On Seas So Grey | Charissa’s Grace Notes

A couple of years ago…and utterly slipped from my mind, but oh how I remember it now…what a beautiful word, Re-member…
What’s it like, on the grey seas
in the silver wind, with sails
so green and full and billowing?

Skimming swift and dangerous, light
on the waters while the crew scrambles
‘neath that Captain loud and bellowing?

Stinging spray by facefuls founting
up from waves slosh-frothing, faithful
and fateful leading cross the edge

to horizons promising much more
of the same and something different,
something different, too.

Source: On Seas So Grey | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Nepenthe

here in the neck,
in the in-between
the glass on top
and the globe
on the bottom
amidst the slide
of sand but where
it bottlenecks up
in the illusion
of steady and still
blissfully pretending
that it is not
trickling

grain
by
grain
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I try to figure out
what’s going on
out there beyond,
on the other side
of the impassable wall.

Here among the ruins
of ancient times and places
I pick the flowers that grow
merry and brief and oblivious
to the faded splendour hinted
in the wreckage of time’s passing

grain
by
grain
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are the flowers
the same as the sands
(I wonder this),
do they know they will also
become ruins?

Or do they know some
secret, have they some
nepenthe,
some salve,
some balmy medicine
for sorrow to aid in forgetting
pain and suffering?
tumblr_o5scz9eI7i1trdezwo1_1280
i pick flowers
among the ruins
and long grief
is an altar hungry
for expiations that
are never enough
and yet still offered

grain
by
grain
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Marking Time

i’ve been marking time since day one
day by day by day by day by day
and for each spin around the sun
i carve a line within

i haven’t figured it all out,
not quite, not yet, not all
whether those lines mark the way
out of these bars or just pass the days

but now they are my act of faith,
my memorials stark and blue
and some day i’ll slip between them
or simply pass thru to you

i am marking time, my countdown to you

This Morning’s Purple Fog

this morning’s purple fog
slapped my cheeks hard
when I left the house
they were rosy red and pink
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but now?
deep purple–
bluish violet blush–
heliotrope-tinged–
by the purple fog.

it shocked me
with its iridescence
and made me
bite my lip to stifle
exclamation, exhalation
of purple mist breathed in
thru my clenched teeth
and open heart.
tumblr_nwzdfvw49s1r6ofmpo1_1280
and now?
with my mouth so bloody
so torn and pierced,
I seek to write and lips
my pen and paper yes,

I write with
my bloody lips
and scribe with
my bloody mouth
714ce32f2685b3cdb1b7f135245d7c53
as the bloody breath
of the winter-sotted earth
rises from those
spring-dreaming dirt clotted lungs

and slaps
my cheeks hard…again
with this morning’s purple fog.
fc97602e980e0369a19920d83b5a6ded

Lavender Singing Borealis Heart

I sat down in lavender fields last summer.
I sat in the sun in the southlands of France.
The wind tossed my hair playfully in its tenderness
made it lift, gleeful delightedly laugh and dance
with fragile soft petals of swift amethyst
and quick to return to the baking brown earth.
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I stood in the icefields surrounded by cold trees
and singing to stars in the High Northland woods.
The wind threw the lavender into the skies above,
dancing on stars and singing in the spaces that
stretch between stars in eternity there and here
just before it fell back into my heart.
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My heart,
my lavender singing
Borealis Heart

I Am A Cello

I am a cello
alone in my beauty
inhabiting curves

like mountains inhabit
the space all around
so bright, luminous

and longing for hands
and legs all around
and the touch of fingers

on my strings tuned just so
like winds on the faces
of those shining ramparts

of stone, ice and lichen
that fall to the earth
in splashes of granite

and music like lava
slowed down by indifference
but still singing loudly

under the rainbow
across those tuned strings
and across my heart

for I am a cello

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On Mountain’s Face

Across its face the river ran
all liquid grey and velvet-slate,
fell down the cheek of hanging cliff,
around the lakey eyes of blue…
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And out the other end it flew,
soft down on downy breasts of green,
thru meadows and thru softest thatch…
The river gathered fertile force

and ran down legs, insistent as
the wind that pushes clouds around
the world in days, it poured out fast,
it ran down mountain shins…at last
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it reached the heart of deepest seas.
It reached the inmost core of me.
It fed me with its journey-feast
and quenched my thirst to be set free…
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And then I my me offered up
beneath the summons of the sun
to become clouds pushed round the world…
And then, on mountains, me unfurled…

