The poet is a more
desperate person
than most…
she must
get it all down
before the
ages are up.
Which, as any poet will tell you
Is A BITCH!
Before you pass judgement:
Silences
Caustic and toxic silences
Scream with cowardly cadences.
Sulking, skulking coyotes
round the campfire,
Shadows, darting in
and nipping at my heart.
Worrying teeth and gnashing jowls
behind which hides…what?
Cowardice?
Callousness?
Cowardice?
Who knows,
for silence rules like Stalin
Over a bleak and barren land
from which the songbirds
have gone, have fled
before the Glower and Growl
of Self…
of Silence.
There are silences that kneel,
silences that cover over a multitude.
Silences that fall like snow
and make all things pure
and new and whole.
But this silence is
the nasty Hangover Sweat
of one drunk on self
and laying waste to the land…
yipping
kipping
howling
nipping
ripping.
Suffering has voice but
Silence, dumb and gibbering
in its self indulgence
Towers over all.
Hilarious and sadly true…
Q – How many trans people does it take to change a light bulb?
A – Only one, but they have to live for a year in the dark to be completely, absolutely sure it needs changing and have the confirming opinions of 2 electricians (at least one with a PhD).
Scenario
in the midst
of the slant silent snow
the bird is rising away
from the wild and barren tree
eccentric knotted twigs
bending forward ‘neath the wind
and horn-like
at the top.
You
You.
Fair presence
Whose
Name
I cannot
name,
only
“My Dearest Darling”
only
“My Heart”
You,
whose
Name
I cannot
name,
Because
it is
my
deepest
Breath
Haiku #9
Haiku #9
face in quiet night
softly holds the fire glow
in her smoky eyes.
catching her portrait
in gold glistening harvest moon
her very essence.
she smiles quietly
lovely effortlessly free
laughing in the night.
Rhythm
Rhythm
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.
Chrysallis
I ran across this in a folder of poems, and I honestly cannot recall if I wrote this or not…I always include info about the author as a footnote when I save someone else’s poem, and I did not with this one…and yet I just do not think I wrote this. It is in my style, yes, but some of the words are words that surprise me…but then again that often happens to me.
At any rate, this poem is about me and my inner woman who longs to be set free…and also about my inner eternal self, encased in this carnal cap waiting to manifest the metamorphaeo that is ongoing, and soon to show forth.
Chrysallís
She is more
Than the
Chrysós of
Her word shaped
Cocoon
Swivel behind
Each syllable
And feel the
Moving segments
As she atones?
Is she soundless?
In her Chrysallís
Or simply
“along with,”
“among,”
“after,”
“behind,”
“beyond,”
She is mine… not mine
She is pupa to imago
In each split-second
I wrestle with her between
Each wing expansion
Sharing the veins
Of Pure (H)ellenian
Blood
All Day Long
I think about you all day long,
In quiet lulls and lilting song,
I think about you all day long.
I always ever have so thought,
Before I knew your name I sought,
I always ever have so thought.
The silences redound with song,
Those cataracts of thunderous throng,
And I think about you all day long.
Years come and go, an avalanche,
Days sprout like leaves that spin and dance,
Years come and go, an avalanche.
And on that day that is my last
The culmination of my past
I’ll think about you…
All Day Long
The Yardbird Sings
Sleep is a thready nuisance
That separates me from my heart
My heart.
Dream-clouded Prison walls lock me in
This world.
Liberty hour comes again,
and I
Can walk the yard until
The guards…sleep…setting…others…
Shout “Back inside Yardbird!”
Someday I shall fly and follow
That same path my soul flies,
My Heart leaps up like the stag,
Like a falcon unhooded
Rises, and rises,
Like Icarus to the sun drawn
OH! Would that the Sun melt my waxy wings
That I would plummet and fall
Into myself, into my place
Like homing pigeons returning to
The Long Loved Last Home.
At last, we shall meet and meet and meet
And I shall wake
And be home.
The Heart’s Red Door
And I await a sign,
from You, Director
Maestro of Mercy
and stark eyes.
Beckon me…direct me,
and I a flute
to Your lips
shall my soul trill
in response,
and I will move.
But oh Rose behind the Sun,
enlighten me
Your benighted and blind daughter…
Am I coming out?
Or entering in?
Draw me in,
Redness of my Heartbleed
To the cross which hangs
Heavy…
Between
Heaven and Earth
Spirit and Dust
In and out…
Me and myself
And You.
The Simplicity
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 handprints will merge…
The august moon glitters
In the kitchen
Like a tin plated pot
(it does that because of what I am 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 often cancelled—
And that’s when a word is True:
When it insists on the meeting
Untitled
Untitled
At last, I am with you always in the peaceful dreams
Tokens from Flathead, hot-tea hopes, all have driven
Wedges through blankness
Towards that oneness that I always hoped we
will achieve,
Where you are is where the Rose unfolds
and brings an answer
men have watched for from the
now of time
I feel I must dance and sing to tell of this
In a way that, knowing you,
You may be drawn to me.
I sing amidst despair and isolation,
(those seeming entities…HAH!)
