Ya cannot stop me, Brother! 🙂 Here is a comment AND a like!
*Charissa giggles and feels good*
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See??? Giggles!!!! Seriously, Constance check out his poem. Delicate, nuanced and thoughtful as always.
Category Archives: Poetry
Love One Another
I am reblogging this wonderful quote, it really touched my heart!
❤
Advent Poem: The Season of Emptiness
I remember
last Christmas,
lingering in my mind
midst memory’s fogs
and memories
…just grey mists now,
swirling and coiling
back on themselves,
roiling forward
from the past
and boiling over
into this morning,
this day…
this time sitting
in the midst of ashes
dead and flat remaining
from that cold conflagration
of becoming thru the fires
of that season.
Friends, job,
name, family,
reputation,
all consumed
by fire,
all revealed as
morsels of the moment
(that lasted 55 years and still just a moment)…
last year,
I had it all
at least in the eyes
of those who don’t matter,
I had it all…especially
the awful yawning
void of nothing
gaping inside
me, most real
inside me,
I remember
the day after Christmas
reduced me to a place
in the hills adjacent
to the place a woman
took her own life
this year,
reduced me
to screaming incoherence
because I had run out
of words to scream and
I had just begun
to scratch the surface
of what there was
to scream about,
that awful
substantial black
nothing.
that day,
it was a close matter
a razor’s edge tumble
into red greedy flames
burning long and low
all year until
they blazed in fury fanned
when smothering shrouds
were snatched away sudden
in torn and tattered strips
to consume the bribes
and chains of nothing
clothed in costumes.
This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed,
revealed as the imposter
it still masquerades as.
I am empty of screams
but full of me and
ready to receive
the Promise of words
to give voice to
what’s unspeakable, unnameable,
to dress that wound
infected with nothing
and salve it with
the scratchy tickle of truth
and set free we
shadowbound to be
our shining selves,
casting shadows
instead of being flat
and cast by them.
It is the season of emptiness, and places
prepared by pain are hungry
for the Presence
and the Promise
that only emptiness contains.
Overview and Comments on an Original Christmas Story
Hi Constance…so last year at Christmas time, I published here a long original Christmas story, called
Clicking on the link will take you to the post in its entirety.
This is the Christmas story written from the perspective of one of the 3 Kings who goes on a journey with the other two, following that brilliant steady star that had appeared. But the king is dying, from some ailment unknown, and so brings along the supplies needed to bury him in the likely event that he died on the way. And if he made it, well, he would make those burial spices his gift to the royal personage that the star in the heavens spoke of. After all, the spices were quite valuable.
Along the way, the king is abandoned by his companions when he has a seizure and they think he has died, and he is discovered laying unconscious in the fields of some shepherds. They have just experienced some extraordinary events of an unprecedented nature and as they share these things with the king, they discover that their destination is the same place, the same Person, and so they set off travelling together.
They meet this Person, and something astounding happens to the King…and he Becomes…
…well, you will just have to read it to find out, now won’t you?
Here is the killer to me though: this story moves me as much as anything I have written…ever.
And yet only one person pushed “like”. And historically? Other than when I read it out-loud to my kids when they were little, I have never received any sort of response to it!! No response of any kind. Not one time has anyone said “omg that is the most boring stupid thing I have ever read”…or “omg that was delightful!”
Nothing.
I even solicited input from readers a few days after posting it here…and what is totes ironic is that the post soliciting comment got a few likes. Apparently, my plea for feedback was more interesting than the story itself! But as per usual, no comments on the story.
Hey, I can deal with being told that I sucked and just am a very bad writer…I can deal with hearing that the story needs work and were I to ever get any feedback on it I would work it in rewrite until it sang. But apparently it isn’t even bad enough to create even that reaction!! Giggles…now that is bad!!
Well…screw all that. I like the story. It is fabulous, imaginative, inclusive of diverse elements and taps into the Mythos of Christmas. It touches on the Mystery of it, the Magic of it, and the Majesty of it. Whether or not I wrote it very well has nothing to do with the story and what I saw when it came to me.
Maybe the problem is that it is a bit long? It takes a while to read it. I have heard that the modern mind has a short attention span (makes me so G Damn happy that Tolkien did not write in our day, or I likely would never have read TLOTR because no one would have published it!), and that is one way that I am very much not like modern minds, for mine is convoluted, complex, intricate…my thoughts and ideas take notions, nudges and knowings and weave them carefully. And of course then there is the whole issue of being guilty of producing too much content.
Whatever. I am who I am. I am what I am, and I am not going to apologize for that, any more than the mighty Mississippi apologizes for feeding the sea. I like the story so…
…so this year, I am going to re-post it here, but just a little bit each day.
Maybe it’s good…maybe it isn’t…who really knows? But between now and Christmas, I will dribble it out here. And if you want more? Well that is the cool thing about blogs…you can go back in time!
Merry Charissa-mas!
Advent Poem: The Season of Expectancy
I’m homesick for a Blue Place
that might not be real…
but I know it is.
It has to be!
It floats here,
Azure in my silver
longing heart unsinkable
and it’s scarlet voice calls
from Beyond into beyond,
to that Place
I have never been
but can describe
oh so very well,
down to tittery wine
that brings all joy
but never leaves
hangovers in its wake
and the drippy bread that breaks
crusty with truthful crunch
and fills you up
without filling you out.
Slow down, to open
quick windows of awareness
and be of thick spiritual health.
Find jubilant quiet Mystery
inside stillness’s expectant embrace,
the only Place that God’s own Face
can safely show Itself, It’s Grace.
God’s Grace, God’s Face,
an infant among us…
Good God with us
(a freaking BABY??!!??!)…
a disruptive Mystery
wedged into reality
and stuck in the craw of dismay.
Where only They can fit.
But Mystery, even a disruptive one
(no…especially a disruptive one!!)
is well worth
stillness,
wonder,
contemplation.
This Mystery is rich enough
to make us stop and wait,
and is poor enough
to catch out all pretenders
greedy for gain alone
and thus lost of soul.
God has stepped into our world
to dig us out of every prison
we disguised as snug burrows
and cozy hobbit holes.
Listen.
If you cannot hear it
you will miss it.
Make room.
Divest yourself
of lists and budgets
and endless holiday labor
and fretful commotion and
freeze-dried contentment.
Contemplate
empty your heart
and your hands of stuff,
of chaos, of injustice and
hatred, death and despair.
It’s the season of Expectancy
so heavy in the air, and that is
miracle enough, from there…
from Blue…and from Beyond.
Seeds Busy Becoming
I live in longing wonder
I’m mindful I’m a seed
buried deep within time’s flower garden
and sprouting there so quiet
and working hard to flourish
while everything takes place beneath the surface.
And those who throw dirt on me?
Why, they do God the favor
of releasing me, breaking me out prison
inside that hell, that hull
that thick and clumsy null
and so I am immune to their derision!
Every single person (every single one)
is living the greatest triumph ever witnessed
while also walking thru the hardest tragedy
this world has ever seen in all its seasons.
