Drawing is leaning
against a pencil
until it talks.
Composing a poem is leaning
against a word
until…
it draws?
makes a picture?
until it is not
until it vanishes
and the scene
or thought, or the love
is there…is…and
the word is not
Category Archives: Poetry
When Comes the Done
I’m impatient!
I want The Done!
Yeah, yeah, bread must bake,
after yeast casts its spells magic,
after grain finds glory in the grind,
after the scintillating silver scythe slices,
after the struggling stalks stick out of tight earth,
after the silent seed settles in furrows,
after the rough plough rips,
after the vision.
True becomings rise
from granted goings,
so I sit, wait, and ask
that Grace keep flowing
Fragrant on the wind
In the field,
damp with dawn’s ablutions
in lakes, and mists
the wheat waves,
sways, whiles away
the time passing,
time dancing,
time light and lilting,
time ponderous and paunchy…
always the time…
And always the wheat,
ever returning to die
and rise again
and die and rise
undefeated and always
dancing its tango
with time.
And the moon watches,
and glows with delight
from dances of her own
in the bright and starry night.
She has been filled
and emptied
and filled again
these eons,
these mere minutes,
these seasons…
And always
she delights in sparking
wheat to rise,
tides to turn,
and the sun
to take heart
and shine again.
Into the field,
for the first time
in this river, this grind,
a graceful clear bright chime
blooms fertile,
lush life flourishing
midst flowy flux
and flowers poke,
they peer,
they peep out,
and then more boldly
they bloom and blossom.
At long last
the wheat connects and
the moon embraces and
the Promised Final End and Graces
of All Journeys wafts fragrant
on the wind.
Being Us Two
So it be
between
us two
a giving
be our taking
a making
our unmaking
a doing
what we undo
What I Want To Say
It’s as simple as it can be.
I’ll leave the clothes off my words
and address you nakedly as anyone can
each one was perfect–
that is what I want to say–
perfect
the perfection found
only in Loving.
Do you understand?
It seems against everything we know and
It seems against everything we believe and
It is true.
To say “I love you” is a humiliation
It is the Absolute Narrowing of Possibilities
And everyone, down to
the last person
Dreads it…and wants it…
For only in narrowing is found
Endless Widening Freedom
River (1982)
(This will be the last of several posts of old old OLD poems!! I marvel at the changes, the reductions and growths, the increases and diminishments, and always that distant empty place in the poems that is no longer there in what I write…sooo strange to me, these words so familiar and yet as if written by a stranger. And so I was…a stranger.)
the river in its abundance
all about us, as we stood
on a warm rock to wash
slowly
smoothing with long
sliding strokes
our soapy hands along each other’s
slippery cool bodies
quiet and slow in the midst of
the quick of the
sounding river
Our hands were flames
stealing upon quickened flesh until
no part of us
but was
sleek and
on fire
Notes on the Third Year (1984)
(note: this poem is the genesis poem of a previously posted poem
My what a vast and measureless way we have traveled…and still here, in the present, and in our love!)
I have considered writing you
anonymous love letters,
fearing that my voice has grown
so familiar you will no longer hear it;
fearing that I talk too much
or that you listen with one ear (how silly of me!),
fearing that when I sing my best
there is no sound in the air;
fearing that you consider me the world’s
most accomplished maker of amazing,
silent, useless faces…
Three years in the making–Dear Collaborator!
This should be a love story!
Yes, it is.
It really is.
Haiku #9 (1981)
face in quiet night
softly holds the fire glow
in her smoky eyes
catching her portrait
in gold-glist’ning harvest moon
her very essence
she smiles quietly
lovely effortlessly free
laughing in the night
The Simplicity (1981)
I hide behind the simple things
(not the easy) so you’ll find me;
If you don’t find me, you’ll find the things.
You’ll touch what my hand has touched,
our hand prints will merge…
the august moon glitters
in the kitchen
like a tin-plated pot
(it does this because of what I’m saying to you)
it lights up the empty house
and the house’s kneeling silence,
always the silence remains kneeling.
Every Word is a doorway
to a meeting–one oft cancelled–
and that’s when a word is true:
when it insists on the meeting.
Rhythm (1981)
In bed, half asleep
I listen to you moving
“to and fro” around.
Hardly Poetic
Hardly the Grace of gesture
(or is it the gesture of grace?)
Still,
they are rhythms, and yours.
Clean, efficient, with a style
I’ve come to recognize
They Move Me More Than The Sound of Many Poems.