I sing of the chance to know you, to sing of
Me and you. You see, you hold me up to the light
In a way that I never expected, or suspected,
Perhaps…
I am yours to die with, to desire—I must not
Ever think of me. I desire you
If the wild night of a February day be true.
I pledge to be truthful unto you,
When I can never stop remembering…
Remembering to pass beyond you into the day
On the wings of the Dove.
Take me from myself in the path of the Day assigned!
I prefer “you” in the plural, and
I want you to come to me
All golden and pale
Like dew and air
And then I start getting this feeling of
EXULTATION
A Poem I love…not one by me
“What Do Women Want?”
by Kim Addonizio
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
Babel
And then,
from the beauty
of the distant and pregnant horizon,
full of feeling and love…
looms a tower stark
Pillar prick into the sky
that twists or numbs
and love turns sideways
and shunts to the drain
guttering and skuttering
into the dirt.
And once again
love lies discarded
and untouched.
Babel,
alas.
How I am feeling today
Crystal Clarity
In the 11th hour
late, when wolves tire and
fall silent while silence howls for them…
Firelight ebbs and heat
retreats anemone like
as Cold Frosty Fingers touch it, poke it.
I rise from slumber, and smoke is blown away by
Cleansing icy arctic cold breaths.
Puffing and Huffing and blowing it away…
drowsiness dashed in the face by icewater
Thrown like wedding rice…and Deliverance
Waves her smelling salts under my nose.
My eyes snap open…wide…
awake, fully awake, again.
Thralldom swept aside,
indulgent chocolate emotional bon-bons tossed
Out and into the streets of never was land.
I open the door and let the frigid wind
embrace me, ravage me…
scrub me clean and cleanse me
North Winds of Truth and Sanity.
My eyes are open, and I am free,
to walk and look in
Crystal Clarity.
On the Beach
On the Beach
in sand, feet planted firmly
world spinning and whirring for moments
and moments
as tides advance in quick ranks
the foot soldiers of time
licking at the shore, nibbling with
foamy teeth and laughing in sandy throats.
I have watched decades for tide wars
and dances, as life ebbs and flows
in flux always, changing always but
steady, reliable…tangible and present.
I have seen it go around, and then come around again.
I draw comfort as I stand
and flex my toes in the loamy sand of you
and listen to your tides
quick and bright in small steady waves of order.
I have stood through storms, and through
Waxing, waning waves and winds
as planet you whirls and spins and turns.
And I have seen the tide come back in.
And I am content,
in the wind.
Jewels in the Dung Heap
And there,
in the midst of the dung heap
a simple pearl, formed thru travail and trial,
given birth to by Lady Wisdom.
Daddy died and farm lost
and fresh start which was so scary…
perhaps just the beginning
of the end?
But a flock of friends,
well, really just one oyster
swallowed this solitary sand grain
and made a pearl
Faithful
Loyal
Considerate
lelo on low,
on medium,
lelo on high
angels we have heard on high
GLORIA
Fresh…yes.
So simple, yet so rare
in the dung of narcissistic natter.
and the tumult fades,
drowned out like flames soused
by living waters.
Fallout
A storm came last month
Frightful winds and torrents
of tumultuous Weather
round and down
Beating on house,
on covering, on
Leaf and Limb.
Shuddering the walls
and singing a nightmare
lullaby to thready sleep.
When I woke, I went outside.
to take stock.
Sit. Look
at the damage.
And I saw a tree limb off.
Greedy ham hands
grabbed and wrenched
with windy stringy muscles
and huffing tendons and
tore it asunder.
Sap oozed out
of the rent trunk
as the tree wept
in pain and screamed
in sticky inarticulate
pitches.
I had to let it weep…
maybe it would heal
If it could harden
over and miss,
remember the limb
lost in the storm.
But perhaps it wouldnt.
The tree has not decided…today.
Still soft…but not sticky.
Still weeping, but not flowing.
But always missing,
remembering its wasness
on the way to its is-ness.
I saw a woman walk by…
she had been in a storm
and was cousin to my tree.
Awakening
Wraiths of mist rise from a pond
And smoke settles in leisure over
our valley as sun mounts to
the rim of our small mountain world…
So also forms so gradually
In the dull flesh of my dim mind
a wreath of thought…and then I wake
I find
it’s you…
You there beside me.
Sailing On
In the ether movements of the slipstream
my desire rises…lifts…groans great.
WHY??? Why cannot I have those like me, and me like they?
The wind carries laughter,
faint and exotic music…
happy screams and squeals
guitar riffs roiling up
and howling down
roller-coaster blues
rhythm and blues
Music of the gut,
sound of the loins
Sirens sounding,
and I, unlike Ulysses
cast off chains of my limbs…
so I can move…dance…
smile and lilt
and drink
For my chains are inside,
and my mast is unseen
I will listen…
I will look…
I will dance
And sail on
Slash and Burn
When great gouts of fire furiously
roar and run red, white, hot
and fast…sometimes
the only thing to do is slash and burn.
Tractors, mechanized beasts
screaming in heat
straining thru living
wood and hairy brush
as animals run and fall.