So therefore when you stand in anybody’s presence
remember that before you run your mouth.
And let that knowledge tender
be the only hoe you handle,
the only rake you wield to labor worthy
Because you are surrounded
by seeds busy becoming
Eternal blossoms in Their Garden Sacred.
Advent Poem: The Season of Hope
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
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
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.
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
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.
Advent Poem: The Season of Reunion
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
Advent Poem: The Season of Enough
It’s the season to journey
to places we know so well
but haven’t been to…
…and now it is time
in this never enough world
to declare the season has come:
it’s the season of enough!
ENOUGH!
Enough of the certified baby so boring,
our “gentle Lord Jesus so meek mild and timid”,
enough of that muffled mage soft-spoken and sage
who wouldn’t say shit even if He’d a mouthful!
Enough of the small household pet of the pious and pompous,
confined to the shelf there beside the wood stove, sat right next to the Hummels
and rolling His eyes to the heavens above, just hanging from
that jeweled crucifix so goddam decorative!
A God
shouldered It’s Way
into the world that day!
A God,
rough and roaring
and wrapped in the skin
of a baby asleep, hidden
here in our world,
stepping down out of Heaven
and into a stable
so filthy and smelly
and lowing with cattle
and held in the arms
of an unmarried mother
who everyone thought
was a loose filthy whore!
This God is glowing and rippling with Power,
pregnant with Presence and poised there with Promise,
This is the Lion come down with sheathed claws
and become the White Lamb with the Lion’s Red Heart
fairly roaring with passion to blow away lies
and to shatter injustice, whip greedy backsides
and to plunder oppressors so Liberty Lives!
Open your ears to the central lone question
of Advent…concealed in this Lion Heart wrapped in a baby…
do we need deliverance? do we even want it?
do we even know what deliverance is?
do we have a lingering longing for something,
the chance to start fresh, to be granted “do overs”
A Miracle Mulligan of Christmas Mercy
wrapped in the Mystery of the Great Lion
who’s wrapped in those swaddling clothes in that manger
and lying so meek and so quiet, so LOUD
in the silence surrounding this moment of presence
when everything holds its breath
watching…watching…
waiting…waiting…
for the kind of thoughts that expose deception,
and pierce every darkness, shatter hearts of iron
and rewrite the stories of sorrow and loss
into tales of glad tidings and mercy majestic
and Mystery stripped down
and become enough.
Enough. Yes.
This is the season of Enough.
That Gift Gone Awry
She packed it, after all…after
we had eaten the pie,
fresh from the oven and then
cutting that gift gone awry.
she put it in its covering and heart
full of glad good cheer
so it was hurtful to her too
when touched with doubt and fear.
It helped a bit to know
that I was not the only one
and makes it easier to let go,
let yesterday be done.
Copying A Post Here of A VERY Strong Poem
My friend Frederic over at Poems & poèmes has written an incredible poem that I simply had to share here with you! For some reason the reblog option is not available, so I am linking to it and also copying it for you below. Please visit over at Frederic’s blog, and keep him in your heart…I know that I have him in my heart everyday, especially when he is “walking the black dog”.
Frederic…hang in there. Regardless of the pain, our enduring and rising up each day is our best resistance against it and those who cause it.
Blessings and Grace,
Charissa
***** ***** *****
Agonies
Don’t ask
the doe
wolves
bit and killed
to show
compassion
love them all
it’s the same old tune every time
but I fear
they were fully aware
of what they did
and I’m sorry to confess
I do not
love
them
at
all
let me say a little black prayer
o fair Fatality
may
wolves
suffer
agonies!
Gustave Courbet, the Dead Doe – Image source
Leaning Hard Against That Night
icicles hung glittering clear,
they shot diamonds, mercury bright
and gleams refracting morning light
they hid the horrid crime that happened
in the cold and dark black night…
how can people do it, say it?
well, last night the deed was done
beneath clouds scuttering wet and rainy
(like my covers wet with tears,)
it will be done again you know,
but only lonely dead will weep
and they are dead…so that leaves just
the children crying in the cold
and hungry violence of the night.
that hand groped blind and deaf, and reached
for icicles hung in the dark,
all light drained dry and swallowed down
fear’s greedy gullet, sucked into
the belly of the raving beast. 
that tongue, fearsome and cleaved in twain
and mute, waggling helplessly
between those fearful gnashing teeth
it fluttered, spit, stuttered and hit
with lies, with bitter accusations
comforting and crooning.
the disembodied hand snapped off
that cold icicle, that one that
the red light of Mars’ distant eye
unblinking, licked, caressed and sharpened,
then the hand floated across
the room so dark and thick with terror,
while some choked disembodied voice
muttered Mene, Mene, Teqel, Upharsin
and I knew I was a wall
and it the hungry writer, and
then it fell in fierce red streaks,
such icy strokes of death tattooing
“unclean!” “beware!” “mind-whore!”
my blood was its gory ink
and my heart was its inkwell, screaming
as it wrote again, again,
it wrote again, til I drained dry,
lay still, eyes glassed and blindly staring
at the black sky spinning, fading
from my view while that night faded
into grey dawn streaked with crimson
bursting full into today.
I woke up and found my face
was wet, and thank god it was just
my tears and not my blood, but wait…
my eyes were caked, dry, rimed with salt
and sleep…the clammy wet was really
that icicle and the secret
kill it keeps inside its melty
hungry heart so ravenous
and never satisfied or sated,
just drunk on my blood and terror,
drunk on me, so feared and hated.
i died last night…but in my dreams,
so there is not a corpse remaining
and the murder weapon melted
(they always do in dreams, you know)
and so the killer walks the earth
so smug and lily pure and knowing
that the sprawling feast is now
secure and safe and once again
the killer sings out
“all is well inside the city!”
walls so high, so white, so white,
just like the cliffs of Dover standing,
leaning hard into that night.
The Language Lost Forever
older than language and deeper than words.
our bodies speak a language
long lost, misunderstood.
but still it’s spoken (though unknown)
in body on body (rain on stone)
in lips on lips (sun on snow).
we don’t remember
this language, yet we
cannot ever just forget it.
and so we let someone love us
(or what we think is love, anyway)
and speak what no one really knows.
In flaw on feature,
fail on feelings
and smile on what’s broken.
then sunlight enters thru the window
broken jagged
in the morning
lighting up the world
inside us, and the language
lost forever
sings here once again.
ghosts of christmases past
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.
Advent Questions
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?
Letting Go At Last
raindrops slide,
stop, tremble
and then let go and run
down the window
in surrender
to the relief
of turning loose
their death grip
on the window pane.
beyond that
water-veined glass
tall trees lean
into the wind and then
whip away in relief
to give up and be ravaged
in smacks of wet windy
winter lips kissing in
moaning fury.
on the sill, here
with me inside
tendrils trail up
up and away,
straining against
the heat and reaching
into the cool air relief
bringing great incense
of smoky espresso promise.
and I relax,
letting go at last
like the rain
on the window,
like the tree
in the wind,
like the steam
in the air
just letting go.
