence, of rape
of torture, and we the lost subjects
imprisoned in darkness and sadness
bear these wounds in our bodies, how long?
Permanent markings of violence?
These black tattoos left by oppression,
calligrified by sorrow’s stylus
that’s gripped in grief’s bony cold hand
to engrave deep its ravenous history
on our lonely hearts, carved here for…how long?
we’re identified by these curt scars.
Standing so quiet and still,
solitary smack dab
in the middle
of all that was, is,
and will be
the broken body of Jesus
the gushing stink of His spilled blood
but present with us now (like scars)
in the bread and the wine understood
to be broken and shed for our Good.
Jesus bore wounds of violent oppression
in His very own body forever!
Even after that morning so wrenching
that tilted this world on its axis
Heaven’s ringing eternal endorsement!
In that glorious bright resurrection
He stood there…just bearing those scars
in His hands, in His feet, in His side
and He showed them to all who would look…
He identified with us…in Scars.
There, on that side? New Creation
began with Resurrected Jesus
and included those scars that He suffered
by nail and by spear and by word
and the wounds of the Glad Risen Lord,
the reminders of the crucifixion
take on new light and meaning and joy.
They shout of the Power and Glory
Of God dirty with History’s story
and triumphing now and forever
over evil and death, over sorrow
and a work of redemption that’s reigning
now begun in us, marked by our scars
here with us now in our wounded world.
So the present time is streaked with mercy
acts of justice, creation of beauty,
celebration of truth kissing grace on the lips
deeds of love and forgiveness and kindness
and such generous Grace over all!
Resurrection gives us such relevance
and a future where meaning is possible!
meaning made possible in resurrection
of a torn body still marked by the scars
like diadems, medals
adorning the Sacred Heart
Faithful forever and ever…
That’s the reality of resurrection
as displayed by the scars that He bears
as our Hope, as our Joy and our Glory
that shines in our darkest lost places
giving us reason to live.
We work and we toil, perhaps
even pour out our blood, sweat, and tears
to tend to the woundings of others,
and our labor is far from in vain
for Christ has gone on ahead
and He beckons with smile that is glinting
with towering majesty cloaked
in such Kindness, such glad jubilation
He scarce can contain His good will
He is on His Throne, Alive and Well.
That Fitting Key
Hii.
I have been turning easier these days.
Oh I always fit snug, I had been cut right
for that elaborate crocheted lock
in your tough tender heart.
You sized me up well
with nary even an eye laid on,
just an ear tuned to sounds
of a deft touch and trustworthy twist
of key in lock, snik! Tumble, and open.
But remember? How there was that
rattle, jiggle back and forth jitterbug
of hand and key, and lock unmoved?
That was edged catching on tumblers
and still skert stiff sidewalls inside
hearts eager, afraid and brave
all at once…
edges filing away
time whiling away
we, twirling in this journey
sailing, sitting, smiling
and fitting key
in lock, so fitting.
“I Was Born a Baby Not a Boy”: Sex, Gender and Trans Liberation | sheisrevolutionarilysuicidal
“I Was Born a Baby Not a Boy”: Sex, Gender and Trans Liberation | sheisrevolutionarilysuicidal.
Constance…this is a longer, somewhat intellectually oriented article and covers a lot of cutting edge philosophical territory.
I include it on Grace Notes because it is interesting and worthwhile…but I would not say by any means it’s indispensable.
Enjoy.
Recognition: A Palm Sunday Psalm
I heard about that bitter little pill
tattooed on our musical skin.
That one pill, recognition.
Recognition of…what? Of one’s humanity?
Of one’s fragility? Of one’s impermanence…yeah?
It’s a pill laced with dread and despair.
What does a person swallow that with?
A shot of full consciousness?
A cocktail of imperfection shaken
(not stirred)
with disappointment
and homemade bitters?
I giggle in glee when those comics
called philosophers stand up
and passionately extol absurdity.
How could they even stand,
what would they stand on
if absurdity was really a thing?
Tragedy is more like it, and even that
only has meaning as a cloud outlined against
the suns of Triumph!
The songs, the drinks and the stings of each,
fears of failure, sieges of shame and selfishness
alternating with doubt and emptiness,
well please explain to me
what’s so absurd about that?