Lesson (1979)
One thing I have learned…
to be content
with the
size
of truth
Dreams of Resurrection
dreams are like roses,
giving up treasure
in intricate fragrant
delicate layers.
A Heart’s True Home
Composed and circumspect she walks
twixt times, twixt places and spaces,
inside, outside, hither and yon thru low valleys
and casual embraces.
Grey skies snug down and nestle around
her quiet composed aching soul,
for they noticed her sighs and longings for someone
to come and complete and make whole.
Hugged by the sands and kept in the crook
of the far horizon’s safe arms,
Her treasure lays there…in the shimmery air
just before, just beyond bitter harm.
So the snuggly grey clouds settle velvety soft
and kiss gently on her longing cheek,
and then gracefully lift having blessed the sad rift
with gifts greater than all tongues could speak.
Worlds, realms, and tangled realities torn
are the territories she roams.
And just maybe…glad someday…she finds her desire,
and at last her heart finds her True Home.
Until that far day she will welcome the Grey
and its precious and bright silver lining,
She walks glad and in Beauty set free of dull duty
and free from her long lonely pining.
What I Like
I like good books
under a snuggly blanket
while the rain scritches
at the gutters and windows.
I like preparing fresh food
chop by pile, and then
going to heaven on the aromas
and dance as they come together
into a dish of delicious love.
I like singing
on my bike
while I ride
through the mountains
as trees sway
and rivers prance
and wind roars
in my heart
while the hawk
glides above all.
I like writing,
and writing poetry
especially.
I like talking with people
about their hearts.
I like saying that
just right word
of kind encouragement,
and then seeing someone
do the impossible.
I like studying out new insights.
I like spending time
with Mama and
feeling Her love for me
where once I felt
only lonely shame.
I like Jesus
and His funny jokes
and sometimes capering ways.
And that He cries.
I like romance movies
where it all ends like it’s supposed to
but surprises me anyway.
I like teaching people
about wine, and watching them
wake up to a
whole new world.
I like hearing my kids
tell their thoughts and
being taught by
their fresh perspective.
I like making music
and listening to music.
I like having
a whole bunch of people over
and making a huge feast for them,
insisting they be free
to take joy in the food and drink
and fellowship.
I like being kind
and being a blessing.
I like driving
in the flow.
I like shopping
all day
with my oldest daughter
and then getting great food
and chattering together about
our awesome bargains
and red hot new look!
I like being with my baby,
me small and safe
in her loving arms
while we
talk the blackness
away.
Many Paths and Peace
Deep, in a tangled wood, damp,
sodden in velvet dew and drenched, perfumed
with cedar, with pine, with fir
and oak.
I have hunkered down here,
comfortable and peering out,
into the distant and clear cultivated field
with its timorous tractors trailing
droning beetle-like scrabbing and scritching
thru metal lined throats.
Deeper in, one can get caught,
snared and snagged in the brackish brambles.
They clutch with needle-lined palms and
infect with greedy lassitude and
seduce you to stay, and become
part of the ever-tangle.
But here, in the copse on the edge,
I am free to nudge a bit deeper
into the tangle when I am low and tremulous, and
free to step out to the clearing and
wave my red-cape soul at that android bull
and holler out…
I love to linger here,
wrapped in my blanket and
huddled down with simple things.
Crunchy yeasty baton of pungent
bread broken, and chunks of Dunbarton Blue
growling explosive bass lines of
musky-meaty-briny-cream intertwining
the tangled wood’s sweat in the heat of the sun, and
simple thick garlic sausage, hard and chewy
and satisfying.
Day passes, and I sip strong dark roasted coffee soused with cream
and peaty scotch, and let its tides stir me, calm me, open me…
And I hear the throaty gurgle of the deep tangle calling,
and I hear the scuttling hurly-burly stylings of distant throngs…
and the birds, surfing that in-between gulf, smudging that line,
that threshold with magic singing seamlessly weaving
a spell of sound, of longing, of contentment…and wistful peace.
And I wonder at what I hear.
I wonder how long the oaks have sat,
humming oaky thoughts that transcend
the transient Kingdom of human history?
I wonder if the Oaks sang the vines awake,
or did the Vines, pregnant with fecund waking
sap and summer, thrust up and reach with their
familiar and low-rhythmic song to wake oaks and
taunt the tangle with merry fingers waggling
and grateful and greedy and hungry
and content?
Later, in the early soft gloaming I rise from my
den of antiquity and ancient comforts.
The tangle, the clearing, the fields and fowls
… and the vines…
have pierced me, are in me,
have made me one of them now,
one with them, and I amble home
full of many paths and peace.