To fall and feed with heaven’s grace
And run again on mountain’s face.
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Amidst My Thoughts Of You

I wake in the morning and wander
through the house in my skin
and in the warmth of thoughts of you

even though you are far away
and across that gulf
you won’t cross, won’t cross
my cross and yours

my coffee warms my mouth
my thoughts of you warm
my heart, flush my skin, touch
my soul with anemone filaments
and fires and goosebump caresses

here in the morning
wandering in the warmth
amidst my thoughts of you
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If It Were Not

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

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

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

(the one I didn’t know I wore)

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

What would longing be
if it were not?
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A Morning Phase

It’s a Morning Phase I’m in here,
walking in fogs and mists
thru familiar places long past
and gone but glimmering…

hinting,
haunting,
high above
in shrouded skies
wrapped in what?

Funereal splendour?
Swaddling clothes?
I can’t tell which
but then again
does it really
matter?tumblr_nx3vvj8fiS1simprco1_400They signify
the same.
And I pass
along the path
tumblr_nv9g3546sE1sfm44so1_1280dirt crunching
scrunching under
my trodding feet,
my padding feet
my tramping feet

looking for home

it’s a
Morning
Phase
I’m
in.
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A Song For Autumn Without Music

Could I leave the bright waves
and take to the blue skies?
Could I leave my cold skin
and sail into your eyes?

Is the moon high above
just reflecting to me
all the love that you hold
in your heart?

If the leaves on the trees
can turn red, yellow, gold
why can’t I find a heart
that will tenderly hold

my body, my spirit,
my mind and my soul
while the tale of my true
love is told?

Mount up!  Mount up!
Take courage on the wind!
Lift your sails up like hands on the waters!

Rise up!  Rise up!
Leave the surface behind
Let your bow of your ship carve the clouds on your way!

I will sail all the seas
I will follow the stars
I will listen behind the beauty
beyond what mars

And someday I shall come
to my sea-harbour home
I will finally rest
deep in you.

Yes I will finally rest
deep in you.

I Wear Your Blood With Honor

i gladly lay beneath you
i wear your blood with honor
it glistens on my white skin
like moonlight on the water

just lay me down here easy
and let your choice flow o’er me
i wear your blood with honor
like scars of precious battles

and every drop, it burns me
tattoos and marks forever
i wear your blood with honor
and ever me your banner

upon the leaping windsong
i wear your blood with honor
upon my face, my soft skin
i wear your blood like medals

This Water, Cloudy

No…the water
is not dirty
or polluted or
even stagnant.

It’s just cloudy,
this water, cloudy.

It was clear and warm,
luxuriant and lazy
but quick-like, to pull you
in and then lay you
down easy and gentle
and snug.

But you
never came in
so my desire,
that unknown
cloud unknowing
leaked out,
just trickled away
around me

until the pool
was cloudy
and thick
with my
longing want.