What does that word even mean?
Absurdity?
No, give me a good solid word like Recognition.
Because that word contains confession and hope,
errors committed and errors atoned for.
And it makes a safe place for dread,
so it will curl up comfortable by your fire
and snooze in the glow of Recognition.
By the light of Recognition we just make out
that sacred paradox, that deep numinosity
glowing at the crux of our being.
We see that all that’s wrong descends from all that’s right
and the broken bread and the poured red wine
and remembrance and
Recognition.
Comment on “Going Nova On Palm Sunday”
Constance, while this poem is enjoyable to me in its release of things inside my heart, and there is a joy in simply reading it and letting Poetry’s Mystery Ways wash your soul and give you Things Ineffable, I do want to give you a little nudge which might provide a niggle of slanty insight into Charissa’s convoluted mind and variegated heart.
Palm Sunday was in so many ways such a facade, and no one knew that except 3.
A quick perusal of Google will give some insight into the metaphor of Going Nova.
It is up to you to connect those two things with the writer who is there betwixt them, and in herself embodies them both…and is alive amidst their process.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa
Going Nova On Palm Sunday
In light of this nova-burst
I want to thank you for silver
I want to thank you for gold
I want to thank you for stardust
I am truly grateful that you would
check on me, earthbound here
and shackled by this self-gravity.
I really feel so awkward all the time
Cus I look for freedom as a voracious reader
of pages, of faces, of hearts
and suns gone nova.
Going Nova…
that explains perfectly how disconnected I feel
in my heart from all that while grasping
in my mind exactly what they are saying
and why they are saying it!
And feeling so goddamned guilty for even being…
always, feeling so goddamned guilty for even being.
Never ever had a choice in that, and untold time and tears
toiling in trying to be other…
Going Nova…
I guess that’s a choice I make inside my heart
as I float between me and those shimmery stars
that woo me so…
anyway I am trying to say sorry to you for something
but I don’t even know what it is or how to say it…
sorry…nova…for what I am, who I am?
Charissa, trying to survive this human experience
in a body and brain at constant odds…is that me and what I am?
I am a girl and have always been and have no need to prove that I am
(and couldn’t anyway, even if I did) God knows
patriarchal fists slam into me trying to beat the woman outta me,
feminist talons slash my skin trying to tear the woman offa me…
while my own nails I keep razor sharp and always ready to rip that male biology
right outta such dumb DNA that’s so much less than me.
Anything I say can be construed as lack of humility because
I never had a chance at solidarity in biological sisterhood with you
and remaining silent can be the height of arrogance because
it reeks of presumption and I am neither or both or all
(silent, arrogant, presumptuous)
I am Going Nova.
I try my best to be a tender soul, to be a gentle soul and do good
and bring honor to woman and women by how I live, how I draw close
to my God Who has been, is and always will be Mama…
the Wise, the Comforter, My Helper in this time of death
hiding behind Hosannas and Hail Caesars.
Please hear my heart, but if you don’t the fault is mine
in all my dark and clumsy lack, so let your eyes
do all the happy work of ears and see me in these words…
Going Nova on Palm Sunday
Love in Ten Lines
when love broke me
wide open with love
I surrendered my love
to you, my Love.
Your eyes, limpid love
your heart red, Love
your touch, I love
that frisson, love-chills
in my love struck
love torn red heart.
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
This Peculiar Gleaming Beauty
Events leading up to the cross,
they seem like something of a game
of push and shove or pull and push
in this cult of honor/shame
and I wonder and I ask
Does anything really stand a chance
here in this fatal tug of war?
And what about Him? Jesus?
Clearly shamed and shamed profoundly,
publicly rejected and abandoned,
clothed in stark humiliation,
torn by jaws of victimization…
and willingly choosing
this broken ground
(this broken me).
What kinship does He speak of,
what kingship does He claim when
He dons my crown of thorns
and He takes my purple robe
and He lets Himself be branded
with my fetid Scarlet A?
What shame and ridicule
does He siphon
from our darkling hearts?
We are such a clouded vision
jockeying and jostling
for power and position,
trembling in our lust
for quick liberated feet.
We have occluded vision
caught between the blind that see
and priests and prefects that do not.