My Tender Misty Heart
Tender is the misty forest, full of frost, full of frost
Glowing in the velvet night and crystal air, crystal air
I walk silent, carrying my globes of hope, globes of light
In the misty forest tender, full of frost and air.
Shadows track beside me here as I walk in the trees
Leaving traces of their fear, and their hate, always near.
Gibbering and whispering their lies and pain, lies and pain
Stalking me, looking for my heart so red and near.
They believe my globes of hope are poisonous, full of death,
They imagine machinations sinister, scheming loss
They crown me with bitter loathing hateful spite, in this night
Waving branches dead and stark, their signposts of despair.
I know what is in my heart, in my globes, globes of light.
I know why I walk the tender misty forest, forest night.
I am warm, and my head held high as I walk, as I walk.
Nothing can defeat or harm my tender misty heart.
Blow A Kiss To The Ocean (For ddh and lil mama)
Blow a kiss to the ocean for me, for I am far from there,
Behind the moon and under hills I sojourn while I stare
Inside my heart (where you reside regardless of the miles
that yawn between us vast), for just a glimpse of your glad smiles,
Please…Blow a Kiss to the ocean for me, so far…and yet so near.
The ocean sings and shouts in steady thundering loud voice
And yet it also whispers to the ones that make the choice
to listen with their bones and answer with their ruddy heart
that yearns to cast off every weight and burden and depart
for destinations where there is no sorrow, shame, or fear.
You there, at the ocean, me, across that vast expanse
and laboring in desert sands, I listen…for your glance
my way, and I yearn for the sound, the smell of what will be
when I can fly across the sky and land there, at the sea.
But for now, please…Blow a kiss to the ocean…just for me.
The Tranny-curse (haiku)
there, around my neck
choking me in its fat fist
branding me unclean
The curse is in the word, and words like it…not in my being who and what I am.
Radio Silence (by anon., guest poster on Grace Notes)
Dear Constance…I was graced today with the cry of a heart great. A heart beautiful, a heart that can be held in a hand but not contained by the sea.
This heart sent me this poem, this offering of love, longing, sorrow and pain. Such is the way of life. Such is often the way of a world broken and not as it should be.
So…read please? And feel it. And then know that the “ought not to be” is proof that One Day comes…and a righting of all wrongs, and a healing of all wounds and Restoration of the Breach will be, will be, will be…
I die a little every day
With you so far away
Three months it’s been since I talked to you,
And two months for your sister too
Big brother says he can’t do it
and the youngest seems oblivious
And so I die a little every day
and you so far away
Daily each of you will do
whatever it is you do
you eat, you sleep, you work or play
but I hear not a word
you say it’s too hard to talk about
and that you hate being on the phone
I call it radio silence
and each day when
there has been
not a word, not an email, not a message
death takes another nibble
Today I die a little more
I see no end in sight
i thought that if I acted cool,
you possibly, you could you might
return to me, to us and then
you’d share your life ,your love again
and some “boring” daily doings.
But instead I feel the deadness grow
in the place where you once lived.
And so
I die a little every day
With you so far away.
IRISH THANKSGIVING
I am stunned by this poem.
The beauty, the longing, it tears at my heart with the things that were, and no longer can be, the things that are and soon will be the things that were and can no longer can be…and hidden there, in the borders between the words…the things that are Coming.
Please, Constance, read this slow and savor it…and then again. Melissa, I am so very grateful for this poem.
Much love and much respect!
Charissa
I step from one world into another
Like a bather setting my toe in the icy Atlantic on a June day.
It is a painful transition
And yet once the gut is sucked in with a sharp inhale of breath
My horizon shifts and it is palatable.
I step into the damp air of an Irish morning,
Tang of salt and mud off the Shannon estuary,
Strong whiff of cow manure. I know I’m home.
The navy suit and general greyness of the men at the passport desks is expected.
One takes my passport and in a the soft Galway accent—
you would be forgiven for thinking the fella had a marble rolling around in his mouth
says to me, Ah you must be David and Sally’s daughter. Tell your parents I was asking for them.
I am at once comfortable with the scale of things:
Four steps to the…
View original post 557 more words
Every Fractured Piece
Touch me with hands gentle,
hands giving and softly yielding
blessing and the gift of myself
known and thus received.
Touch my heart so it relaxes and unbends,
unfolds and opens up into a million
pieces interconnected and remembered
in the whorls and swirls of your fingerprint’s voice.
I will gentle grow beneath your blessing bestowed
so quiet and alert, so tender, deliberate undaunted,
and rising my heart shall release the Host from
my lips moist and moving simple in communion.
Touch me then with actions become words
and words become kisses and
kisses become kindness
incarnate in the flames so ruby red and warm
and I will then be yours, and captured
bound to you with glances and eyes flashing,
bound unto your heart with trusting hunger
and peace at last singing in every fractured piece.
Only Winter Really Knows
That last leaf, on that dry branch
scratching at grey skies and digging for rain,
digging in my heart for seeds of grief
buried so deep.
What is it about the last one?
Leaf, apple, pine cone?
Winds rake and tug, greedily scooping prizes
sweet, tart, bristley, floatey…
but there always are those hangers on tenacious,
and never saying die…
or is it that they cannot do it? Say die?
or even “dead”.
Is it that they refuse
to let go? Or is it
that they cannot?
Let go?
And here is the killer: some people think they are resilient
and full of perseverance and persistence,
and some people think they are noble
and full of loyalty and loose liberty.
But I wonder if they are
just not capable, if they are
just crippled by their
inability to let go and move on?
I know how many days have come,
winds blowing, raking and pawing at me lusty,
unwanted doggy beasts, knocking me loose
and then away and disappearing.
I know how many thrusts, rooting have picked me over
and my secrets tumbling dead and colorful in air
away to dirt but I left lonely, hanging unrequited there
and flapping solitary in the winds of shame.
But there are still some (leaves, secrets, treasures)
still hanging on and unable to let go,
adorned in funeral robes dolorous
and hued in autumn splendor.
Most see them as emblems, medals,
battle spoils dearly won and worn…
but they are just proof
of my weaknesses and loss
and inability to quit,
to let go and enter
into that towering
still White transition called
Winter…
which, disguised as death
to frighten all assailants,
holds my dreams and hopes and losses
all in trust and buried deep in wombs
of merciful becoming masquerading
as cold tombs silent, dark and numbing,
Winter…
who holds my heart gripped
in her frosty kiss desperate,
longing for her last gasp
before presenting me
to the sprites of spring and then
the suns of summer.
The last one…there.
map, marking ways
hidden and secret to find
my deepest treasures,
or medal, memory of moments
living and filthy with love
long ago so bold and given over now
to the grave so lonely and cold.
I guess only Winter
really knows and will proclaim
when She calls roll and
the Final Thaw begins.