 

Between Me And The Fire

there is always something
some thing that stands
between me and the fire
and casts a shadow that lies
on my face, a caul, a veiltumblr_mdicq83JjD1qfllfmo1_500it’s been called mask
and I bat at it, swat at it
the ninja master of
when you walk face-first
into spiderwebs
you never saw

but flail to no avail
to claw away this veil
(the caul)

me and my desire
(the fire)
and the thing
(whatever fits)
between me and the fire
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me and body
me and love
me and longing

i cannot get to it
(the fire)
so i can dive into it
(and burn and burn and)

so instead i move sideways
around the thing and to the water
that waits for me placid, peaceful
yielding inviting thirsty
for metumblr_nvi0baXuRN1trdezwo1_400it will drink of me
it will be one with me
it will give me itself for my body
it will marry me
(not just the idea of me)

and the flowers will sing
(they float)
and my dress shall dissolve
and my veil shall away

so that my breath
and my body
and the water
at last
become
one

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To You Some Where

above the lavender i float
on scents of honey and promises of wine
i drift on hints to come and possibility
and lean in against the hard insistent
currents dragging against my wings
pulling me always to the sea
while i strain to the mountains
and the flowers there

i fly to you somewhere
i fly to you

100 Times

I’ve been thinking about
repetition and returns
and things you get
to do all over.

Heart beats
breaths
sleeping
waking
thousands, maybe
even millions
of times?

Watching seasons change
Solstices turning
Great storms breaking
Epic bike rides
and train trips
down the perfect
silver tracks gleaming
like a brilliant arrow
shot into the golden
distant beckoning horizon.

Christmases
Thanksgivings
Birthdays
vintages of wine
harvests

You might get
100 trips
around the sun
if you are lucky

if you are lucky

100 times

and we treat
each trip
like it’s a heartbeat
or a breath
or a short night’s sleep
when it’s really
that train trip
down the silver tracks
into the golden end

100 trips, alas
100 trips, oh glory
100 trips so gladtumblr_nmp3is7zVY1r4pkz0o1_500

That Moment Boundless

It’s when the grey wind
blows warm across
cinereal waters and
picks up pearly moist brushes
to push ashen stiff clouds
outta shape against cerulean canvas
of sky and space

It’s when dark grasses
and yearning branches
and leaves and needles
moan in jealous longing for
the fingers of that grey whistling
wind tasting of granite and glacier,
slow flows and sunlight
and dappled fruit quick
and sudden

It’s when I sit on the porch
and think of those times and spaces
and I remember your faces and my own
grasses and branches
and leaves and needles
stand on end stiff and electric
to catch anything…anything
blowing across my waves
in the grey wind

The Poem You Write

It’s in the spaces between the words,
in the moments you do not do,
it hides in the silent sound of what you say
*that would be what you utter not*

When I describe it, it twists a bit
and stands akimbo and aloof
and sings of itself above your ears
it’s there…the poem you write yourself.

To set your pen to page and speak
your “Let There Be”, it gives a shape
but that leaves so much shaped behind
*the space your body takes in water*

when you dive in and swim, and the space moves and disappears

Tomorrow I will write again
and let the vision in my pen
pull apples from the very air
and sprinkle heaven in your hair

but today, it’s the poem you write
in what you don’t say, don’t do, that kite
invisible and flying high…
your poem surrounds my heavy sigh
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Shadows and Silences

you consign me to shadows and silences
when you look away from wonder
when you sit and ignore joy
when you know what you don’t know

you put me behind panes
separate even though somewhat visible
I can see them there in front of me
by the dew of the morning fresh

you will always think you have measured me
but you have never really bothered
you dodge every questing tentative hello
and your twisting just says goodbye

but light is a funny thing, it changes
when you think it’s rays, it is drops
and when you see drops it is beams
light is never shining as it seems

you know i will sit here, still
because I do not go away
but I hunger in shadows and silences
just stuck here by your faint halfway
Image 006

In Arpeggio Miles

Prelude:
There is an indigo bunting
outside my window singing
in the moonlight streaming by
a million miles an hour.
But it is not the window
on my mind tonight…
I keep returning to that door,
the one between you and me.

Fumes of light stream from my soul
and ribbons of sound rise from my heart.
I glow with purpose and echo with meaning
and love descends so soft upon my shoulders

and kisses my brow
with lips of apple red
that grace the inmost curve
of the coming sun arising.tumblr_npj2lfAzvL1qz62xqo1_1280One:
Some people drown in the darkness of the night,
some people drown in the waters of the lake,
some people drown in the creamy golden moonlight…

*sob*

I drown in you, your heart my anchor
pulling me down to the depths of you,
to the bottom of you but never finding it,
the bottom

in this
ecstasy of sinking
into you.