I am shaking
Constance, I am sitting, stunned!
I have been editing Spitting Bones and I am trembling at the emotions it has evoked within me.
Waves of tears well up from my gut, and overflow in fear, and then in anger…
and then finally tears that turn to tears of joy.
I do not really know where this poem came from. I awoke on Sunday morning with that phrase
…spitting bones…
ringing in my ears and I was all discombobulated, but I knew it was a phrase of power and portent and would grow into a poem.
I think this poem will unfold itself to me for a long season. For now, it shimmers as something hard-won and safe,
but glitters as something glinty-eyed and still not tame!
What the heck is going on with this one, Constance? I like it…I fear it…I treasure it.
Spitting Bones
I remember the bones…smooth
with the thick patina of reverence and religion.
Pushed thru the bars of my crib, one by one,
proffered by priests and priestesses
frantic in the grip of their god.
Their god of two faces, only two…
and bones, always endless bones.
I cried fearful and turned away from
the face their god thrust into mine,
wrathful and hungry to eat me,
and spit me out as bones.
I remember the birth of days, endless continuum
of spitting bones (they fed) forced into my heart
by fingers of dread and violation.
Their food was wormwood, was fungal,
was necrotic and charnel charcuterie,
it was bones thrown, divining that
never-never-land, that future of failure
and folly-laced affliction offered
as communion that roundabout me
all partook of, eating the body and drinking the blood
of a god breaking them all for itself!
Wretch that I was, east of Eden and hungry,
alone and spitting bones.
But the days when my cradle concealed
only an ash heap desolate and bleak in the wind,
and the nights where my bars branded themselves
into my soul to make me their always-prisoner,
began to be cracked by winds, by tremors, by thunders
and by storms, always storms railing,
leaving me soaked to my bones
and raw from my bars,
but slick and wet, ready for birth.
And even as I had spit the bones of that god
bitter from my velvet mouth, I reached,
and gripped hard, and wrenched in desperate anguish
until at last those sharp teeth
(that hungry god’s unwisdom teeth)…
those brands burnt sizzling into my heart tore loose!
Bloody and gore spattered, glistening
with dread power draining, diminishing.
I welled up my outrage, my despair,
my affliction and conjured from them
alchemal ancient power and found my niche,
found my mission spitting bones!
And now?
I sit on downy green mounds,
on high hills become mountains!
I forage in fields of gold, omnivore
and gleaning food from gods forgotten,
gods ignored, from Grace Herself
Who is bounty and variegated victory!
And I eat, freely, with no fear or terror
of the old god who died and cannot rise again!
I draw strength from the meat of complicated cuts
that must be cured and marinated and braised off
until they loose their grip on gore and their poison is annulled.
For all my days, I will be one who can consume all things
and grow to grace others and thrive,
eating the food… and spitting bones.
My Heart of Hearts
The dawn, peach fuzz on this dripping peachy day,
smelled like juice dribbling down my chin,
and musky yellow perfume.
Your earrings flashed in the sunbeam sneaking thru the blinds
Your eyes flashed, lamplights of love sneaking thru my blind
and gleaming like that cat Cheshire.
I intended to rip my heart from my chest
but it came free eager in my hand
which was covered by yours (I had not noticed that happen)
Fell from me like that peach
with groaning, heavy relief and ache
into your waiting basket (I was the only one there)
You carried me to bed, and there we sectioned our fruit
and fed each other with fingers, slick and sticky
and smelling of the peachy summer day
And we drowsed, and woke to find our hearts grown again,
except mine was now you, and yours was now me
Oh my Heart of Hearts, My Heart of Hearts.
My Heart of Hearts (sans images)
The dawn, peach fuzz on this dripping peachy day,
smelled like juice dribbling down my chin,
and musky yellow perfume.
Your earrings flashed in the sunbeam sneaking thru the blinds
Your eyes flashed, lamplights of love sneaking thru my blind
and gleaming like that cat Cheshire.
I intended to rip my heart from my chest
but it came free eager in my hand
which was covered by yours (I had not noticed that happen)
Fell from me like that peach
with groaning, heavy relief and ache
into your waiting basket (I was the only one there)
You carried me to bed, and there we sectioned our fruit
and fed each other with fingers, slick and sticky
and smelling of the peachy summer day
And we drowsed, and woke to find our hearts grown again,
except mine was now you, and yours was now me
Oh my Heart of Hearts, My Heart of Hearts.