You Know This is For You
“I exist in two places,
here and where you are.”
here and where you are.”
| — | Selected Poems (1965-1975) (Margaret Atwood) |
Drone-selfie of climbers on the summit of the Matterhorn
This is me…
this is me, inside my heart, my soul cupped in my hands
and lifted high in graceful beauty unto heavenly lands,
this is my spirit, beautiful and yielded in my place
on sacred prayer mat made of love and tears and joy and grace.
but this is that me, seen, encountered, clumsy in this world,
the way i am perceived and felt, the heated judgments hurled,
hard and horned, coarse and dull, imprisoned in my place,
of silence, sorrow, empty house, tears always on my face.
May I Forget To Breathe Again
it’s been 25 years, every one a chapter in a book
filled with pages written in words
of surprise and heavenly gifts everyday.
i remember the first, that morning walk,
clammy fog swirling round my face
while inner fogs cleared.
breezes of heaven blew bright and fresh
teaching me to unwrap carefully, faithfully
everyday and hearing that free giggle/laugh.
and then i unveiled me (alas), to us all (me included)
and discovered that i had unwrapped that gift and was done…finished
and revealing my own irrelevance, current, future.
another chapter ended yesterday, another one begun,
passing and being born without a word from me (1st time ever),
at least, not one outloud, lest the universe take offense in silence.
but i remembered, all day long. i always do, you know.
and i sang, i cried, my tears washed my love
so my love could clean hold you secret and unseen.
i am sorry, love…i am. i know i was ruination,
a blight on years meant to resonate and not
rot in futile failed half-built huts.
but i will never sorrow o’er that day, that moment
when Heaven spoke and told me of Their gift,
and my heart was blessed forever after.
i remembered, all day long…and sang.
If i ever forget, may my hand forget to live,
and may i forget to breathe again.
Here is a Nude Selfie of Charissa…
giggles
Guilty of Too Much
It’s been said I run so fast, but there is One that’s faster,
One who walks upon the winds and is the tiger’s master.
Trailing on Her garmets quick and in Her steps so graceful
There it is I find Her draft and drink Her flow so faithful.
I feel all the power of the pulse of life in me.
I cannot hold back this river running fresh and free.
There’s a turbine in my heart that churns and whirs and hums
amidst the power and percussion pulsing rhythmic thrums.
Well, I did not receive a choice when I was fashioned thus!
I had no input, say, I couldn’t even raise a fuss!
No…placed inside this body rough and slow and made of dirt
I am a dancer graceful, runner swift, and princess pert!
I am a mind mercuiral, I am a soul of grace!
My heart is fashioned intricate, my spirit is spun lace.
And I have wings and courage, I am bold enough to soar
on winds to mountains high, and then dive deep to delve for more.
I am Charissa Grace. I always have been she.
Imprisoned in this body dark and struggling to be…
My deep flow furious is just a shadow of my thought
so I will simply open and bring forth the things I’ve bought.
Going for the Throat of Love
I have always
gone for the throat of love.
Right? I mean,
what else is there, really?
See, you are wiley…
you have your snares, your wire-traps…
but you know your way
around these woods
you touch those red trunks thick
and feel the moss and know
when that woody heart is open
and thirsty and available
you sense the wondering wildlife
hid nearby and hushed,
and know just how to move thus
and not startle the deer
and how to whistle for the birds,
you trill in practiced ease, that’s you…
touching terrain, scheduling territories,
reading maps and visiting…
spreading out your hunter’s eye
in webs and nets
and next thing you know, why
love is there and snapped
neatly on your leash and sat,
ears cocked, so it knows to roll over,
and speak, and play dead
(with a smile).
But me? I have eyes that see, inside
those scented trunks concealed with fringey moss,
and ears that hear inside the hearts of harts that crouch so still
and hidden there so neat and underneath the wings of birds.
But I don’t have body, right?
When I move, I snap twigs and crash,
noise and blunder, all bleeding desire
and wet contagious bonding sticky heart
that catches on the thorns you deftly step around
and tears on twigs and snags on gnarly cedar fingers
and then clutches at the brush to cover
my embarrassing naked need of something other
my need of what I was not even given
the dignity of denial,
denial of my heart-felt soft request…
like a tree not granted the dignity of a forest.
So I just jump que sera sera, aiming for
the things I see inside the hearts of trees and
the things I hear singing inside the flight of blackbirds in the night…
and the humming of the bees
…and find myself missing…
…over and over and over…
and thumping hard on stones and tumbled
scratched and hotly embarrassed
by yet another fruitless
leap of faith while moments
walks right past me,
walk right thru me!
I imagine you, your skillful
deft dread lilting steps
and secret smile of success,
you equipped and given grace that matches…
and moving
in the forest ways
and easy and always
so at home.
Finally I pick myself up,
and listen, look, and get a bead
on that pulsing place so secret there,
the tender hollow of its neck,
love,
and I get myself ready to go
for the throat of love once more,
and missing take my deep compelled encore
in hope that I will
catch my quarry, or am still
and never need to long
or ever jump again.
This Indigo Night Redux:
Hey, Constance, some of you read right away and some read much later…if you are an “early adopter”, consider checking out “This Indigo Night” again, as there was a hidden rhythm there which kept niggling at me…it was bugging me like a stray piece of popcorn hull stuck in my gumline.
I worried on it a bit, and it popped free, and now the poem flows in all its dark and sorrowful power.
I apologize for that…it truly oozes hurt and agony and that horrible existential loneliness that every single human has felt at some point in some way, even if it is but the shadow of the eye of Mordor looking, probing…and it barely hesitates on you there, cloaked under your fortunate sunny disposition and unfractured nature wrapped around you like an elvish cloak of protection…
…and even if I am the only one who feels thus? Well, it is honest. It sang true to the agony.
Thus shall it stand, and I the prouder of it for its courage.
Charissa the Sorrowful
Overcome
i admit this is tough for me…
chewing it is like a steak that
aunt myrtle sacrificed on the
altar of cleanliness is next to “done-liness”.
and swallowing it? HAH!
i always ask too much, expect too much
hope too much, believe things will work out
too much…and when that lump of
“not” gets stuck in my throat,
it grows hands topped with many fingers
tipped with sharp claws taught malevolent glee
and it jams itself sideways, stuck there in me
and declares “be ashamed!” “be nothing!”
or be both.
what i have overcome…what is that?
well, it is more like nugget, sweet and chewy
and promising substance, and then gone…
dissolved into nothing, just an aftertaste
torturing my longing heart.
but I am working on this.
I am gritting my teeth til my jaws ache.
I am saying I AM…subject, predicate “overcoming”.
I am drinking guilt by the glassful,
shame by the snifter and
terror by the teacup.
someday maybe it will be drained
to the last drop
and the ocean bottom will start to dry
at last there for the air to touch
and mess up its hair.
maybe…maybe then,
i will know being proud
of overcoming
A L’encre de tes Lèvres
J’ai saigné des lunes et des soleils nocturnes
Sous le ciel de ta peau, ayant un goût de miel
Me fondant sur ta langue ou à tes rêves diurnes
Que tu faisais jadis mon singulier pluriel.