You…you…
Luminescent and Limerent and I know
in my depths the outside is temporary.

Your fatal gift, the fatal gift of beauty
was revealed when the Redwing Blackbird
stopped by our house tonite,

and perched on her throne there
in the blue spruce tree grey in the night
at the center of the grey green wood all around.

She dignified
our proceedings with her song,
and all was well.tumblr_nm25jtSBHh1szbceio1_1280Two:
Beyond, on your side of that door
the moon tickles the lake
with her golden liquid fingertips
languid in the soft night
and sounding of rivers of song
that soar between stars,
that pour between galaxies

*in arpeggio miles*

that take not light years
but move in sound centuries
that stop time and make the past
and the future stand off
and stand still in awe
of these fabled musical moments
that fold time in deep space.
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The moon is loyal always,
but only to herself.
She comes and goes…
She is always there,
watching, steadfast
and knowing us in
our light and dark moments,
She wavers with us as we wax
and wane…
She knows what it means
to be on display and assaulted
by meteors in the night.

Three:
I buried her nose
(the nose of the moon)
in my hair,

(my hair, rampant and unpinned, on the loose,
set free from the usual noose of clippie or headband,
untamed and untameable but always laying back
and down for you, your palms, your fingertips
in those tresses thick and fine, golden-shine
and dusky red overlaying and singing
of my inner pulsing red wet passion)

she drinking in/thirsting for me here
and my perfumes in dim rose-tinged light,
and there we danced upon the air,
hanging in the space between there and here,
and I felt the tips of my breasts swell and tighten,
come to focus and awareness, the smoothness of my belly
and my thighs clenching on hers and meshing tight,
an intricate creation of vaporous mist and lightning
of rain and dust, of desire and aching, groaning must.

And we two, in our separate skins
but sharing those common vital organs of us,
face to face and flying in freedom
to discover each other’s universe
and thus enter in and live this love adventure
full of risk and promise.

We lay together, in my mind, we lay together
in the full of night while others drowse unawares
in the halfway darkness of night’s deep sable, washed out
with screaming electric light.tumblr_npdx52lbec1tw8mtoo2_r3_500

Four:
The moon pries at the ripples and the lake stirs into waves
under her touch and inhales swift in desire and exhales
in winds of want, and her lakey answering song of delight
rises from those moundy wet humps of her body
against the rocks, and onto sandy beaches

It’s the song of lovers lost and longing.
It’s the song heard only by hearts that listen.
It’s the music of the stars writ in the moment
in dancing waters by calligraphic moonlight rays
extending from forever and into never ending
and never ceasing until those waters answer
with sweet frothy songs and foamy longing harmonies
sweet and sibilant whispers against the dry and thirsty sands…

and then at last, in gurgly gasps,
her answer of longing for the moon
rising and falling and caught
by the moon’s grip,
mesmerized by her gravity.
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Five:
The wind’s soft palms caress my face tonight,
her tender tendrils pluck my tresses,
kiss my cheeks rosy and peachy-soft and me here,
beside the stirring lake and beneath
the ministrations of the moon
inside the heart of the naked night
and lost in starry reaches over galaxy beaches
strewn over the vast expanse of nothing.

*and yet it is
never really nothing,
is it? nothing
doesn’t really exist…
because something!

Something!
And all else
is not that
and thus is
Something else,
and nothing is
dispelled…
and this is
why this song,
why this light
and the water
and the sound…
why the you
and the me
is a something,
an us, and
not a nothing,
not loss.*tumblr_mksatpyfwr1r5fwoio1_540

Six:
I stir and shift, as the waters in the bathtub
lose heat and their ardor is dampened
in the thirsty soft night air sneaking in
thru the cracked window, brushing against
the curtains you made me in
the 7th winter of our vast contents.