And then there is that copper matter
of His blood spilled shamefully and
His death sprawling shamelessly
across the breadth of history,
a kingly shepherd dying here
His life laid down so lovingly,
a risen savior reigning there…
At the intersection
of honor and of shame
can you see?
That Shining Ever Moment?
That Peculiar Gleaming Beauty?
It towers there, quiet, unobtrusive
and starkly interrupting
That Abandoned Empty Cross…
The sight that says it all.
Quest or Invitation
A difficult quest.
Or is it invitation?
I guess it depends
on the mood
or the moment.
Deliberate. Wearisome.
The journey
of a christ with a cross,
and such a crushing burden we bear
when we try to decide if we will wear
it or witness it.
Either way (mood or moment)
we have to decide what we will do
in light of such a spectacle.
And some choose fasting,
and some kiss the dirt
and some just run the other way.
Hell, even that cross-carrier had to choose
which journey and whether
it was mood or moment.
It matters because one
leads to the human heart and one
leads to the heart of God
and each path must be travelled
but in its own good time.
Each day we must decide this,
we choose this, or if not
then we are chosen casually
by mood or moment,
by quest or invitation
and it all comes out
in the wash, if we have
gained our life
or lost it.
Naked Emperor
When I exploded into myself
from nothing
and knew
there was
something
and
me
I heard something
wish that me
would never be.
I didn’t get over it,
but I got used to it.
Somehow
that wish got its way
in my bones
and now it seems
like all I know
and all that I
am known by.
Sounds, scents, storms sent
from that beyond
rail and wash
in curtains over me,
scour and scrub me
because maybe,
just maybe
I can one day
be released
from the curse
“shouldn’t have been”
and see
that self invisible
that everyone else
says is there
but just looks like
a naked emperor
to me.
In Charissa’s Kitchen March 26th, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
I am called too emotional…
“When people try to dismiss those who ask the big public questions as being emotional, it is a strategy to avoid debate. Why should we be scared of being angry? Why should we be scared of our feelings, if they’re based on facts. The whole framework of reason versus passion is ridiculous, because often passion is based on reason. Passion is not always unreasonable. Anger is based on reason. They’re not two different things. I feel it’s very important to defend that.”
— Arundhati Roy, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy
Gender: As defined by Jaden
reblogging this poem by an amazing and inspiring young man…Jaden, your courage has given strength to me and your words given courage.
Constance, head on over and give Roz a read…she is a cutting edge parent who never even asked for a knife…and yet there she is, loving, thinking, strategizing, and making a way for us all
This post is for my friend, Jaden. His story is not unlike so many others, though his journey is unique. I loved his words and wanted others to be touched by the beauty of his intentions. Thank you, Jaden, for allowing me to share your poem, your words, that are so meaningful to you. I wish you a lifetime of friendship, courage and positivity. xo
Gender
Often times I’m disregarded as a person,
or a human altogether.
Often times I’m called “it” when I clearly asked you to call me “he”
and Jaden, not Jillian.
But moving on from that,
what the hell does my gender have to affect you in any way
whatsoever.
You act like the fact that I have breasts on my chest,
or my voice not being as low as the other guys,
or maybe I’m only 5’1”,
or your religion may not follow it?
How…
View original post 461 more words
A Bird’s Free Flight and Flower Feet
i am a flower planted deep,
my soul a bird loose in deep skies
i should be free to soar and spin
but i am caught by roots in dirt
my body coarse in clumsy lurch
yearning for freedom’s feathered perch
i am a bird that cannot land
with soul that longs for roots at rest
i should be buried safe in soil
burrowing warm in dark rich nest
but i’ve no harbour, no still rest
no pillow for my aching breast
a flower trapped within a bird
a bird caged in a fragile flower
and God above my prison bower
may hear me in my darkened hour
Little Red Songbird, Red-Tailed Hawk
On the day I saw That One
dancing on waves,
arms thrown towards the sky
and waves surrounded you,
surfer of coming time
waiting to burst and break
onto this world
in this space
in your place
that day was sweat and hearts beating hard
and hands and Hand gripping,
expanding, contracting
and on that day I too was born
again, the dead me made alive
in your red song,
in your bright eyes
and in your beauty.
you were literally the most beautiful child
I have ever seen, and all of you
are very beautiful, now all grown up
but you were born in red song flitting
and beauty hopping hither and yon
and mischievous loving leprechaun laughs.