Quand d’un geste fougueux, je me pends à tes yeux
Usant de l’imparfait pour taire les silences
Tu ignores les nuits où les terres en feu
Jaillissent du néant et remplissent mes stances.
J’ai enroulé mon cœur sur tes pages fébriles
Mêlant l’encre rouge à tes murmures d’amour
Et tu gagnes le jour quand ton âme érectile
Se suspend aux restes d’une larme au long court.
Un naufrage de mots s’échoue irrésistible
Toute voile dehors sur le sable émouvant
Ton souffle me parcourt en atteignant sa cible
Apaisant les sanglots d’un ultime courant.
J’ai déposé les maux sur tes lignes inertes
Liant l’arène de ta muse au bois dormant
Et je livre l’ivresse à tes rimes expertes
Nouant mon innocence à tes pouvoirs troublants.
Je m’ancre à tes lèvres et fusionne à ta plume
En t’inspirant des chants de divines passions
L’ombre de tes peines soulève mon enclume
Et je forge tes vers au sein de ma raison.
J’ai saigné des lunes et des soleils nocturnes
Sous le ciel de ta peau, ayant un goût de miel
Me fondant sur ta langue ou à tes rêves diurnes
Que tu faisais jadis mon masculin pluriel…..
Mystic4ever
Le 5 Avril 2011
This Indigo Night
what am I,
here in this current so swift,
here in this flow so crystal,
the color of none, of nothing
seeping from hearts of high mountains
whose tops are jagged and sharp,
sharp enough to shred endless blue skies
into ripped bloody red torn pink remnants
purple while day fades to black?
what am I,
feeling the kick inside me,
the writhing insistence and roll,
the knock knock inside my forehead
that sounds in nebula bursts
and sings in galaxy galas
inside my conductor heart
waving my rhythmic baton thoughts
emerging and piling up useless?
what am I,
feeling such guilt when I think
about all that I want you to know
all I feel and I long to feel with you
and I hear the desperate tremor
in your voice, I fear deeply that I am…what?
a burdensome ball that needs juggling,
a silly dead thing that needs managed,
another condition to cope with?
what am I,
in the dark heart of lean hungry hours
when nightmares slink bold and unwary
and sing in such sibilant hissing
that I’m not a what or a who,
that my sorrow and sharp disappointment
is hollow, is nothing so when
I shout “Marco! Marco! Marco! Marco! Marco!” over and over again
my desperate cry is gutted and added to indigo night?
what am I,
when I feel such life in my thoughts
and my insights streak thru my dark fear
like diamond-tailed powerful comets
fierce and unstoppable birthed, but
black holes of indifference they simply
yawn, stretch, and swallow them whole
and then check their watch sweetly ticking
for the truly important things?
I guess I am this at the least: the sum of all of my fears.
Those things are real, at least they must be, right?
The way they tear, the way they bite,
the way they drink my blood at night,
the way they croon that they will take me, wrap around me, never leave me
they’ll accept me, treasure my heart’s living blood so spurty salty
gushy red blooms from the cuts the jagged mountains made when I fell
from the sky upon them and discovered that I was not
made to fly, or be a worthy bird, or even just a little pretty butterfly.
what am i?
Under the Surface
I never scuba dive.
I’m afraid of those sharks,
great white sharks
(I could never figure out what was so great about them).
I think what they mean
is big white sharks.
and they aren’t even really white!
(why do we call things white that aren’t even?).
Their teeth are white though,
white razors running
from snout to throat and down
(I think they chew their way thru the water).
Besides, I am in enough danger (on land)
from things called great (that aren’t)
from things called white (that are just pale fish belly dead)
from things with teeth (that are hungry for blood).
rooster (for l’il mama)
rooster.
Rooster…
ROOSTER?
ROOSTER!!!!!
are you kidding me?
I mean, really, standing there
so straight and throbbingly smug
and shifting back and forth, foot to foot
in such preening pleased with self
admiration…oh such wit.
such wit, but wit by half I would say
being how it is you that goes off
half cocked or on full cock or
locked and loaded. isn’t it?
your glee when I am hot,
it pricks me, pokes me
and I am well aware of your baloney!
and you call me rooster!??!
I mean, really, walking around
cock of the walk and
buck naked and
all in front of yourself
thinking never once how
no one ever anywhere
thinks that is a good look
or even a look good,
and you whistle
and then murmer things about
not sparing the rod
nor spoiling the wife??
Hmmm…the bishop might think one thing
but I am sure the bishop’s wife
(is there even such a thing?)
would be of another mind
entirely.
I guess it’s your way, eh?
Chuckling at what you (think not think)
hear as me clucking, and do you
even realize that a rooster
is a male chicken, strutting
and thinking it made the sun rise?
well…you try to get that rise out of me
because I am that rise in you,
now that much is undeniable waggly truth
now isn’t it?
Have a care, MISTER…cluck away in your
glib wobbly lugubrious laughter.
It just may come to pass that
this belled cat might slip her bell
and rest assured that my hand will not bobble
or wobble, no truth will I cobble
while you willy walk and your
ding dong ringing with that bell.
rooster
the nerve!
oh MY!! Margaret Atwood has indeed nailed it!
“Here is the handful
of shadow I have brought back to you:
this decay, this hope, this mouthful
of dirt, this poetry.”
of shadow I have brought back to you:
this decay, this hope, this mouthful
of dirt, this poetry.”
| — | Margaret Atwood, Mushrooms |
Japan Was Far Away
When I was little I used to lay in bed
and it was like time would surround me,
fall down over me, on me, lay round me
like the blankets, rough and wool
(and scratchy, so I could never get comfortable).
But the problem was, time would not keep out!
No…it seeped thru my pores and wrapped round my bones
with its icy tendrils that could morph and move
like foggy fingers there and not there
(and just like time has always been, uncomfortable).
I got desperate and anguished and panicked
and I thrashed around frantic like a fish
hauled out of the lake and flopping on the deck
with a bitter hook caught at its jaws
(because hungry and wanting comfortable).
But I wasn’t actually moving, not really.
My body was still, frozen, fearful of fury
and the stormy flipping frenzied flailing
was all in my head while shadows laughed
(on walls akimbo and decidedly uncomfortable).
Those shadows all the way from Japan, there on my walls.
Kabuki pallbearers waiting to carry me to the last place
where the hook of time would be pulled at last from my jaw
and I thrown into…what…the larder, or back in the lake
(I feared each one, false friend and never comfortable)?
Finally, blankets scratchy and harsh, holding me down,
conspired with time and its frozen invasive thrusts
and I was filled with the brutal fecund flow washing
over my fertile imagination and there conceived such spawn
(shadows and time and me spawn something very uncomfortable).
Then that thing began to writhe, kick inside me, jaws working
faster and faster until I knew it would gnaw me thin, and then gone.
I knew it was chewing its way to the freedom denied me
and I screamed so fearful that ears could not hear it
(but my doggie did, she was never away from me and comfortable).