I run my hands over my hills (yours)
and they dive into valleys (yours)
like fog banks rolling in for the week,
beneath the surface of my bath (this lake)
and you so far away

I am still yours and yours alone love…
well, and the moon and the lake
and the stars in the night…
I am theirs too, but as they lead to you,
what’s that really matter?

My fingers dance lightly into my lake, across my folds,
they pry like moonlight into my depths,
probe like starlight into my galaxy cores that stand,
eternity’s target for time’s arrows of light
shot from the bows of longing…3513680_orig

longing for you, always
you across the sands of time
vast like beaches,
small ‘neath reaches
of stars and space
and become as nothing
when I summon to my mind
your face…your face…
your curve and swell
and moans escape my lips,
and such tales those moans do tell
but they speak only in tongues
not of men but angels
and sound bells sweetly
between the lips of time
and there again,
I gush like rivers
I am yours,
I am thine…
OH…

thine alone
thine alone
thine alone
thine alone
thine alone…

and all the symphony
of us escapes my lips
in sighs and whispers
of your sacred name
and in the air above
my parted lips
and just outside
my lowered fluttering lids.

Our song hangs there
over my yearning face
as sung by me
in solo sotto voce
so softly in
the slick and velvet night
and tender touch
of golden glad moonlight.

It swims above
my longing heart so red
across the distance
indigo that stretches
until it finds you, there,
until it touches
you in just the same
way it just took me
and you enter into
our Holy Us,
our Glory Be…

Seven:
But now the winds subside and waters have cooled
and night recedes, sucked back into the stars
from which it oozed in hungry sweet washes

and time looks on, time resumes, time takes back
its rightful place around me, in huffy shrugs and jerky yanks
of garments back in place…and jeans just so

and nothing is what remains of moments long unceasing
except the footprints of the moon across the surface of the lake
and brushes of their dance on sands

in footprints keeping time locked firmly in its place
and held in check between the stars, behind the shining moments
of the galaxies showing off, immune

*to time’s inoculations.*

But water graces my bare shoulders,
drops of starlight linger in my hair
and our song dances in my eyes and lives

in my heart and you
always, always always
are only here

and questions are at peace now,
and answers? They are known,
like long locked rooms in an old familiar house

where each creak and groan
is recognized in darkness
as the sighs of a familiar

faithful friend and lover
in a language that the heart alone
comprehends.
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Eight:
The mind lacks understanding and I am standing,
under, under moon and stars in something, here.
I spin on my axis and show you my other face
for we all like the moon, we have 2 faces,
and we also like the moon keep our best side facing out…

but is that side the one most real, or even best?
And so I turn and hear the creaking of the turning on my axis
to face you with my other face, the dark side of my moon me
and the light has come to set me free and time is there
and is of no meaning, not anymore, not ever.

(It’s become
nothing which exists
not, never, no more.)tumblr_np6lnxVe2O1sg9acoo1_1280

Finale:
Wallace Stevens said
“sometimes the truth depends upon a walk around the lake.”
but I know different, I know the sojourn that I take
to walk on waters is to know the place
where truth is held, in love’s own heart of grace.

So let’s not hurry home tonight, let’s linger, here,
in hammocks under diamond slick black sky.
The stars they are on fire tonight so high
above us, I think someone could go check,
see how they shine, how they shine, OH.

And the miles are present too, they are
like an overly unctuous waiter eager for a tip,
hovering between us, connecting your there with my here
and taking the lone from the a,
we are connected in what is called

the distance, but there is a shortcut, dear
it’s my heart, feel right there
see it shine (like stars) for all it’s worth
and more, so close, so near
and travelling forever in arpeggio miles.tumblr_njqb6a8kks1r3fkjno1_1280

 

Under

The trail bent left
and then came right
under the rain that fell
under the clouds that hugged
under the sky so blue
under the sun that shone
under the dark of space
under the Rose and the Throne.