Slash the heart fast to save it.
And then burn…back to the fire with fire
and heat and fear matching fire and fear,
to stop the raging monster fast…
some gone to save all.
Today, memory fires
gnash, clash, snatch and
clutch at my heart’s
throbbing and raw throat.
Dry tinder laid by
yesterday’s careless prunings
catches…holds, and then flame
hungry minotar roaring
running raging
Amok in my heart,
hooves and horns
sharp and acrid
the slash and burn
of love to stop loss.
and I am aflame
I am passion
I am loss
I am love and light
and I am hurt
Until the fire dies,
never sated but eaten all
there is
and there isn’t
and new growth
begins again
After The Rain by Bruce Cockburn
After The Rain
After the rain in the streets light flows like blood
I can just taste salt on the humid wind
Here comes that gasoline
Spreading hungry rainbow over shiny black tar
I’m blown like smoke and blind as wind
Except for when your love breaks in
Maybe to those who love is given sight
To pierce the wall of seeming night
And know it pure beyond all imagining
Engine throb street cruise light bullet car flash
Hollow beauty night gleam oily river tension glass
Ultraflame! Glittering dust falling in slow motion
Clouds tumbling one over another into apparent emptiness
It’s like a big fist breaking down my door
I never felt such a love before
Maybe to those who love it’s given to hear
Music too high for the human ear
And clear as hydrogen to go singing
By Bruce Cockburn
OMFG…
I just read someone who said “F*** Gender Roles…” and then added some binary behavior from the opposite gender they are, as if that was transgressing gender roles.
Unwittingly this person was reinforcing that binary, and cis-sexism.
And they also decried the behavior of people in their life that think they own the person’s being…sorta like how all other people in my life own my gender?
Relationships that are not healthy are relationships based on the notion of possessing another, for whatever reason (completion, domination, whatever)…and the chains of enslavement are behavioral conduct and actions that hold the other hostage.
Is the term “Emotional Terrorist” an accurate one? If one does not get one’s way, they will blow them self and everything around up?
Waves of Creation, Waves of Me
In Waves creation runs
from the center to the ragged edge
from seething molten orange gouts
to static ponderous peaks frozen by
waves of wind
and Air.
Waves beneath me, around me, above me
pulled in place and parked, punked
by gravity waves and bridles.
Tidal waves
Shock waves
Sine waves
Light waves
Mountain Waves
Cloud Waves
Star Waves
I surf,
conscious at the intersection of all waves
Id waves
Ego waves
Super ego waves
Body Waves
Mind waves
Emotional Waves
Spirit waves
In the name of the Father (waves),
Son (waves),
and Holy Spirit (waves).
Last nite
Last nite
I sat out on the porch
The Stars sang overhead
Your voice sang in my ear
My blood raced and sang red
Red ran my love’s desire
And wetness sprang with joy
Your laugh set me on fire
My answer soothed your need
You looked for someone deeper
You wanted someone strong
Impetuous and steady
You said you wanted me.
In two nights we will wander
In summer vineyard growth
The stars o’er head will shimmer
And sing that ancient song
Of love, desire, and loving
Of kissing, touching, longing
I think that I am falling
But falling ever up.
Last nite, I sat out, talking
Just talking thru the evening
Melodious wondrous youness
Your voice my soul’s lost song.
Haunter of Worlds
You, who haunts my world
Echoes of meaning sounding like doves
Calling and cooing ‘cross the tumultuous river
You come walking
High fiery chariot flying
Wreathed in ribbons of flame
Yet where you burn ruin undoes
And the torrents tumble up and back
Source drawing all to Thyself
A great diamond draught
OH! Emissary eternal emerge!
Dare to glitter bold and green
And translucent
Dare to transcend and leave behind the fears of them
Who would equivocate and dilute One Truth into all truth.
Stand stark! Reek of Eternity-fire, my Smoke, and FEAR NOT!
Coals from that altar seek lips, seek kisses…
Press past blistered parchedness and decimated crispy ashes!
Glide, RISE!! Singular, unafraid and distinct!
Set apart, and unstoppable…
You…who haunts my world
Dearest Haunter of my world
Do Not Forget My Love
Do Not Forget My Love
Charming as you may be,
I wanted you to have me.
I wanted you to have me.
Do not forget my love, you have yet to conquer me.
Conquer.
Charm.
Tame.
Delight.
Love me only.
Conquer me completely.
Hold me always.
I’m yours for the taking,
If you dare
Too often we are all about ourselves…
WE are all about ourselves.
So freely we spout to each other
that we love one another, but this
is really only a way of saying we are
attracted enough to someone to want
to keep them around because they
fill some need in US.
But true love involves
sacrifice, and discipline
to do what is best
for the other person
regardless of how
it helps or hinders
ourselves.
And if you do not wish
to do that, it’s ok…just
don’t say you love them.
If you are carnivorous and
in love with a vegan,
will you insist
that they eat meat,
just because YOU do?