I screamed until I passed out, and blood spatter gouts spurted
their baptismal incantations as I gave birth to the only offspring
I could bear, the bastard child of time and shadow and fear,
and awareness left me like the dirty water of my bath draining
(it spiraled down clockwise…that wisdom so uncomfortable).
But I always woke up, as if nothing had happened
and my stomach was flat, unmarked, taut and young.
The sun shown bright and birds sang all round me
and there was nothing on the walls…not even a shadow of shadows
(and Japan was far away, bowing, waiting and comfortable).
Bleeding Light and Memory: On Transgender Remembrance Day
Here is my first poem written regarding this thing called Transgender Remembrance Day. I wrote it last year on this day. It is located here:
Bleeding Light and Memory (Without Images for Structure)
I present it to you again today…and it has grown, shrunk, matured and gained its presence a bit.
In other words I edited it.
Please…read it and let the reality of it hit your heart with the tattoo needle and not the jester’s feather. Please be changed…how can we live if you won’t unbend, unfold and become? I am right there with you Constance, wings straining for every weft of breeze, sails hoisted and praying for that puff divine and transformative…
Love, Charissa
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Bleeding Light and Memory (2014 version)
When light struck my soul I blazed fierce and exultant!
Into awareness, I bled joy so radiant just like the horizon
bleeds sunlight at dawn. I gazed in the gawky glass of exultation
(and I in my youth seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was gaudiloquent and I was so glad and full,
I was so wonder-full.
Til it rained, titters fell tinkling down on heart-tin, then rebukes raging,
lashing at my roof and thrumming and drumming til I saw no more thru that
bright young glass darkly, but dull thru a lonely storm dimly and starkly
and everything eerie and glowing in green, and radioactive remarks so redactive
and careless cerulean comment, alas! I came to know what I was
and was not and I melted misshapen and crippled.
Then came the days long and same and repetitive,
passing by people of 2 kinds that easily pass, they belong
but they never see beyond, they never see inside the rose.
So I plucked throbbing buds, thorn blood price cheap and held them out
from my side of that dark glass wet with stormy tears, washy with rivers
of arrogant vain assumed presence attributing value and worth.
Life ground me down as it moved without mercy, a glacier inexorable
grinding in glances so cold and so frozen, that flow moving over
the dark silent boulders of being…I saw bones strewn round me
like gruesome pick-up sticks, cast-offs from careless hands,
players who tired of children’s games, children’s cruel nicknames,
grown weary they tore out their hearts with bare hands mad with grief
but the world grinding by didn’t care.
Until at last long from those dizzy heights brilliant awareness burst over me,
bleeding in fullness and in terror tinklings, thrumming and cold and that
startling certain blue clarity…I finally remembered who I am, and know
finally what I am, that I am, and my long lament “alas” nevermore uttered!
For I am become me…at last, me…a lass.
That’s me in a nutshell, my story and journey transgender…but what about you?
Will you take time to think and remember? Will you find mercy today?
Will you find the care? Will you go gently with us into our long night,
will you rage, rage with us gentle and bless now the living of the light
that’s straining to dawn bright and final in blazing clear beauty?
You too are dual natured, corrupt and dying and incorrupt rising!
We share one grim struggle, together the dead and together alive
in one deadly bold dual to live. You….are US. and we are you…
but you without arms, without eyes, without mouths
we scream loud and cry for release! We cry out
for the midwives of mercy to meet us and make us
so beautiful for situation at last and delivered of our awful charge.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS FOR US.
See us…and hear us…don’t fear us, don’t fear to see yourself,
come stare down your own stormy floods, sit and listen!
Don’t be afraid to hear us, we’re the voice of the echoes you hear
in your own fearful nightmares of being, oh Daughters of Pharaoh!
Reach down and lift us up out of the reeds and mud! Because of you
a whole nation was freed, and we too are Eve’s sons and the daughters of Adam,
but trapped and acutely aware we are helpless! Too often we’ve fallen
to dread hands and dead eyes of no grace and no mercy
and no compassionate symmetry!
Today…here…
Light strikes in blacksmith blows,
soul sparks chip off and away on this day…
I intention…remember
my own radiant flood
bleeding light and day’s promise,
remember the resonant thunder,
remember the frowning floods
the gushing gouts
and the othering stares
and the brutal don’t cares
of long years I walked
in the country of lost men
and longing despair…
I remember the pangs and the waves and the lurching
of labor as I, pregnant with my own measureless mystery
and full of such knowing began to emerge and break forth
deep-touched forever warded by Grace, and kept safe
from that pit which has tripped far too many and eaten them,
chewed them like Goya’s devourer,
Zeus eating every last child in his madness and horror…
incarnate in this patriarchy that rounds us up
into its abattoir death camps like cattle
and herds us into chutes and charnal house horrors
of slaughter and blood-spattered baptism.
(let their fate haunt you
and give you holy hush
and give you sacred silence).
Dare. Look. Feel.
I will too, and somewhere
we will fight off those demons
compelling and fell
that haunt us and cause us
to rave and destroy…
Then we shall be set free to fly again
all together in one flock of birds
of all feathers and all calls
become One Glad Song!
We will dare to fly off
to the sun and beyond
where our song will bleed joy
and rain down on the earth
to bring healing and hope
home in Love…
forever…
together…
we’ll
Bleed
Radiant
Light.
Okay, Okay…too cryptic by half and a mistake
Okay, Constance…I wrote a poem yesterday called Elegeía Paidikí̱ i̱likía.
I figured you all would just copy the title and go to Google translate and find out what the title meant? And then have the key to interpret the poem. A lil fun before a somber day (today, where over 1500 names will be read, everyone of them the name of a transgender person who has been murdered, committed suicide, or died of inflicted injury)…
…Well, inquiry revealed that Google did not do a good job of translation back to English!
So to remedy that, I will just tell you that the poem is called “Childhood Elegy” or “Elegy to Childhood”.
In Greek it looks like this:
Ελεγεία της παιδικής ηλικίας
Also, as I wrote I flowed with the sounds and syllables of “Coronado”, associating the name with the image that I had and wanted to evoke, that of the fountain of youth.
The fountain of youth was sought of course by Ponce de Leon, not Coronado, who rambled about looking for the lost city Cibola and the 7 cities of Gold…
(which is a post all in itself: Constance, remember when people explored stuff thinking they would actually find spiritual meanings or things that answered deep existential questions? No? Me neither. It has never been thus in my lifetime. Instead, we have sought to explore so we could “know”…and we define “knowing” as deconstructing whatever it is we stumble over, dissecting it, defining it, and never once realizing that we end up chasing life right out of the thing along with wonder…hmm…gotta post on this sometime, and how we do this with people too).
So, there you are, Constance. Title revealed and mistake corrected and Charissa chastened…(not really! giggle)
Remembering What Never Was (Transgender Remembrance Day 2014)
Constance…I got fed up this year…well meaning cis-gendered people who yesterday and today started talking about remembering “all the poor dead transgendered people”…not because I do not think we should! God no! But I got fed up, because since my first one, last year, it seems to me that things have gotten worse and not better in terms of violent assaults, rapes and murders of transgender people.