For so long I thought you were my lil red songbird…
Hah! How was I to know you were far fiercer
than the Tao or the Quran and make
those bible boys look like pikers in their desert!
How was I to know you were all your own,
Red-Tailed Hawk in full fury and flight and fire
of blood-brown red tail feathers and gleaming beak?
I chuckle ruefully in recall
and then you shriek
and then you fall,
red bolt to earth with talons sharp
extended, reaching, snatching gripping
some unsuspecting sinister snake
and then away with you in triumph
to tear it, revel in its ripping
feeding your fierce fiery hunger
for all things alive and living,
breathing throbbing in the same
fierce love you carry deep inside
the flurry of your beating wings.
I stand in this field
and make mouse noises,
I wriggle and writhe,
and want to catch
your glinting eye
and clear sharp ear,
for piercings from
your talons true
are better than
these empty days of missing you
as just another year has passed
another birthday I have toasted you
wherever you are,
and me here, alone
and in my field…
My Little Red Songbird
My Red-Tailed Hawk.
Suicide Bonfire: A Deconstruction
Constance, the reaction to my latest poem has been such that I want to provide a few bits of the peek under the blanket for you. It seems that there is this very conflicted feeling as readers take it in, and it adds confusion and a sense of settled peace all at once.
Ordinarily, I would be overjoyed with this, as it is from this maelstrom that the reader’s own inner conflicts begin to be confronted, engaged, and eventually dealt with.
But this one used a word that is highly charged emotionally and fraught with fear.
I know I fear(ed) the word: suicide.
So let me lay out a few things.
1. Consider the presence throughout the entire poem of words, phrases and turns of phrase onto their ear that are stripped straight from our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Ask yourself why would the poetess lace those phrases into a poem such as this? What is it she would mean by applying them in this context.
2. There is a contrast of paths and trails, their source of origin, foot traffic. All of these things are highly metaphorical and stacked vertically with fatness.
3. The poem speaks of departures, and arrivals too. It speaks of things repudiated and things embraced. It contrasts death and beauty. Consider this juxtapositioning of things, and go ahead and assume that the poetess is intentional in this placement. This will enable you, should you wish, to delve into the deeper layers of the poem, the more vital layers of meaning that all the rest is mise en place for.
4. Lastly (though by no means exhaustively), regard the title: is there more than one way to read that title, especially in light of the last stanza, imagery of a mythological creature that is not named (intentionally), double entendres and double backs, side by side realities and states (wait: a transgender person would write of 2 existential realities simultaneously experienced and the death of one of them? wooaaaa…).
5. Reassurance: those of you who jumped to the conclusion that this poem was an alarm that Charissa is going to kill herself are so appreciated by me, and also so dancing on the surface of the poem in alarm. Read thru the last couple months of posts, including “The 5 Nevers” and other similar things…and then read the poem again. This time chew it and consider it.
I think you might find it reassuring and empowering, evidence that the door has and is closing entirely on a long and arduous chapter in the tale of my life, and the beginning of a new one…say, the ending of “Charissa Crosses the Desert” and the beginning of “Charissa Sets Sail At Last”.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your concern. I won’t lie: the flame is hot, and persistent, and those haunts are frightening and sinsiter/seductive…but I see their teeth and empty eyes, and I send them away with my incantations…such as Suicide Bonfire.
Suicide Bonfire
By the dawn’s early light
I see the faint track of passing deer
o’ershadowed by padding soft cougar prints,
and I leave behind what I so proudly hailed,
my back to that last twilight gleaming, my last one
I shall endure, or ever see.
I have conceded the fight fraught with perils
and I have left the path, to follow the trail,
the last trail, flag finally furled forever,
victim of futility and vain imagination.
I think it’s better this way, following the trail
of animals, far off the beaten human track
because that way I will not be found
or ever tracked out, and the last horror
will not be me blasted or bloated or slashed or purple
it will be a simple, puzzling absence.