And yet that’s what’s done
all the time, regularly…
“Well, I myself simply
MUST be honest,
so if it hurts YOU
too bad”…
honesty is good,
but it is a lot like acid…
useful if used with wisdom
and applied properly,
and corrosive if strewn
willy nilly.
Sometimes being honest
leads us to share feelings
that in and of themselves
are incorrect, incomplete,
or self centered.
Thus the act of honesty is merely
a magnifying glass on our ass-holery.
Speak the truth in love.
THAT is true honesty.
Some Do…I awoke and shall never sleep again
“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world,
and you believe you are living. Then you read a book …
or you take a trip … and you discover that you are not living,
that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating
are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom:
absence of pleasure. That is all.
It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death.
Millions live like this or die like this without knowing it.
They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families.
They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place ~
a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them
from death. Some never awaken.”Anaïs Nin
and you believe you are living. Then you read a book …
or you take a trip … and you discover that you are not living,
that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating
are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom:
absence of pleasure. That is all.
It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death.
Millions live like this or die like this without knowing it.
They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families.
They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place ~
a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them
from death. Some never awaken.”Anaïs Nin
The Must
As I have commented before, I think wine is the central metaphor that best explains the journey of Life, and the task we are all given. In that post, I said that a good bottle of wine is the distillation of thousands of relational decisions made well…and that I long to be the distillation of thousands of relational decisions made well.
Harvest is/has happened, and Crush is upon us (oh CRUSH, be upon us always)…during crush there are many tasks that must be carried out, and one is called punch down, or pump over. This is where the conglomeration of grapes, seeds, stems and other things that may have been able to make it through the sort and into the fermentor are all allowed to sit…this union is called “must”. The solids soon float to the top and form a cap, and that cap has to be pierced with an implement, and punched back down into the juice so that flavor and color can be extracted.
Some wine makers use a pumping method, where they pump the juice from below over on top of the cap and create a mixing via that method.
Either way, the cap of skins, seeds, stems…the conveyors of what is precious and desired (the juice) has to be pierced, assaulted, and then ultimately removed at the right time to leave just the juice and its extracted color and flavor to ferment, transform and become wine.
I worked Evening Punch Down one year, and I was struck by the highly metaphoric parallel to my life, and the process of sanctification. I bring my harvest to the King, and He receives it with Joy, good fruit! And then He puts it through the crusher, and presses out the juice, crushing what I had brought of my best and greatest steps for Him…
ANGUISH!!!
But ultimately peace, and with time, a good wine that brings refreshment to others. As I worked, and thought, the parallels grew stronger and deeper, and so I composed this poem to talk about that whole thing.
You need to read this out loud to yourself, for there is an intentional rhythm to it that emulates the rhythm of the punch as it operates to pierce the cap and mix the must with the juice. Let your mind wander, to the work of the WineMaker as He punches down your “carnal cap” into the good juice in the Must of your life.
and of course the double entendre of Must is a major clue.
Anyway, without further prevarication, I give you The Must
The Must
I.
In still night the must calls…
pure flute and woodwind spice
scents rising soft, unseen
on bright brass trumpetings
of cunning magic hidden
to work a wonder war
on this old dreary world.
The deep bass heartbeat drums,
comes thrumming thru the must,
and swelling symphony
resurrects rituals
so old, so new, so fresh.
The dewy year looks up
to see the conductor,
and hear and breathe and live…
… in still night the must calls…
II.
We ride steady and tired
from our loving labor
and crusted with our works,
and wondering when we’ll end
tonight and sleep, and when
we’ll rise again, awake
in the new day to work
refreshed, to live again.
The cap is full and thick
and covering liquid fire
that’s running deeply dark,
so purplely rich and red,
the twigs, the stems, the seeds
and skins…the must so red…
beneath the silky skins
so softly rich within.
III.
So we punch down up down
again…and…then again.
Arms push and pull, backs bend,
wide smiles of working joy.
We’re captured in its rhythm,
the rhythm of the punch,
our hearts echo the singing
so red beneath our skins…
How many times, the punch?
How many years have sung?
Is this song That, played over
thru wooly years but changéd
instruments and players…
or do we bathe our spirits
in echoes of the echo
of echoes of The Song?
IV.
And still we punch…the air,
still, pregnant with passion,
a blanket full and heavy
with yeasty moist desire.
We plunge in–out–and breathe
in heady air that gooses
our heads giddy with wonder
and with creation’s dancing
and fragrant must desire
(Desire! Oh Desire…).
Sweat beads, drips, white blood running,
and falling into red,
and tumbling terroir breeding
its brick-bronze grape blood brew…
“unless you drink my blood
you have no life in you”…
V.
Then wet washing, flooding,
the ragged rinsing scours
away all evidences
of work, and only wine
is left fermenting…singing
and playing in the darkness
orchestral magic mysteries
and alchemal aromas
(plum leather chewy cherry
bright red chocolately berry
red purple blowzy jory
cigar-box smoky loam).
The lights dim, darkness drawing
the velvet curtain closed
but underneath: the song,
the must, and still the song…
VI.