This poem is my blunt confrontation of that fact, attitude, bent of being. It is me speaking in the voice of the dead.
*** *** *** *** ***
my face was bashed in,
smooth creamy skin
(lasered free of wiry black blunt hair)
only to be turned
purple ugly and pug,
battered blue
and then torn,
just a rug
yanked out from
under my life
and I
falling
desperately
flailing, then
dying there
on the dark brown
hardwood oak floor.
But that’s not good enough
(actually, not bad enough),
right?
There are penalties
for assuming the right to be,
for breathing while transgender…
so you grabbed that
red rusty fire extinguisher
from the dull chrome bracket
over my old pale green and white
deluxe Glenwood gas stove
(the one I used when
I made your favorite
red gravy and mushrooms
over pasta with cheese
and you smiled and said
I was a good woman,
but that was before
you ate your fill
and got bored).
and then you broke
my face against it,
pulped my nose and
broke my dead jaws
as you jammed the blunt end
down my slack throat
and I already
dead and already
flown away
but that’s not good enough
(actually, not bad enough),
right?
To let a transgirl
have a face
in her transgressive act
of saying I Am, well,
as the Dude says
(regal in all his privileged glory)
“This aggression will not stand, man!”
cus me, well
I am aggressive,
I am transgressive,
I dared to live,
I dared to cry
I dared to feel and
I dared to fly
I dared…
and died.
my face…bashed
my body…slashed
torn, stabbed and then
raped to make sure
I never rise from the grave,
my flesh thrown in the dumpster
with the rest of the trash
dead or alive,
and then set on fire.
Hey,
I don’t want you to worry though!
Because everything is AOK,
because Remembrance Day…
because remembrance day,
but how do you re-member me
after I am chopped to pieces
for the heresy of seeking
integration?
My name,
recited solemnly,
a legerdemain of modern time and place
masquerading as elegy and tribute to
trans-trouble, torches smoking,
choking and dead.
This mummery murmers
name by name
to appease the lurking beast inside
(such civilized animals)
and I see sage cis-heads
nod slow and I think
of bobble-heads bought
with gender currency and guilt,
bought with blood money
from gory grisly gruesome chests
passed down father to son
since Cain.
Tomorrow,
you’ll breathe deep,
sigh and toss salt
over your left shoulder
while forking off the evil eye
with your left hand
stabbing like a striking snake
against trans-mystery and tragedy.
And then you will fix your gaze
high on horizons, not even
glancing in gutters where we lay,
still and bleeding in our becoming
and desperate to re-member,
every day, especially those
days where you just
want to forget.
Ελεγεία της παιδικής ηλικίας
when did it happen,
that twizzle dazzle
Rochambeau during which
you twinkled and tap-danced
from our wordy
hot tub merry
and full of laughing waters
to the river swift,
grey and roiling
thru the locks
and around the island
on the way
to the stormy seas
so vast and voiceless?
you used to
babble like brooks
and I used to
bathe in that
Ponce de Leon flow
eternal and new
(did you not know this?)
and drink of the wine everlasting,
drink of the young perfect you…
today I was down there,
at that creekbed
and it was just
full of dead leaves
that were dank
in stagnant pools
and crackly disappearing
whisps where that
bed was bone dry
and empty of water
and of music
and of laughter.
i miss you so bad…
so bad.
and in these times
it’s impossible
to keep hope alive
without a sop
to my thirst for you
and your fresh vibrant
open and happy face.
Turtle Tales at 6:43 AM
it’s your shell that lets you wander where I live
(in the red sands and blue rocks,
on the edges of the green and grey sea)
you aren’t slow…you are sure
careful, and once finding (SNAP)
never letting go
your shell is the map you read (from inside)
and that is how you made your way (in edges)
to the treasure long forgotten and buried deep (in secret)
to you it is right there! (right freaking there, Martha!)
plain sight. but bringing it back? HAH! (climb on, Mary!)
it’s up to the treasure to climb aboard (Charissa, skootch over!)
(um, NO! good luck getting my seat, everyone else! grr!)
you will tell stories, turtle tales heard by patient ears
wise and ancient, but fresh and innocent
and simply not capable of dropping
them you love
cus we live in you (you let us!)
inside that shell, ponderous to others,
so comforting to us, to me (especially to me)
inside that shell, so small and hard
outside, dull and disguised
but inside the hall of gods limitless!
I’ll run, sprint even, til I am tuckered
and tongue trailing my trilling song.
but always I will ride, ride in the rest
of you.
love forever, your special needs catagory, Charissa
My Leather Journal Sailing
the leather journal, and the part about pretending…
that is really quite a haunting lil ghost to us, isn’t it?
Pretense. And those voices, mocking, whispering constant
“are you who you think you are?”
“is you or is you not Her Baby?”
and then I turn from them with listening ears
and turn to them with deaf ears unassailable
and lift instead all my chickenscratching,
my poetic hardscrabblings in the dirt so meager
and occasionally alive…occasionally.
and with effort I take my special pen and lift it
and hold it tight against my cheek and shut my eyes
and wish upon that Star above that twinkles there, unfailing
and feel around inside for me in panic, my heart flailing
to touch the metaphor and meaning in the glowing core of being.
yes, and then I write it down, and truly wonder!
I wonder why it seems that no one knows how beautiful,
how lovely the pulse ordinary of all things, so constant
so miraculous and ever all surpassing,
far exceeding even Marilyn, Raquel and Sweet Sophia,
and singing sweetly more sweetly than every lark on every wind!
I wonder why it seems that no one knows that just a glance
from the gimlet glittery eye of that Poetic Siren
crooning there upon Her Island will utterly destroy you
if you sail a bit too near unless your limbs are chained unmoving
and your yearning heart is thirsty and so hungry for a crumb
just one Crumb of Her Bread Living, Her Bread Living…
But my scrawls chart the clever currents there, to glide securely
and map the words to lead me safely home forever
chained in that leather journal, my boat “The Plain Poetic”
its pages poised to catch Her singing winds and Her Bright Courage
to catch my breath, and then set sail again…at last undaunted.