Comments on Creation’s Communion
I rarely take the trouble to interpret my poems for you, Constance…I think it is part of your own pleasure as a reader to dig in and chew, or to imbibe deep and feel the intoxicating buzz later when it enters your blood and sings its song there…dare I even insinuate it is also your responsibility as a poetry lover to allow it to disturb you, or trouble you, or even flummox you until you suss it out?
My poems are hidden inside themselves very frequently. They are one thing on one level, multitudinous other things on other levels, they are always the same unless one word is read with different meaning and all is transformed…
…hey I am a transgirl, so is it any wonder that my poems are like me, someone hidden inside something? Giggles!
Anyway, I want to provide a bit of background to a few things: First of all, I want to tell you what happened after I birthed the poem, and began to go back to clean up my baby, dry off the afterbirth, feed and nurture it to vitality. I immediately began to adjust the women-seasons metaphor. Everyone knows that Spring is the gay and skipping girl, flouncing boldly into Old Lady Winter’s mouldery austere house, throwing up the windows and letting the stale and leaden air out!
Right? WRONG!!!!
The poem did not give that contented groan (like my doggie when I scratched her secret spot) as I attempted to edit! No…it went Dustin Hoffman under Laurence Olivier’s drill in Marathon Man! Screamed in horror, fear, and outrage, it did!! So…I went with it, and actually I love the way it turns the expected and familiar on its head, and it challenges our ideas that each season is representative of a different stage of a woman’s growth (for to me, the seasons have always been feminine)…it poses the notion that each season has a complete cycle within itself, and in its usurpation of the fading queen, it dooms itself to the same overthrow! That clash thus takes on a fascinating depth and the iterations of metaphor grow in multiplicity.
Secondly, the word haint is an old slang word for haunt found generally in southern and rural locations. Consider the variety of meanings layered in haunt, and understand that application of haint. It is also a funny contraction of “have not” and/or “has not” together with “ain’t”…haint. So ponder the reference to places as that contraction, and the elevator begins to move rapidly in its own directions thru the poem. Lastly, haint eventually took on the connotations of a scary-mean woman, or an evil bitch…and thus the poem circles around on itself (even as the seasons chase each other endlessly in a game of Tag) and references the women mentioned in the first stanza, and the whole understanding of who is the biddy and who is the bouncy flouncy Queen B gets tripped topsy turvy. It plays back in to that cycle of usurpation.
When people see me, they “see” me…and then if they spend any time with me with open heart, they SEE me…that is how my poems are.
I invite you to reconsider this poem with these clues…perhaps it will help with this one. I quite like it, but only time will tell us if it an unruly towhead that gains dignity, gravity and gusto as it grows…or if it is a juvenile delinquent that is hellbent to be the lovechild of Meatloaf and AC DC!!
Blessings, Charissa
and High Mountains.
Always High Mountains beckon me…
years of riding their stringent intractable slopes,
dizzying switchbacks,
and punishingly friendly gradients….oh High Mountains!
Sweat and tears my offerings,
and fitness and expiation
the blessings They bestowed upon me.
How I long to share with you these feasts,
deep and austere
On this Golden Gravid Spring Day
Creation’s Communion (without images, for flow visually as a poem)
and High Mountains.
Always High Mountains beckon me…
years of riding their stringent intractable slopes,
dizzying switchbacks,
and punishingly friendly gradients….oh High Mountains!
Sweat and tears my offerings,
and fitness and expiation
the blessings They bestowed upon me.
How I long to share with you these feasts,
deep and austere
On this Golden Gravid Spring Day
Creation’s Communion
Today…somewhat grey, overcast
strewn with intense undercurrents of lurking blue…
the panties of summer hidden under
prim and proper petticoats of spring,
the Old Biddy!!
Spates of lacey rain which pretend to be huffy tuffy winter rain,
but her joy and laughter caresses as drops light onto vines,
and perfume the earth deliciously.
Smells of loamy soil and green gritty saps running,
and flowers broadcasting fiercely and fragrant!
Birds serenade along, as earth and sky, lovers always,
vie and embrace, and join,
and then retreat to their corners of creation between rounds…
lovers rounds, music rounds…and sounds.
My heart walks, LEAPS into favorite territories, and haints…
moors and hills and lanes…
forest tangles and rows…
moors and hills and lanes…
forest tangles and rows…
and High Mountains.
Always High Mountains beckon me…
years of riding their stringent intractable slopes,
dizzying switchbacks,
and punishingly friendly gradients….oh High Mountains!