I looked up
and I saw what I heard
under the birds that sang
under the trees that played
under the wind that kissed
under the scent of Grace
under the Joy like lace.

The water fall
fell to the rocks
there below the spray
under the water cool
under the sparkly jewels
under the rainbow hung
under the peaceful hum.

I had to kiss
that Stone that sang
under the falls that hang
under the chasms vast
under my lonely past
under Their Eyes True and Kind
under Their Glory Shine.

So I waded in
under the shocking flow
under waters I go
kissing the stone so true
under my thoughts of you
under my thoughts of you
always…my thoughts of you
under.

One Year Ago

We were connected and vital, and love flowed
we were enough for our lack and love covered all
we heard our hearts speak louder than hate
and louder than failure and laughed in the night
and tender was our time, we thought would last

forever.

“‘They never built these places with winter in mind’
Out the window down the gray road
You can see old walled monastery
Now become a barracks for the paramilitary police”

The Far Side of Finding

When you look for something, you will never find it.
See, things move around, pushed hither and yon
by the pressure of searching eyes leaning against them,
straining eyes longing to wrap them in desire,
so they squirt thru our eye fingers slippery like fish
squirting thru the billowy tentacles of a hungry octopus. tumblr_ni2tj8ZQ041tbb5qdo1_1280

And it’s sad, because you aren’t really looking for that thing.
No, what you groan for is that space, that yearning hollow place
in between the thing and your thoughts
in between that maelstrom between your ears
and the tableau between your fingers
which are sticky and messy and covered in paint.tumblr_mkfn6dAZET1s31miko1_500You’re looking for yourself, or rather the answer
bouncing back to you from another heart
instead of off of another…what?  No, another who.
Because we live just this side of that fit, that meld,
And when we set off searching we end up over there…
on the far side of finding and still oh so hungry.tumblr_nkwuaaAxGD1rbbwv5o1_1280

This Brilliant Indifference

tumblr_nh5lyiZ6JT1qgk7mfo1_500I am a childe of dark, a childe of light.

I was born beneath the shining moon
but just outside it’s golden touch
there, on dim green meadows blanketing
the warm red earth in comfort midst the singing dark and stars.

I was born upon the stones that radiate residual heat
as they remember blazing suns so brilliant beneath that blue sky
that blankets those same meadows green and glorious in the day
but now those stones lay bare in the cold night, as I am bare as well, uncovered.

I was born in darkness, and outside
looking in upon the singing stars
hung in night sky velvet-soft and sable
surrounded by splendors from some lost fable.tumblr_mhw41fyY9F1s3ik60o1_500

Outside.

I was born outside the secret knowledge that every other person seems to have
of just how goddam dull and ordinary everything around them “really is”.  I mean
just look at them, shining so brilliant each day and acting like it’s only night!  I see
their flaming hearts a-fire and blazing but they just trudge by feeling bored, uptight.

I watch events unfold and want to sing in joy and caper!
But when I open up my heart and shout and point in wonder…
well, those fish eyes turn and stare and those mouths gape and mock, hung open
and I am named too much, inglorious and out of order…out of order…out of order.tumblr_n8rdf9rMDR1sbg1lmo1_1280

Childe dwelling in the swelling dark of gloomy bored indifference
Childe dwelling midst the dazzle vast and glory of a day

(just One Day that unfolds brand new
over and over and over and over and over
Full, expressed complete miraculous
in every single same lily white
in every single same bird flight
in every single whispering wind
that echoes ever over the same ever different waters bright)expansion-by-paige-bradley

I am a companion with no company to keep because I’m
elated and afraid,
curious and fearful,
confused and wide awake
and seeing all around me
the marvels that they fail to see

(or rather, what they see and call the same?
the same ole same ole same ole same ole same
and let the repetition rob them of the vision
and leave them drunk and sober but
out of proper phase for when intoxication
is called for in this moment and when sobriety is come
to sing us back at last to proper sanity).tumblr_nh5isnxmlS1rk1cbbo1_1280

And on the cusp of Dark and Light I’m homeless in the day, the night,
homeless and repudiating that blank stupor of disinterest
that surrounds me…tries to drown me, pull me in it’s vicious grip
and trap me in its undertow of

violence unfolding
suffering repeated
oppression and injustice
become mere background noise
to serenade those bored yawns
and sighs of such indifference
that boredom has become
a way of life.