In dark night the Must beats
so stridently inside me,
its pounding rhythms driving,
its needing, capped and covered
by Crush, and skins…and silver,
the silver punch is raising
and down again comes piercing,
and punching, rending roughly
the crusty carnal cap and
then pulling up the Must from
the purplely unknown deep
(deep calls out unto deep). Oh…
It breaks my stubborn body,
and rends my soul in darkness,
still the Must calls from body
to body…in the darkness.
VII.
Up and down and up and down
it pulls and thrusts and pushes
the jangly pain and joy…
The pungent Must shall mingle
with living dirt that’s red,
red underneath the skins, and
The Song! The Song… is floating…
It beckons, drives and drags me,
chained captive to the Crush and
the skins, the seeds, the stems and
the Must moves on, and in and
the Must moves thru and sings out…
in the night…
in the night…
in the night…
In still night the Must calls.
St John Of The Cross on Love
In search of my Love
I will go over Mountains and strands;
I will gather no flowers
I will fear no wild beasts
and pass by the mighty and the frontiers.
A thousand Graces Diffusing
And let the vision and thy beauty kill me!
Behold the Malady
of love is incurable
Except in thy presence and before thy face.
Oh Chrystal Well!!
Oh that on thy silvered surface
Thou wouldst Mirror forth at once
Those eyes desired
Which are outlined in my heart!
St Augustine on Love
Late have I loved you, O Beauty so Ancient,
And so new. Late have I loved you!
You were within me but I was outside myself, and THERE I sought you!
In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made, the things which would have no being unless they existed in You!
You have called, you have called and you have PIERCED my deafness.
You have reached forth, You have shined out brightly, and you have Dispelled my Blindness.
You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you.
I have tasted you, and I hunger and Thirst for you.
You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace.
Amen.
Falling Up Forever
So…
you see walls blowing out
Hurricane Charissa has come
pressure changes,
waxing, waning
antiforce of nature
Hurled at walls
are my heartbeats,
my words, my
face-first running
slamming.
I will shatter
your fist with my face
Face like Flint
and resolute.
I do not swerve.
I do not turn aside
Comet Charis
flashing fiery
in your sky
Portents of doom
to your darkness…
or to you.
your choice false one,
prevaricating one,
sneering
you will wear
that sneer inside out,
and find it smeared
on your visage permanent
while you scrub
with this cloth…
no wait,
THAT cloth…
no wait,
wrong gloves
and name.
LEAVE OFF FAITHLESS FEARFUL one.
Stop.
why?
?
You stand at a precipice,
crystal and sharp shards
behind you, dazzling you
with a million reflections of yourself
Narcissus indulged
but before you…
walls blown out
I pay no mind to walls
and yawning beneath you
the gaping gorge down
and down,
with whooshing whispers of…
…something…
Step off.
I dare you.
Step off and
fall to me, and
find yourself
rising in my arms.
For my world is upside down to you…
to live,
you must seek
to give away your life.
To be first
you must be last.
To be the greatest
you must be the least.
To be strong
you must be weak
To be wise
you must be foolish.
To fly up with me,
you must
Fall
with Charissa the weak
with Charissa the fool
with Charissa the last
with Charissa the dying
For I am falling up
and though NONE
go with me
I will fall…
up
Till I am flying away
and ever enter In,
higher up
and deeper in.
Protected: To Whom Does Gender Belong?
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Just Sayin…
Just Sayin’…
The Great and Long Reduction
It’s been three decades.
Longer with than without…
and I see the reckless words of callow youth–
dried husks, dead and cast away.
How small! How single! How hard!
Thank our Captain and our Shepherd
Faithful Husbandman
Vinedresser and Sower
Patience poked deep into the dirt of time
to plant my proud poems and bury
my plaintive pleas deep.
To die. To leave the dirt behind,
The husks split by Night’s trial and Death’s
Danse Macabré.
And the love emerges still from stalks
Staked and made strong by time.
Eloquence wanes as love remains waxing
eloquent in gesture and deed and glance…
…I love this Journey-Dance.
And I love you Jane,
God’s Gracious Glance.
Anniversary
Today is my 32nd wedding anniversary.
I am so thankful to God for bringing me my precious friend, partner, companion, wife, and mother of my beloved children.
There is literally nothing that I would not give up for her…there is literally nothing that I would refuse her.
I love you baby…Happy Anniversary, and may we have 32 more!! (at LEAST!!)
Watching Time Pass
how long will it be for time to pass…
I sit inside,
inside male skin and inside my house…
and I watch others go
about in the world…
comfortable, freaking unconscious
of the THAT THEY ARE.
My candles are lit,
and I sit
at the window
and listen
to the gears turning
tock by tick.
They march
in time to time
passing easily
but I must sit
as time passes
because I just don’t.
Velvet River
ALERT! ALERT!
The following poem is of a sensually charged nature…if you are one who loves to take up offense and carry it like a badge of honor, if you are easily inflamed by the actions and words of others that you disagree with and then choose to be offended over, then you need to skip this post.