Sweat and tears my offerings,
and fitness and expiation
the blessings They bestowed upon me.
How I long to share with you these feasts,
deep and austere
On this Golden Gravid Spring Day
On Notice!
Let the powers know
that I am being found,
am finding myself
and I am glad, and scared,
and soaring to depths, heights
hawking my way
through chasms and
slamming into depths and crevasses and
then piercing velvet dark
frosty air, rising, rising,
an eagle golden and free.
Let the Tetrarch know
that I will step forward
in grace and upon grace
a wounded-healer to be.
And let the Prideful Patrons and
Practitioneers of Patriarchy
be put on notice:
If the sword of the healing-wounder
should ever bless my grasp
with its blue-bejewelled hilt and
silver redemptive sharp blade,
I will wield it with
remorseless pity, and soft relentlessness!
I will the rivers and seas follow,
to overcome by giving way.
And let the humble hear,
let the lost perk up to the echoes
of turtledoves and
the heralds of hummingbirds
and the buzzing of many drowzy
busy bees that Mama has
opened Her hives, and
honey pours once again
to all those
famished and forlorn.
Harvest Dream
Last night we had a rain storm
to beat the band…wind blowing hard,
rainy fat little lakes of water
hurtling along and surfing the windy currents.
The air was wild and electric, fresh.
We left the bar and walked.
We were stirred up and feeling wild.
She was practically vibrating
with desire and pent up energy,
and wanting to be wild,
so I drove us to the vineyard
…late…
and among the groaning
vines fat with fruit
we took off our shoes and clothes
and let the weather drench us
with its furious grip!
The grass was tall between the rows,
the dirt sodden around the vines,
and there we ran,
and tackled each other,
completely stark naked!!
Down to the earth we fell,
again and again,
rolling and kissing…
and everything.
Later, we sprinted to the winery,
and rummaged for extra clothes, towels,
and a coffee maker and fridge in the crush.
We dried each other off and
put on some warm clothes
and then let our others dry
while we had coffee,
and then beer.
The space heater toasted us up,
until we were warm enough
to go to the cellar…
in the ground, in her womb,
the smell of yeast pungent
like the smell of us.
I grabbed a couple bottles
and a wine key (to heaven),
she carried lots of blankets and candles.
We went to the deepest quietest place,
back in the corner and had…
Communion…
I the bread and she the wine.
If I am dreaming,
never wake me,
for it is bliss.
When Rain Runs Backwards
How can I find draught
when rain runs backwards,
rivers reverse and earth swallows up all…
waters, grains and grits?
In a topsy-turbulant epoch,
chained to hate and fear
I grow parched, thin
and desperate for drink.
Mama stands tall,
open and frank and
waiting for me.
But courage fails,
fears follow and
dog me knackered
And so I thirst, I thirst…
until driven I
fly to Her face,
and flit low to
Her Gentle Power
and there I drink
till I am sated and renewed…
and fly fly fly
safe…whew!
It is only then
that I realize that
She drank from me as I from Her,
and my fear,
my pain and sorrow
has been drained and I am
full of the freedom of never-more!
Infection Crucinfection (Easter 1980)
{I have been contemplative over the difference of this Easter compared to any other one in my entire life. It has me looking back, at old poems, old journals, etc. Thus the spate of poems 3 decades old.
I have changed a lot, and I think that is good. I think my poems are better now, too…Terraces, right??
This poem was the first poem about Easter for me.}
He sat in the straw
mute as a rock
crudely undone.
Ranker than swine
coarse to our nails
we swung to our job.
Infected with Truth
He hung in the dust
Drenched to His Skin,
Bleached to His Bones.
Then He went
all the way
coming to
common terms
with loss as
Blind as Wind.
Challenge (Spring, 1980)
Don’t be afraid to plead–
Be proud to be outrageous so long as
you have regard for “un-with-it” truth.
Say things that are, and are not the same.
Accidental or intentional, internal or external,
or both, it does not in the least represent sloth.
All of us feel losses. And we–we were not robbed
of the pastoral dream of youth–
just the pastoral dream of maturity.
To write in mockery of the system is the ultimate
Slavery to the system, of all things.
To say “I Love You” to language, especially now,
in its decayed condition–
to tickle the ear with musical savvy–
to say that human integrity can walk
hand in hand with responsibility…
It’s a challenge to chaos
Hurled!
Why use language?
Why simply to save the Word.
I’ll say it forever, damn it!
Life in a harsh world IS worthwhile!
Veils and Terraces
I put up veils that day…in the midst of the screaming panicked anger.