Out of phase (childe of dark)
and out of synch (childe of glad day)
delighting in monotony…
another walk beneath beauty…
another page before I sleep…
do it again! do it again, God!
another minute sharing hearts
because our moment is delight
alas…this childe born but belonging
not to day and not to night.tumblr_naka9qSUsT1thqgeao1_1280

 

A Palate Discarded

I am without any poetic elegance.
using words like paints,
with my St Vincent’s Heart
and Random Jackson’s Hands,
one ear gone
snatched by That sword.

I long to make
something beautiful
because I am something not…
beautiful.
I long to create
things warm and worthwhile,
glowing valuable inside
because I am not,
valuable.
I just manage
to echo value,
remind of Light
in my weak and futile
fading flicker.tumblr_mzmyeelf5Y1qzskcyo1_1280Oh!
I think I know now…
I’m a palate,
daubs of paint!
Streaked, smeared chipped,
a mess of abilities and gifts
They dip into with brushes
bristly and disturbing.
They make paintings
and me in hand there…
well I guess that’s the closest
I will ever get to beauty…
until I am laid down
and They done painting

for now

and me there,
then discarded,
set aside and yearning
languishing, staring,
looking up at that painting pretty,
at that bending beauty
so near and yet so far,
so very far away.

Hey,
wouldn’t it be great
if there was
a gallery of palates
used and slathered
held and blathered
in mess and in creation,
the partner of an Artist
and co-mid wife of beauty?

That’s a hall
I might haunt,
a place where chaos
is considered
in the context
of the range of raw materials
present and poured out.tumblr_m0yeqdsEz91qafc06o1_500

Advent Poem: The Season of Loneliness

Unbidden,
moving like mist in mountains
slow and fast and slow and long,
and lingering, white laced in grey,
and crawling, clinging to ramparts
and ridges that stand
strong and stark and still
catch an occasional ray of sun
from outside…but dimming
as the sun retreats before
the darkness of the night
that rushes over everything
with recollections
haunting,
isolating,
obliterating
sight.

Unknown,
vaporous,
real but irresistible and arising from…
*moan*…
and meaning…
*sob*…

climbing,
clinging,
clutching
clouding out,
shutting out
shouting out
solid rock stable and holding hands
reeling, cavorting, swirling

Undoing,
settling down on everything
and growing quiet,
and gaining in gravity
and growing heavy,
and draining memory
of every drop of blood
until everything
is overwhelmed and overtaken
and surrounded in the silver
of the dull fogs of what once was
and alas will never ever be again.

Alone,
in fields, waiting,
staring at the skies
so clear and so occluded,
every loss hung there bright brilliant
on deep black skies never ending,
every sorrow there is twinkling,
every hurt is glowing blinking there
so merry, so unyielding,
I gaze upon my starry constellations
of great loss and ruination
marking time and pointing steady
so unchanging in this night…

Cold,
missing home,
missing that place (and time)
where all things hushed and gathered
noisy in a deafening din,
all collected, full, o’erflowing
from my tender heart within
the very center of the moment
in the Advent Season Present
bathed in wonderful quick joy.

Real,
that place then but lost now in my mind
(like ridges and ramparts now submerged).
The sheep rustle restless
and underneath their bleating
I hear the sound of bleeding
in the heart of living memory
of hearth and home now pierced
and rent and disappearing…
and I wait here,
lonely in this mist and overcome,
hunkered down but kissed and left so numb
as I recall the bliss of Christmas past
and have no hope of Merry Christmases
to dawn and to me come.