It is about desire, about connection, about the wondrous and primal physical analogue to the mysterious spiritual ecstasies that are woven into the warp and weft of our being human. After all…we are spiritual beings who are having a physical experience, and yet we are also physical beings who are having a spiritual experience too (otherwise, what is the point of a physical resurrection??? Hmmm????
Anyway, I am not hiding on this blog, and I am going to share. Look away if you are afraid, and read if you dare.
Velvet River
Darkness grips
with velvet claws and fastens
Fat and swollen
all around the bed…but soft
and welcome.
The darkness of becoming.
The unbecoming darkness.
The one at whose door
evil darkness can
only scratch in
frustration, shut out.
The darkness of a womb waiting.
The darkness of a room…
bed waiting…body aching…
The darkness of the moon,
watching
Then you come,
sliding and gliding
hat low over
one steely glinty eye
behind which hides
a wide and glowy winking eye
merrily seeking me.
your tie askew,
your blouse undone
I lay in the darkness…
in the grip of velvet claws
Fat and swollen…echoing
my fat and swollen river banks
And the velvet river
wakes and stirs.
you sit
on the bed
and touch my legs
with that eye,
that glance,
that want.
And the river runs
velvet and soft
and your
touch is plush
your tongue my hero,
my champion.
sounds in the darkness
cannot be heard elsewhere
and i groan and moan
with longing and desire
and then
we plunge
into the river
and breathe
underwater
Advantages
Being transgender has given me a different perspective on life than most people…it is a terrible burden and tortured place to live…
BUT:
It is also a huge gift, for it gives me insight into a greater spectrum, and in the long run has been a crucible of great value and worth to form me into the kind of person that I desire to be.
See…I desire to be a surrendered person, yielded to the Good and Love and Grace of my creator. I desire to show thru my life that God is indeed Good, and that every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
Aside: I am using the traditional pronouns for God…simply to keep things simple. Anyone with half a brain knows that God transcends male just as much as he transcends female…I will post on this later, but for now, assume that my pronoun use is knowing and intentional, but not rooted and bound in religious tradition.
Back to my thoughts…to be a real Christian, to truly live as a child of God: what does that look like? Whole libraries have been conceived on this, heaping up requirement on requirement and burden on burden.
I think the whole thing can be reduced to this: Yielded vessel yielding blessing.
If we but yield, and allow Love to flow into us, inform us, heal us and renew us, and then flow out of us so that we do not stagnate, then we can truly be little children of the great God of love.
So…as a transgender person, I an positioned and gifted with a wider spectrum of tools to use, and have a greater potential to truly empathize with the plight of men and also the plight of women. I chuckle as I think of my daughter who has told me that so much of what I used to tell her when she was in high school now makes sense to her…it was a mystery to her how her father could give her insight into growing as a woman and being strong as a woman.
In my job, I work around men who are macho types and high testosterone fueled…our job is stressful and dangerous, and takes people who are both independent and reliable, yet able to meld as a team. These men are so lonely, so cut off from themselves and from others in their life. I am able to be received into their hearts because I wear the skin of a male…but then once there…I can give them the nurture and love and care that they are starved for.
I am especially aware of just how enslaved men can be within the palace of White Male privilege in our society…keeping up the front, keeping up the image, bearing untold burdens and stress and never ever being allowed to talk about it for fear of being perceived as weak or …GASP…FEMININE!!!!
But they will talk to me.
Similarly, I have counseled so many of my sisters in how to deal with their husband,s brothers, fathers, co workers, helping them to know what men are like from a woman’s perspective, because I can move unseen through their camp.
It is a lonely place, for each one is glad for me, but each one thinks I am strange and apart.
Someday, I shall be released.
Destroyer of Worlds
I wrote this poem during one of the dark days…you out there, you cisgendered, please please open your heart and listen.
You literally do not know what it is like to be NULL, to be NOT and naught…
That doesn’t mean that you cannot feel hurt, pain, despair, depression…but at least you can be at home in yourself.
For transgender people, this is something that we have never ever experienced, that feeling of belonging to ourselves…
I am asking for your kindness, if you could find it within yourself to be kind…to not call us trannies or shemales or freaks, etc…and to not assume that we all just want sex so we are doing these perverted things.
It is so much more basic than that.
Anyway…here is the poem…
Smoke is a metaphor here (clue alert lol!!) for Hope, for Love, for acceptance, for Being…
smoke is the revenant released from wood by fire…
ponder it.
Destroyer of Worlds
Smoke is gone,
dispersed on unknown
Winds of Strange Terror and Havoc…
and Abandon.
Acrid scents that once
stirred memories of
Happy hearth
and hale health,
now just
lament of torched heart
and rejected soul
I mourn, I grieve,
and keen from the loss,
my voice
a soundless scream,
my throat ripped
by silent strain
to utter no noise while
my heart shrieks
Ahhh…
trees bend and move,
and grasp and grapple
but Smoke twists…
flows…and passes thru,
ghost of some future happy hope…
alas that phantom hope
Smoke has gone
and I am ruined
forever marked
and branded
with loss.
Les Séparés
Les Séparés
N’écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m’éteindre.
Les beaux étés sans toi, c’est la nuit sans flambeau.