In the grip of vile and hateful words (they hit me like icicles and melted).
I put up veils, to cover landslide avalanches words started inside me.
I was small, 6. I was alone, now, lost amidst the melting mountain of self
that cascades like Mississippis of mud, of dirt, of noisy horror and
buzzard squawks in my fevered mind.
On that precipice I teetered, feeling the depths draw and mock me
feeling the pressure of the wind and heat from adults lashing and railing
(in the name of love).
I fled dimly, frenzy-fueled and fearful (forever, I thought)
and hastily found in the lonely nothing my shame, my self-loathing
and my razor thoughts, and wove veils.
Concealing the rift, the chasm. Covering the evidence
that I was a monster, deviant, and worse…
covering the life of pretense…
Imagine my shock, these days, as veils are torn asunder by laughter
as coverings are ripped away by joyous contentment, revealing
where there were only chasms, there are now terraces!
I am far larger than I ever was, and veiled only in terraces.
Today
Today
You moved in golden light.
Your actions studied
but effortless.
Ballerina,
your feet make
perfect shapes
in the air!
Landscapes
Tell me landscapes are frames of mind.
I believe words have meaning!
No gift will do…tell me what this means
to you…
I’ll come at summer’s end,
Your spirit’s sky, the highlands of your
Bearing, your heart’s Blue Night
Here, the rainbow above winter is your
Banner, your face a masterpiece
a landscape
Tell me landscapes…
I believe words…
No gift…
Tell me…
Thank You in the Pain (December, 1979)
O Boundless One, in Whom Wisdom doth dwell
You calmly exercise Your purging blade.
One cut, and I scream Cease! This pain is hell,
But You heed not this reckless renegade.
Strife finds the wounded sparrow of my soul,
and stalks it without quarter through the heat,
in dark-fire trials of purgation patrol
strife captures its cut quarry in deceit.
And then You demand thanks in all the hurt!
With that command my sparrow falls from flight!
Yet only in its fall am I alert
to the reasons for praising Your foresight.
Thank You for the pain’s sweet overthrow,
a sparrow cannot fall and you not know.
Sunset Saturday before Easter
Just in case…
Poem by Sappho that staggers me
Words
Although they are
only breath, words
which I command
are immortal
Sappho
tr. Barnard
Sappho
Rise, Shine, For Your Light Has Come
Through soft velvet clouds
Glistening tendrils of light
Quicken drowsy hearts.
Gifts you give yourself
Forgiveness, towery and meritorius
when viewed from the lowly valleys and dales
of hard hurt and wounded ways
stands, stentorian and stark and stately.
To approach such lofty heights from there
seems tough, seems stubbornly sacrificial,
and requires a great provisioning
of the heart’s overflow into Mercy’s Rivers.
Acceptance twins from the next ridge over,
and it seems to wounded eyes
that these noble and lofty houses
aspire to heaven,
aspire to grandiose airy grounds
to weed out the weak-willed and shuffling supplicants,
the plodding and pitiful pilgrims
who failed to fully count the cost.
And yet if one but persists and never lets go
their grip on the Garment’s Hem
they will themselves be drawn up and sunder,
like doves mounting up in the velvet dawn
And discover comely cottage, cozy cabin,
home at last and free,
And finally receiving
the gifts you give yourself.
A choice, not a curse
In the moonlight,
gloaming up from earth
with great soft wings,
Insight, understanding,
flashed cross her face
and found their nest
In her azure and sapphire soul.
They blessed her heart, and the fire
snap-crackle and rice krispie
popped in merry affirmation.
Dirty Deeds done with malice,
weaponized words hurled with spite,
and the bloody results are never
never to be ceded to
or granted might.
The towering taunts and punches
of the privileged must fall!
But in this night
and under this tawny moon
acceptance shimmers in
fresh and renewed glow.
Find your peace with what transpires,
as the wind finds the leaf’s soft
secret underbelly,
as the water finds the stones to smooth
and curl around,
as the flower finds the sun with eager questing
glad-hands,
as the soul finds its Homely Rest in
Grace’s Guiding Heart.
Transcendent, trans-formative and tender
mercies gush and geyser up and
artesian always out to water and
resurrect and restore
the juicy apples from
the Orchard Acceptance.
I am a woman in a long line of Poets!
So…I was just talking to my mom on the phone, catching up on things.
Imagine my shock when she told me, upon hearing some of my poems, that there have been several established poets on her side of the family…all women!
Guess I lucked out and got the mantle, eh??!!