The morning is blazing, gleams of blue and grey,
the air crisper and cleaner than a gunshot crack
and the beauty rolls from ridge to ridge
and my eyes fill and smudge a smidge
in sorrow and relief.
I’ll never see you again, but that is not a thing
cus hey, I haven’t seen you thru the night
and have no proof you’re even still there,
I don’t even know if I’m still here, truth be told.
The going gets tougher, the trail drops away
and I am bushwhacking thru thick thorny
fierce frolics of Scotch Broom and poison oak.
I won’t be allergic, where I am going.
Finally I find the deep copse dark,
slick with shadows, layers laid lifeless
and freshly dead in morning, and I walk to
the deeps of the bowl and hunker.
Down. Down. Birds dart overhead in sound and glimpse.
Down. Down. And spacious skies descend to gulp.
Down. Down. And ancient hills crouch low and dusty.
and me, in the hollow, growing thin, bleeding out, feeding grasses
copper and salt, tears and surrender, and sorrow on the wind.
Time will pass and my flesh becomes the dust from whence it came
and my bones will still delay, waiting for a spark, waiting for
the Flint of God to strike them, tender tinder with me finally
gone in ghostly ever-swoon,
and there they ever burn, in the night, in memory
of all that we endured, and all we were denied
and all I hope to spare you from
with this bonfire, this bonefire
releasing me in conflagrating furies
in flight to the stars above
and this tragedy stupid, mute, dumb
finally finished.
Unthinking Destruction
All is not well
here in Destruction
on twisting trash-strewn roads
traversing heart topography
of hurt, humiliation and
yes, hate…
roads the arteries and veins
pumping mammon’s blood in vain
and kicking at every knee…
all is not well
here, in me.
Storm clouds gather
around hard eyes,
flat, blank beneath,
seething inside
and then the sun
shines on those eyes
and I can see
behind those eyes,
lined with poverty like mascara
while calling it silver, but…
no redemption there,
nope, not, no
silver lining
there.
Lurking,
poised to pounce
from eyes straight into mouths,
unthinking, uncaring, unfeeling
unaware and empty,
lurking light (incarnate words)
so black and blank (incarnate worlds),
darkened worlds of night,
down pitch-black alleys
reeking of menace
like a bad undertaker’s
over-liberal use of cheap cologne
to mask the smell of rot.
Then they speak at me
and words spark
from their lips like live coals,
like glowing tips of cigarettes
and sharp threatening glares
of drug pipes drawn deep
and harsh like sudden flares
and for split seconds
their illumined faces show to me
in that black light in that moment
I can truly see, past the blank indifference
and peer thru active hate
and around their lurking fear
and I can spot the person
that once lived shining,
feeling there.
It is late
and I am sick,
and drowsy,
I am sick,
and comfortable,
I am sick
and freaking out
in a world jarred
wide awake,
in a life,
a death,
a meal shared,
in this daily, physical reality
unchanged
But I hear
the whisper of a spider spinning
her web of promise,
and I catch
the sound of subterranean streams
and I remember
all is not quite what it seems.
See, I’m having these recurring dreams
that all was good from the beginning,
but then something went wrong,
oh so wrong and things
ain’t like they ought to be,
not for them and not for me…
and we dwell here,
drugged and deceived,
thinking that not-thinking is
the true sweaty work of unthinking!
Oh for the courage to unthink!
Unthinking the inevitability of sin,
unthinking the inevitability of violence,
unthinking the inevitability of exile,
unthinking the divisions,
unthinking the deceptions…
Oh to dwell in
Unthinking
Destruction
Haiku for Spring
Cherry Blossom Me
pinched between mountain and stream
and sky…then I’m gone
Mama I Need…
a word, just a wet sweet word
from Your lips Ruby and Red
with Redemption and Resurrection.
Mama I need
a touch, just a finger
upon my brow so thick,
so unfine and bony and ugly.
Mama I need
to hear You, near and dripping
in comfort and tender compassion
Mama, I need
to know if it even
matters or moves
anywhere that makes
a true lasting difference
Mama I need
a poem of purity
a verse that is pretty
a body that’s fit
and a being acceptable
I Am Overcome In Black
In great resistant insistent being
I came forth, losing everything
I thought was me and part of me
but was just chrysalis.