J’ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t’atteindre,
Et frapper à mon coeur, c’est frapper au tombeau.
N’écris pas!
N’écris pas. N’apprenons qu’à mourir à nous-mêmes.
Ne demande qu’à Dieu . . . qu’à toi, si je t’aimais!
Au fond de ton absence écouter que tu m’aimes,
C’est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais.
N’écris pas!
N’écris pas. Je te crains; j’ai peur de ma mémoire;
Elle a gardé ta voix qui m’appelle souvent.
Ne montre pas l’eau vive à qui ne peut la boire.
Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.
N’écris pas!
N’écris pas ces doux mots que je n’ose plus lire:
Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur;
Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire;
Il semble qu’un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.
N’écris pas!
N’écris pas. Je te crains; j’ai peur de ma mémoire;
Elle a gardé ta voix qui m’appelle souvent.
Ne montre pas l’eau vive à qui ne peut la boire.
Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.
N’écris pas!
N’écris pas ces doux mots que je n’ose plus lire:
Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur;
Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire;
Il semble qu’un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.
N’écris pas!
A Yarn
A Yarn
unknit me—all those
strange, small, intricate stitches—
unknit me—
to the very first
row, so only the
original knot remains…
then
Let us start again
Hobson’s Choice
This poem is about that place where you just cannot win in a relationship…if you do not speak, you allow the person to harm them-self with selfish actions and attitudes…but if you do speak, they will be hurt by the hard truth that they have been awful pills…
My partner just went thru one of these…
Hobson’s Choice
Speaking never says what hearts are crying
Mouths cannot explain the bloody truth
Thoughts forbidden breaking, blasting, flying
Diving after foolishness of youth.
Actions done but done with such politeness
Explanations stacked up like cord wood
Other deeds committed in rich rashness
Raging in the tempests of no good.
What’s greater wrong, the rudest indiscretion
the revelation of a hungry heart
or blank indifferent lack of comprehension
of any wrong or false step or misstart.
i do not know, i do not see, no i do not
have any good in me, no i do not.
To speak is to confront and thus to lose out
but silence is to choke a spirit’s shout.
The Whore We Am
I recently posted the first part of the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, and we left off with our heroine/victim/criminal face down in the dirt, and Jesus…you know the Guy…the only One without sin, and thus the one person who by right could cast the first stone…that guy. He was knelt in the dirt beside her and gently shaking her, rousing her from her stupor of broken, desperate despair and empty lonely barrenness.
He asked her where were her accusers? And when it finally penetrated her paralyzed mind, she hurriedly gave a harried look around, and saw…
……….no one……except the One who was without sin.
Jesus smiled, and I am totally certain that His eyes glistened with the tears of compassion and love for her…I am sure that He identified with and empathized with her pain and sorrow and desperation…after all, He knew that He would be accused of being a “religious whore” and “caught in the act”, and He knew the pain He would endure, all so we could be in the dirt before Him as the woman was, naked and ashamed…
….and unaccused!
She looked back to Him, and He asked her “Did even one of them accuse you?” And she mumbled, barely audibly, “No”.
And He sat awhile, writing…have you ever wondered what He wrote? I think He was writing her name, and that He loved her.
But after a bit, He told her “Then neither do I accuse you. Go your way…and sin no more.”
And that was that.
Now…flash forward a bit, to an important dinner at the home of a wealthy religious leader who threw a dinner party in the attempt to win favor with Jesus, and standing in his own social circle. They were at the table, eating…
…and suddenly there was an intruder who broke in, and rushed to the feet of Jesus and threw herself down at His feet…
…weeping…
…sobbing…
…and she unbound her hair and cried on his feet, murmuring under her breath nearly incomprehensibly (I think it was “thank you” over and over again). She got his feet completely wet with her tears, and then used her unbound hair to dry them off…all over…completely.
The leader was highly offended. He knew this woman…she was the town whore, and he had heard rumors that she had even been caught in the very act!! He hated her for intruding into his house, and for interrupting the dinner party. And he was also beginning to despise Jesus, feel contempt for him, because he was supposed to be a prophet, and if he were, he would know just what manner of evil was touching him.
But Jesus did know…who she was, and what the leader was thinking…
So He asked a question of the leader…
…”Suppose there are 2 people, and one owes $10.00, and one owes $1,000,000.00? Suppose that neither one has the means to pay, and then further suppose that the one who is owed decides to forgive each one’s debt. Now…which of the 2 people will love the man who forgave the debt more?”
The leader was so caught up in his offense that he totally missed the flinty gleam in Jesus’s eyes…and he roughly and blithely answered, “Oh, I suppose the one who was forgiven the million.”
BAM! Fish on!! Jesus then gently but sternly rebuked this man, reminding him that the man had not washed His feet, or shown any kind of gratitude to Jesus, but rather had sought to enhance his own social standing, while this woman had washed His feet with her very tears and dried them with her hair…
And He ended with this: he who is forgiven much, loves much…and he who is forgiven little loves little.
Now…we are all forgiven much…but we are also blind to that, and it takes a work of grace to perceive just how much we are truly forgiven for…
Grant us the grace to see how great our debt, that we can then be set free to love even more than we owe.