LOL! I don’t know if I am any good, but I do love it so!
Thanks for reading,
Love Charissa
Picking Burrs
“Good Gawd Charissa!” she said.
“Reading some of your stuff is like
picking burrs out of my sox!”
I smiled inwardly, and
rubbed my torn and tender fingers
together.
Through the Broken Window
And yet,
through that shattered pane
there whispered a Presence…
an echo of days long dead
and left behind.
A time when the sun glowed gold,
the moon kissed all benighted
with her mellow silver lips,
and the wind sang instead of snored.
In the crucible of destruction,
Joy flits at the edges
like a quick-silver bird
and takes
residence in the ruins.
In her nesting
I find peace and
come to terms
with promise.
Outcast by Acceptance
Skuttery winds were
huffing our hurt like
kids in the alley
behind the bar.
We trudged along over landscapes,
seascapes white and
grey and smudged and
our eyes were dulled
by unrelenting blur of
borders and divisions,
demarcations between
heaven and earth.
We were the Consigned Ones,
those policed and othered and
cast into chains
feigning freedom.
We were the Dispossessed Daughters
outcast by Acceptance,
cloaked in bleak black bindings
and hooded with the words of those
swaggering and unconscious creatures.
We toiled
slow between life
and the null.
My fire seethed,
I burned indignant and slow,
until I wanted
a flare to become and ignite
into blazing truth
the scope and shape
of that prison!
I seized my moment
and took pilgrimage
to that high ground
waiting for me, for us all.
And there
I lit my signal,
I lit my heart, and
sought to immolate
the Lie.
In the Aftermath
But in the aftermath,
emptied and drained,
but strangely at peace
and still…
…I ponder new spaces,
discover new places,
and watch hard
for Grace’s Hand
and Heart
And Healing.
She specializes in negative space,
and the restoration of Majesty.
Fracking My Heart
Yeah, it’s happened for a long time…
I don’t know which thief gained first access.
The Jack of Hearts? Or the King of Clubs…
those dudes dogged my footsteps
and stuck to me like
rabid paparazzi, snapping, clicking…
…and fracking, injecting me
with insistent agendas and curses.
They smell my weak places,
with x-ray eyes
they trap my heart with maps.
Except in their world,
I am not round, but flat,
and they fear my edges.
Probes, from eyes, from words,
from thought and greedy thirst
force their way in, and in, and then
pressure, violent floody-assaults,
on my detailed and nuanced delicate soul.
After awhile, the floods drain,
God only knows where, and leave
me blared and blasted,
blue and without blossom,
defenseless and without means
to coalesce again.
Then they suck me dry,
of my luscious dreamy
verve and dance.
They smack their lips,
hitch up their pants,
and strut away
without a glance.
I tremble,
temblors shaking,
in a fearful trance.
And I think again about the word
…acceptance…
and listen hard for echoes
of its dead and beautiful promise.
Acceptance
I watched, sideways and slinky,
out of my eye’s teary corner
as the lowbrow boorish bear
raised his word-whip and
his tongue-lash whistled and screamed
down on her, making up in force
what he was denied in volume.
“Stupid fucking bitch!
Why can’t you just accept
that’s the way it is!”
Each word a blow,
each sound flaying her skin,
bashing its way into her soul,
thrusting and tearing…
hell, you could SEE it in her eyes!!
I glanced around,
but in the music-haze and
alcohol buzzy packed room
no one else was watching.
Their eyes bounced
up and over the scene
like little all terrain vehicles
jumping over ravines.
I quivered, thinking
I was afraid and helpless,
caught on that word…
…accept!
And I thought about
how fire accepts water or
how light accepts darkness or
how oil accepts water…
and then I realized that
what I thought was fear
was absolute and total rage
scintillating through my soul and
searing my heart
as it burned wild.
Later, I reflected
on steam,
and on snow,
and on the way water moves
over and around.
And other mysteries
of wind and sail
and fruit and press
And I vowed
to redeem that word…
accept…
before I die.
Many Colors and Hues
Deep and throbbing,
desire and aspiration pull hard
like malamutes in downy snow,
dragging my aim forward
and my resolve further
and my will shouts GEE! HAW!
I have one brush,
but many colors,
many shades
(and hues).
To mark out,
to inscribe and convey
some tenor and melody
and picture with one brush.
Inner riots come under orders,
bevel together in harmony,
and find floral voice through my brush,
and I find my tongue and
speak rainbows, prisms,
and ever always of
the Grand Banquet and celebration…
here the rainbow swirls
out, and back,
and delivers on its Promise.