Quills from eternity, beyond here
pierce thru light and hope
and pierce thru me until
they touch me, mark me intricate.
I see the patterns of exquisite pain and mercy
I see the tracks of becoming’s travail
but it keeps on going, that black claiming
until everything is clothed in its homogenous grip.
and I am overcome in black
and without voice, without strength
without cheek or jowl beside mine
alone in the black and caught between stars
I never knew this before…
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Cis-Privilege is a thing
Pretty much nails it…
Cis Privilege is…
Not being abused in the street for your gender presentation
Not being refused housing by a Landlord because of your gender presentation
Not being turned down for a job because of your gender presentation
Not being refused access to changing rooms because of your gender presentation
Not being refused access to the bathroom that corresponds with your gender presentation
Not being refused medical assistance because of your gender presentation
Not being refused emergency shelter because of your gender presentation
Not being harassed by law enforcement because of your gender presentation
Not being portrayed as less than human by the media because of your gender presentation
Not having your legal rights ignored because of your gender presentation
Not having your abilities as a parent called in to question because of your gender presentation
Not being considered a threat to children because of your gender presentation
Not having your…
View original post 195 more words
The Suffering of Forgiveness
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
A Disjointed Incomplete Meditation…
houses of grey blank walls decked out in smooth rich wood
panels and pictures of picnics and parties…
banal bacchanalia, all splattered in Blood.
Beds of spikes, hidden neath down comforters,
and wool knitted afghans of colorful,
threatening sinister pattern.
Houses in neighborhoods bereft of neighbors,
each one is serving themselves and alone
in community of this alienation…and all is
destroyed by their own bloody hands…
the work of rough hands…even rougher grave throats.
Our eyes are still bloodshot from staring at visions
of genocide done that we didn’t see coming
but now we continue to watch, in foreboding
but hoping in vain that the cute lil houses
are what’s really real and not all the horror,
lurking beneath in destruction and gore.
we are really in fear and wondering…
what happens when a killer comes home,
or (gulp) even worse
if that killer had never left home?
what then?
what happens when victims
*widows orphans*
and murderers
look each other in the eyes again?
what then, and who blinks first and looks away in shame?
What are these wounds on your chest?
The wounds I received in the house of my friends.
What is greater: the pain of being violated
or the bitter agony of forgiving?
a valley of dry bones cannot be forgotten
even in the face of forgiveness so costly.
This impossible for me to try to describe
or even conceive of apart from the cross of Christ.
Because forgiveness is also
it’s own rare and exquisite
form of great suffering.
And so now we get down to it:
there is no exit, no escape from the agony,
no pitstop from pain…
all we can do is exchange suffering’s form and it’s face,
from our own for the pain of another…
and us become willing to be bashed and broken
by those very ones we so desperately want
to reach out to and reconcile and leave pain behind.
This is the agony of a tortured soul wrestling
and a wrecked body there…offered in prayer
on the altar of sorrow…for the forgiveness
of torturers’ torments in this dank dark world
of violence and victims, laboring heavy
beneath weights unspeakable and even greater,
the weight of the cross.
And Him? The Reproached?
The Betrayed, Who was Broken?
Him The Despised and King of All Criminals,
King of All Victims, King of All Shame?
Perhaps He knows of the path thru this valley
of broken dry bones full of dust, full of death.
Perhaps He can see those small signs of life
that are hidden from eyes filled with blood, hate and rage
and only seen by the eyes washed clean with tears
of repentance and wonder to look for our Spring
and the signs there so gentle
of a coming glad day of Resurrection…
Dernier Recours by Mystic4Ever
Ne touche plus mon cœur avec tes lettres roses
Tu as le don pour bien envelopper les choses
Avec du beau papier et du ruban autours
Comme si il ne tient qu’à cela ton amour.
Accorde-moi sans faim cette ferveur latente
Que sur moi tes lignes ne soient plus élégantes
Et je ne veux plus de tes mots couverts d’envie
Ni du miel aigre-doux de tes lèvres d’ami.
Sépare tes pas du feu de mes habitudes
Car je préfère à toi le masque solitude
Mon ombre dépasse ton reste de soleil
Et ma peau se déploie aux creux de ton sommeil.