Rivers Breathed and Mercy Streaming (For DDH…and For Massi)
hi.
wanna know how you are,
cus who you are,
ya know?
oh.
me? well, I been well
but still and always how I am
cus who I am.
you know.
sometimes I think how you flutter inside
your heart and your breath there, racing the moon
around the night sky ablaze in fiery contest
between her jewels and her sable coat
sometimes I get a glimpse of that goblet
there on your nightstand
after you’ve been in your cups
and I ken the vintage and varietal
cus you do drain what is opened to you
(a bit too much, darling, a bit too earnest and compelled)
and when it is joyous red I sip too and laugh in your rest
but when it is dull brown and rust and no diamonds
well, then I sit beside you as you sleep, those miles away
and you there still torn open and seeping your value priceless
and that goblet stinky, forceful, insisting on being drained
but only sipped from and then denied unbearable…but present still lurking.
sigh.
you toss, and then I see your shuttered eyes glimmer
and then your loss leaks, wells up and thru limpid lids
squeezed tightly against remembering ever but driven and compelled
by memory’s tortured brew…alas, that goblet…and you
I snatch up that cup (this cup is passed to me, dear)
and to my tender lips I raise it up and press it hard against them
(ah, it burns so hot, it aches so frozen and immobile)
and down I drink the bitter draughts so tragic for you, so tragic in you…
but inside me they find a resting place
to be changed and sweetened, then expelled
out thru my eyes so tender and so kind
and filled with teary balm of sorrows healed
I catch them, the tears, one by one, in that rank glass
that goblet graveolent and grim, musty and mephitic
and loathsome in its unwashed remembers and never can forgets
and while you sleep my tears work a washing wonder
and then the cup do I return and place beside your bed
and just in time, for whimpering you thrash about and grope
wanting to forget, needing to remember, your heart stuck in December
another drink to drug you, goad your hurt and to falsely sustain you
but to your lips my tears transformed within the cup
into a sleepy healing vintage of AD 33
and hale and healthy once again
my tears…my heart…
and your eyes flutter in relief,
and your chest heaves, and sighs
and fall at long last do you from that cliff
and into Her soft stark healing embrace
and as I look, I see your face grow placid
peace in rivers breathed and mercy streaming
and then you rest and restoration reaching
to touch your troubled brow and make you whole again.
so.
you got broke, yes? torn.
cus that’s just how this world…yeah.
you know.
love.
just one heart torn willingly and glad
cus that’s just Love and constant
ya know?
sleep now, you will awake, and breath so lightly
and know that all is Love Redeemed and Lifted,
scars are left as medals, evil works are sifted
and what remains becomes
the makings of many poems
of Life Divinely Gifted.
Only 500?
Constance…I am going to beg you. For real.
I am on my knees right now…literally I have the laptop on the floor in front of me so I can kneel as I type:
Would you please, for real, click on this play button and listen to Archie Fisher sing his song “River Like You”?
I think he is the greatest living folk singer. Period.
Oh no…not the purest voice, not the most fantastical poetic lyrics (Van Morrison has that corner well occupied lol), not the greatest guitar playing. No…it is nothing like that with Archie Fisher. It’s deeper, ineffable…let me tell you a story…
A few years back, I was working on the Pacific Coast in a very historic town, and I saw a poster appear in the window of a small record shop there which probably sold more “medicinal herb” than it did records! But the poster…it advertised that a man named Archie Fisher was going to come and play a concert and tickets were like $12…well I was mildly interested, as I was separated during the week from my darling and the kids, so I was always searching for something to fill the void in my life left by their absence in body.
I read the poster bemusedly, and then ran across this quote: “Archie Fisher is the greatest folk singer of our time. If I heard he was playing any venue anywhere within 500 miles of me, I would go hear him and figure the rest out later.” Now Constance…I am somewhat of a folk music aficionado, and I love this form of music far more than any other, finding it deeper and more connected to our humanity than any other music (which, by the way, has its own excellencies and sublimity)…and having cut my teeth on the more esoteric ravings of Van Morrison and from there quickly diving in to Celtic Folk music and the seedbed from which Van sprang, well let’s just say that 1500 or so recordings later, I am very familiar with folk music…and yet somehow this Archie Fisher had escaped my notice!! Grrr…the nerve of him! lol
Anyway, I was skeptical but as I had nothing else to do, I bought a ticket, showed up, only to see a man who looked exactly like he does in this video…in fact, he was wearing the exact same shirt, for real! He sat down in a chair, and tuned his guitar (not very well, actually)…and when it was “close enough”, he took off picking it and on its surface, it sounded like a million other songs…but something was different…
Only God knows what, and why…but I began to weep, literally, within about 5 seconds of his beginning, and he rendered magic there before me as he sang “Borderlands”.
I bawled thru the entire first set, barely recovered at intermission, and then cried even harder during the last set, having to excuse myself a couple of times to go outside where I could sob audibly. Constance, I thought I was going to die. It was so beautiful that it killed me somehow, while simultaneously resurrecting me only to slay me again. I wanted to die on the spot so the moment would never be diminished by the passage of time…I wanted to live forever so I could laud and pay tribute to this lightening rod of meaning and wonder released thru melody and music.
The song that I am posting here is the one that broke me open once and for all…it describes for me my darling, who she is to me…
…but lately, it also is so apropos in describing the one known as ddh. In ddh’s realm, this is descriptive of my gratefulness and wonder and joy at having a friend…like one closer than a relative! One who shares my joys and sorrows, and I share alike those same things…
I post this in honor of my baby of course…but the fresh application, and the one for which I bring it to Grace Notes and to you, is in honor of the ddh…and on that day at 643 I will be hearing this song in my heart and sitting in wonder at a river there, and always different and always there and always different.
Happy Birthday, and wow did They ever outdo Themselves when They thought of you.
As far as that quote, on the poster? About Archie Fisher? Well, now I sniff in disdain, and raise my chin and ask archly
“Only 500?”
And yet again…
…how is it that we even stand apart then to observe this?
“When we try to pick out
anything by itself
we find that it is bound fast
by a thousand invisible cords
that cannot be broken,
to everything in the universe.”
John Muir
It isn’t that this is not true…it is that in the middle of this truth, we at times find ourselves utterly isolated and alone, even while connected.
Why is that?
Discuss
Messages Off a Cigarette -XV-
Hey…You…you are doing this for me. TY
❤
Happy Birthday Dearest Darling
to write a poem for you
is to make one snowflake out
to be an avalanche.
there is beauty in the snowflake,
unsurpassed, unique, breathtaking.
that flake comes from no where,
appears, and returns
to where it came
without leaving a trace,
except in me
tattooed by glory…
except in my heart,
where i am cut forever
by that shape exquisite,
where i am cooled always
in the stark clarifying
fiercely cheerful clear cold,
where my heart makes
that perfect simulacrum of that
impossibly beautiful flake
over and over again
with the dripping blood
welling from my heart
cut by you, that cut, that flake.
an avalanche
began that day,
that day the light
danced up my battlements
and captured my eyes
forever in your dazzle,
an avalanche of
one flake persistent,
one flake present
in deserts and monsoons
and fierce fires
of the coldest frozen sorrow.
you,
my ever-fire,
my ever-ice,
soothing and searing,
and impossibly yourself
i love you
more than all my tears
multiplied by all the tears
of every person
multiplied by the distance
east is from west
and added to itself again.
i love you
more than every laugh
that’s tumbled gleeful
from my lips, and
i love you
more than every piercing longing,
poignant and unspeakable
if you hadn’t come
i would be there hanging, high
on the side of the mountain
stark and slate
in morning light.
i would be that
field of billions
of unique flakes settled
all the same and piled
into meaningless multiplied
unified snowy sameness,
still and without motion.
but you did.
come.
and that has
made my world
alive.
love forever,
and i mean forever
Charissa Grace,
your undying heart devoted
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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