Her Mercy Womb
All the relentless blows,
the pains, the wounds.
All the mummy-wrap wadded and
shoved roughshod down my throat
and through my heart…
The searing letdowns,
the cold denials of
heaving and wrenching begging.
Burdens allowed to pile up,
build up, bury me
in desperation and despair.
And silences…towering,
looming, lurking, leering,
mocking, unlistening…
All of these things
were horror to me…
But to Mama,
they were the womb that She wove
to carry me full,
carry me careful,
pregnant with me,
Her Daughter,
Her Offspring of Grace
Charissa
Carapace
It caged me in its cold confining bars.
Long have I been its lost and longing thrall,
its tenant-serf of weary plodding on.
Its tentacles clung round my throat, my eyes,
and darkness was its cruel confederate
who caged my strong uprising Ne’er-Say-Die.
But lately, through these months of journey labor,
I’ve groaned and strained to heave off shell and shield!
Bright-beauty-bursts-dark, red, that primal pulse
sings in my veins and I feel me revealed,
but tentative in fragile waking Joy.
For I am soft, and never more me clothed
with harmour. I am closed, but only just
in poise for the Great Opening to come,
my exit from the carapace that clung…
Her Song and Sun e’er on my windswept face,
I’ll live now, bravely, on the precipice.
No April Fool We
Fed up with the drivel and condescension,
we made a dash for it!
Baubles joggled and then
fell like dead leaves and moulty old shells,
but we didn’t stop for them.
Those trifles were known to us now,
minus the shine, the shimmer,
the sting of deceptive bribe.
Trailing lies, and curses
streaming out behind us like snapped leashes,
we leapt for the wall and
monkeyed our way quick-shinny clamber
over the top!
Freedom-vented fragrances
tickled our nostrils,
and the air was heavy
and thick with liberty-scent…
but our jailers were breathing hard
through their mouths,
hairy and drab-dull
stone brown buffaloes
galumphing along
behind us.
They shouted, threatened,
and wheedled for a glance back.
But we had heard of Lot’s Wife,
and thought that the
salty tang of freedom
was better than
the certain security of slavery!
So we bolted,
gleeful and breathless,
scared and exhilarated,
dreaming of all that
we knew lay nascent
and yet to be born.
Stones
Stones are alive,
inhabiting a welter-world.
Speaking, standing,
preaching, crying out
in mute voluminous
wordy paeans.
But some have forgotten
they are stones
and dwell in
silent dull “there-ness”.
They have forgotten
their voices, and their throats
choke on dirty cloddy poems
fed them by
taxmen and misers.
Those stones leap
into heavy horned hand,
rocket from ragged arm
to fly and howl and maim
and drink vorpal draughts
of gouty spurty blood
welling up from crushed
and broken tender skin,
and throbbing in
painful, reflexive retreat
from standing.
But other stones,
sentinels, stand and watch,
witness, and take note
in their solid and lasting tongue.
These very rocks cry out
when all else is silent
and their melodies
wing back to the stars
and their song remains
forever chronicling
the rule of Grace and Mercy.
Piled, Pierced, and at Peace
See her, here.
Broken tops and
edges gathered softly and
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
with gentle timing.
Rubble, rubbish,
ruin and remains
racked up,
rock
on
rock
just so…just so.
Holes and wounds gaping,
whistling and singing in
every flickering breeze,
and light running
full and free
wherever She sends,
wherever She leads.
I am Her Tor,
Her Tribute,
Her Trophy
and my heart
is Her Altar
Spilling Grace
Always
My Heart Dares
My high hills have heaved into mountains!
They’re muscling and bunching with glory
and streaming my Star-Ribbon story.
Hills of want, hills of pining and yearning
were worn down by storm torrents and winds,
became mounds, became cairns to lost futures
for this poor girl born so out of time
and so life-lorn and null in her place.
But up! They have been drawn, been pushed,
been called clarion and clear, brassy-broad,
with fresh timeless bright voice, they have answered,
and begun to grow high right before me,
in my solemn amazed wide eyed presence.
And my heart dares to become a mountain!
Thrusting boldly through stained steely clouds,
into blaze, into dithery-dazzle,
into light and life, cold and warm sun,
and they thrive midst glad gales of good Portent!
Noble sigils and icons of trust,
And I let my glad self stand and live!
Thus I sing to the Dwellers in Shinar
lift your heads, lift your eyes, lift your hearts
Take you hope, take ye courage and comfort,
Grace and Peace be your portion,
Amen.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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