Détache tes rêves du bord de mes absences
Les discours valent moins que le fer du silence
Moi je ne rêve plus depuis bien trop longtemps
Je perds au fil des maux cette notion du « tant ».
Je ne supporte plus que tu aimes me plaire
Ni tes allers venus au souffle de mes terres
Je te demande juste avec ma permission
Blesse- moi pour qu’enfin j’oublie jusqu’à ton nom…
Mystic4Ever
Le 15 Novembre 2012
Abandonment
You, long my nemesis and hater of my soul.
You’ve chilled my days and frozen all my long night’s coal
in hours of stark terror and silent desperate screams
on razor blades I’ve laid my stricken threatened head
thanks to your dark malevolent deadly ways…
abandonment.
You poisoner of my rivers flowing pure and oh so sweet,
you making dry my innocent new merry bubbling spring
and striking terror in my tender childlike heart
with zombie screams so savage, oh so hungry shrill,
and yet so silent and so baleful still
you emanate such evil dread and blackness toward me
and I am melted in my soul aghast,
abandoned.
Long have I searched and sought an exit, for the way
that leads me from your cruel torture chambers dark
un-swaddles me from all your reeking death clothes stark
and dank and damp and dripping with death’s poisonous remark,
slowly I turn my shivering and jittery back on you
while terror talks and walks straight up my frigid spine
and every vertebrae recoils in mortal fear
you creep pernicious up my frame like poison vine
but I am resolute because I want to gain
my freedom from your bottomless black empty jailer eyes
and rows of terrible sharp executioner teeth
and so it’s me, at last, it’s me that does you right…
I
abandon
you.
you horror,
you absolute
horror.
When ‘Midst the Gay I Meet
When ‘midst the gay I meet
That gentle smile of thine,
Though still on me it turns most sweet,
I scarce can call it mine:
But when to me alone
Your secret tears you show,
Oh, then I feel those tears my own,
And claim them while they flow.
Then still with bright looks bless
The gay, the cold, the free;
Give smiles to those who love you less,
But keep your tears for me.
The snow on Jura’s steep
Can smile in many a beam,
Yet still in chains of coldness sleep,
How bright soe’er it seem.
But, when some deep-felt ray,
Whose touch is fire, appears,
Oh, then the smile is warm’d away,
And, melting, turns to tears.
Then still with bright looks bless
The gay, the cold, the free;
Give smiles to those who love you less,
But keep your tears for me.
Moore, Thomas (1779 – 1852)
That Monolithic Blue
yep…that’s it,
the monolith.
Hush! Shh, yeah,
I know I know
it’s beautiful,
yadda yadda yadda
cus blue and layers
it’s carved and worn
by wind and time
and it chips off
pieces of itself
that melt and feed
oceans, and then feed
cloud hopes, which become
streams, rivers, lakes
and again back
to become itself
once more
and monolithic blue
born anew.
but just stand
here, awhile with me,
where I am frozen
and caught in the glare
of its pressure and presence
and eventually
your face will grow numb
your toes will lose movement
and you will feel
the tempting tentative tickle
of its sinister frozen fingers
around your warm and tender
heart, so red,
so achingly red
and stark against
that monolithic blue.
Groundhog Day Forever
there is a movie where the main character
lives Groundhog Day over and over
and over and over
and he can do what he wants
while everyone else
does the same old thing.
I think it’s safe to call that experience
dysphoria, because I live
the same old day, the same old over
and I remember the day before
and the day before that one
while everyone thinks it’s just that day only.
Knowing something that no one else knows
and carrying that–what–what would that be called,
burden, responsibility, honor, freedom,
carrying that sentence in my bones and marrow
those bones of lead and marrow of molten lava
and my superheated flesh constantly evaporating.
But what if we are all living Groundhog Day?
What if everyday we wake up, it’s just the same
day done again, but we only believe it is different,
because well it is, and all our thoughts and opinions
are just so much shadow that chases the groundhog
back underground to hide from eternal winter?
Eventually the man runs the gamut of options
and is reduced to meaningless repetition over and over
until he actually considers oeuvre, and oeuvre
and then things change, because he himself is changed…
and that is what makes the difference, releases us
from Groundhog Day Forever.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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