My Heart a Book of Love
My Heart a Book of Love
A book of love, composed by stilted hand
And tongue, stilled by True Beauty’s Blessed Face
Ah! Crippled yet compelled to rise, to stand
And take my heart and blood and make my case.
But ’twere ink blood, and tongue a fearsome sword
I’d be dry, drained before I’d scarce begun
To transcribe my desire and cut the cord
That binds my soul to earth’s dark woeful run.
A thousand swains, a thousand thousand more
Slain by this tongue become the sword of love
Would give but just a drop of ink, no more
The blood of every poet’s not enough!
Doomed if I write, doomed if I do not write!
Ah Blessed Doom! I yield to your sweet Light.
The Woman Caught in Adultery
I am thinking this morning of a woman who lived long ago…a woman caught in adultery.
In the very act.
She was dragged by her hair thru the streets, naked, weeping, screaming.
By men of so called righteous character and religious standing (not a lot has changed there over the years, the white-washed tombs!).
She was thrown at the feet of the One person on the planet who had the power over sin, but not as an offering, not to be healed…but as bait.
Objectified and made the personification of their own lust and self-loathing, they sought to use her to trap Him into an act of evil, an act that would join him into their religious system of oppression and abuse and control.
They threw the law into His face, like a handful of glass shards and demanded that He rule regarding the consequences for her.
She lay in the dust, face down, and tried to die inside on the spot…willing herself to non-being but only achieving that wretched state of being filled with her failure to the brim and overflowing…her brokenness, her loneliness, her rejection, her bruises all raised their voices in a cacophony of rage against the fact that she dared desire something better and more than what she had…and what she didn’t have.
Then, she tasted the dirt with her tongue, and realized that dirt tasted better than life and she gave herself to oblivion…
But He just sat there and stared at the monsters who, bloated and puffed up with rage and hatred and religious pride strutted around like erect raping cocks seeking any orifice that they could ravage and leave their caustic acid behind rendering each place barren.
His eyes saw…SAW…and then He turned to the dust and started writing in the dust with a finger.
Oh finger of God you write in our dust daily, you redeem our days with your touch, you humble yourself and draw near to us in our pique, our pride, our hurt and lonely lies!
The monsters were silent, and then again clamoured for a ruling…
His famous words…Let He who is without sin cast the first stone.
We have thrown that phrase at each other in self-justification for our own selfishness, thinking we can hide behind it to do what we want since everyone else has fallen short…
But what He was really doing was claiming the right that is His by LAW! He was telling these mind f***ers, these heart rapers to get the f*** away, because He was there…the one without sin…and it was HIS RIGHT, HIS PLACE…to cast the first stone.
And then He was silent again…and wrote…
He writes today in the dirt of my heart, in the dust of the floor of my lonely and bereft spirit as I lay and eat dirt and seek oblivion, seek escape from my prison of days…
The monsters got bored…no pain to eat, no life to suck, no hearts to rend…until it was just her in the dirt, naked…bruised and torn…a hot mess of despair.
And then He touched her shoulder, with a hand that would later be rent, His heart already rent for her and flowing to her, and He got her attention and asked her where were her accusers? Where?
She didn’t even know He was there, they were not there…she didn’t even know SHE was there, or where there WAS…
But she looked up and saw him, and nothing else…
If you want to know the end of her story, keep reading here…
But for now, understand this: Redemption is real. It comes from Love, and love comes from the one who writes in the dust, and has since time began.
No Roadmaps Now
One last post for now
No Roadmaps Now
You are going the same place
you always were. We are…
all of us going there.
Blows rain down in cloudburst clamour
We are nails…we get pounded.
“God pounds his nails” the character said.
But it’s in your face now
It is in your gut, gripping and gnawing
Who will you listen to now? The fear? The pain?
Their song is always the same…threats, mocking laffs
Rinse repeat, booga booga boo!
Their voices have no power but what you loan them!
And you need all your power to yourself. Dare you empower yourself?
Dare you look past the prejudices, the religious fig leaves, the uncertain awkward fears
of the many who swim on the surface? Their lack does not change the available!!
Look not inside, for there you see
the dandelions…harmless in appearance, but the slightest puff
and they spread thru you…and clone themselves
Until you are no longer a rose but one big dandelion.
Look not around to others…they are faithfully what they are…UNABLE.
you have no roadmap, you have no footsteps to follow
But you DO have a COMPASS…a SEXTON…
Instruments of old to navigate by Unseen and Signifiers.
You have a sigil…but it is called FAITH
So get you up in the morning…sing
Wash your face. Sing
Choose your life today…Sing
Control what you can, and all else hits the umbrella of SING.
Blaze me a trail baby…for I am on the same path.
My body doesn’t know it yet.
And along the way I will catch up to you
We will walk together, hand in hand into that night…
but fear not, cus I know the One who has overcome that night
and walks in Day forever
Call out! There is no roadmap baby
Follow your heart…walk on the water!
What is there to lose?
Only fear and pain.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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