Winds,
well they exist,
and they do blow!
Cleansing from the North
and from the south they flow
in warmth and restoration,
dispelling every fog of gloom
and routing every hurtful memory
that ever happened.
I fix my gaze on that One Star,
that portent bright, surpassing
all the mocking, twinkling titters
of the past its reminders constant.

Here,
in the season of loneliness
my lonely Advent heart
echoes that loneliness that lingers
there inside the heart of God
and so we yearn, together, aching
in the lonely moments waiting
perfect timing of those winds
to blow away the mists
and let that mountain shine again
in solid clarity and splendour promises
that someday the Divine Loneliness
and human grieving longing
will be overcome by
Faith and Hope and Love.

Grace,
and peace,
in the season of loneliness,
Love, Charissa

tumblr_ncjmcsAsi01tw2qkpo1_400

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.

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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.

tumblr_neoit1Qs1k1s2z59jo1_500

at 4:20

it’s ironic,
what the clock says
shouting and inexorable
without words.
the dazed and hazed
love that time…4:20.
i don’t know why,
the stuff they love
is just substance of illusions
in smoky vaporous air.

I’ve been up since 2:40,
and all I can think of is
how shuffling numbers
is so easy, and
everyone calls it different…

but that seltzer?
the one on the table,
left from last nite’s
waiting out the number changes
until it was time
to lay in bed awhile and
exercise my blinking muscles?
well, it’s still there,
and flat.

in the back hall i discovered
that my bike’s rear tire
was flat too,
so i repaired it,
examining inner tube,
looking for holes and patching
in that rough and sticky moment
of sandpaper and glue.

i think about you.

and i think about
the patches on my soul,
it’s unwieldy surface
littered with those bumps
and orange edges and
scratched surfaces from
the methods needed to
make the fix stick…

and it’s still serviceable,
i guess, but i will need
a new one soon.
easy enough, just
buy one with money…
right?
this one is still inflatable,
still pushes out tread
and fills sidewalls and
rolls on the road miles and miles
over rocks and nails
and miles…

but rides,
exhilarating or sweaty
eventually end up
in the back hall,
in the moment called 4:20

(or 2:40, or anything, pick a number
it’ll flip over and come up illusion)

and like that seltzer half finished,
set aside because
(it couldn’t touch that thirst)
it’s flat.

i edited my blog some,
worked on some drafts of
poems that were bumpy and rough,
and found their song in the midst
and that made me cry,
seeing them unknot and unknit
and breathe again, no holes
save that one which they sing out of.

god, what if
life was a great
wordpress
platform,
what if we
could open up
our editor and go back,
rewrite those
lines that went awry
unknot those
songs that choked,
patch those
rash tires flat,
share those
seltzers half drunk,
toasting ennui til every
drop was drained
and finished.

what if we could.

did i forget to mention
how i ran my fingers
round the inside of that tire
worn and used to be sure
what pierced it
was gone or removed?

(if you don’t do this you will just die on the same nail over and over)

anyway, i snagged them
bloody on glass
and screaming silent at 4:20.
but I got the culprit,
at least that one will
do none harm ever again,
that one will not
trouble the rough and bumpy
old patched tube.

so i got that going for me.

i hear those numbers
changing in the deafness
set upon us by the great sunder.
i think about my fingers
torn inside the tire
by the glass
and I think about my life,
a tire pierced and worn
over and again by glass,
by wire, by nail
and branch and bramble
and haunted by this
old and rough bumpy
tube patched and patched
and patched and…
yeah.

i got blood on my keyboard
from that glass that
cut me.

i think it got onto this poem, too.

i think it stains, it colors
all things, i think
i view the world thru blood-stained glasses.

and then i think about
you again
and I blink my
eyes wet again
and i wait for
another day,
another ride,
another changing of the
numbers that all might as well be

4:20

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