Tag Archives: Loss

My Only Way Out Today: an Anti-Poem | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Shudder.  SHUDDER.  SHUDDER!!!!!  This was written moments before that event, that seminal event that was the deepest violation, betrayal, and opportunity all rolled into one.  I forgive the ones who did this seminal penetration…but I will never ever be around them, ever again.

**********

“Pray that I hit the hole
when I am hurled violently,

that I roll like cats
and land soft on paddy feet,
that I swim like otters free
and surf like Icarus of the sea
and waterproof

i dangle now
stuck in and out
and bleeding
upside down
and reeling
eyes throbbing red
red red red darktoday will be a birth
or an abortion
a hand or
a sharp knife
and liberty
or lambasting
and sentenced
to Kafka penitentiary”

Source: My Only Way Out Today: an Anti-Poem | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Things Trump-Supporting Christians Can Pray About In Church This Sunday

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Another great challenge to Christians who are still convinced that ttaf is a servant of God.

To argue that, you have to argue that whoever and whatever is a servant of God, because God uses all things…which is ridiculous.

ttaf is no more God’s servant than Hitler was…and yet we know that God will triumph, even over the deception that those who take Their Name in vain are currently mired.

“And yes, pray about this President.

“Ask God specifically how his life and body of work align with the Jesus you’ve known all your life; the one you find hope and joy in, the one you read about in the Gospels, the one whose voice you recognize as peacemaker, forgiver, lover, healer, helper.

“Ask God if his vile words about women, his cruelty toward those suffering, his vicious social media tirades, his neglect of hurricane victims, his siphoning of funding from public school students and healthcare from cancer patients—if any of it feels at all like the Jesus who talked of loving the least, of caring for the poor, of loving their neighbors as they love God, of the last being first, of the righteous turning their cheeks, of the meek inheriting the earth, of the good Samaritan showing mercy.

“Ask Jesus if this President is someone worth a follower of Christ emulating, celebrating, empowering, amen-ing—if he is someone living in that image.

“Ask Jesus about saying that the way we treat the lowest and the vulnerable is the way we treat him—and how this President is treating him.

“Ask Jesus what the world is learning about his heart for the world, his character, his compassion, his gentleness by the man you elevated to our highest human platform.

“Ask Jesus about the kind of world he was trying to usher in when his feet were on the planet—and how this President is doing anything to make it a reality in these days.

“And if you can walk out of that worship gathering into another Sunday afternoon, completely unchanged and without sensing the slightest conflict between Jesus Christ of Nazareth and Donald Trump of DC, and without a trace of discomfort at the disconnect between your inner convictions and his tangible actions—pray for yourself, because you have clearly lost the plot of the one who brought the world a Good News that is now completely inaudible in these days because of this man and because of a Church that refuses to stand against him.”

Source: Things Trump-Supporting Christians Can Pray About In Church This Sunday

Evangelical conservatives are proving their harshest critics right – The Washington Post

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I am linking to this article because I think it is absolutely crucial for every person of faith to understand that they are right now in the Valley of Decision, and must choose between Empire or The Kingdom of God…and the two could not be more different.

“Patriotism”, “Respecting the flag”, “supporting the military”…all of these things are now become code for “Support Empire America” in every way without question…even if it is in direct contradiction to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.

The famous verse to “Choose this day whom you will serve” is become a period of time, and how one chooses now will dictate whether or not one participates in Idolatry or True Religion (which is summarized nicely for us by the half-brother of Jesus in his epistle James).

Please consider the words and implications of this article very carefully.

*****

Robert P. Jones, author of “The End of White Christian America,” observes, “One of the most astounding shifts in modern politics has been the utter transformation of white evangelical Protestants from being confident self-described ‘values voters,’ who measured candidates for office against a high bar of moral character, to anxious and unwavering Trump supporters who have largely dropped these standards for a candidate they believe will deliver policies that benefit them.”

He explains that “white evangelicals have exchanged an ethic of principle that might hold a political leader accountable to consistent standards for a consequentialist ends-justify-the-means posture that simply stops interrogating character, the quality of leadership, or the morality of actions when it’s beneficial.”

Source: Evangelical conservatives are proving their harshest critics right – The Washington Post

This Place Bleeding | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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really…REALLY?

we are here, this place bleeding out arterially
black blood cells fused from antique plants
and dainty dinosaurs and precious people
deemed damned

and all we care about is our artesan chocolates
and our tan designer bedrooms that match
our pocketbooks in fashion and depth
damned dumb…

Source: This Place Bleeding | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Beneath Blood And Skin | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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we simply must face it,
we are on the brink
of loss blind as wind
and empty as death.

but loss is a gift
when you think about it
it gives us some space
and cleansing tears too

it gives sacred questions
pathways to the center
and old maps long lost
to ancient deep wells…

Source: Beneath Blood And Skin | Charissa’s Grace Notes

These Protests Aren’t About a Flag, an Anthem, or the Military—and You Know it

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Please read this…and grapple with yourself.
“…In saying that these athletes are protesting the flag or the Military or the Anthem—you are choosing to listen to your bias and not their actual words.  You’re simply ignoring their repeated statements, in order to perpetuate the narrative you need to oppose them without feeling any responsibility to wrestle with the difficult issues they raise.

“By creating a black and white “Traitorous NFL Player vs. America” storyline, you’re able to completely ignore the stated and repeated impetus behind Kaepernick’s initial protest (and every one that’s followed): the plea for people of color to be treated with equity by law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and our government. When the President labels these men “sons of bitches” who should be terminated—he’s only proving why their protests are valid and necessary to begin with…”

Source: These Protests Aren’t About a Flag, an Anthem, or the Military—and You Know it

From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity | The New Yorker

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If you are reading this…and you are white…this is the hour of your visitation.  Wake up and get on the proper side of history.  If you don’t, your hidden racism is showing

“…Kaepernick began his silent, kneeling protest at the beginning of last season, not as an assault against the United States military or the flag but as a dissent against a system that has, with a great degree of consistency, failed to hold accountable police who kill unarmed citizens.

“Since he did this, forty-one unarmed individuals have been fatally shot by police in the United States, twelve of them African-American, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post.

“The city of St. Louis recently witnessed three days of protests after the acquittal of Jason Stockley, the former officer who, while still working for the city’s police force, fatally shot Anthony Smith, an eighteen-year-old African-American motorist who had led officers on a chase.

“Stockley emerged from his vehicle, having declared that he would “kill the motherfucker,” then proceeded to fire five rounds into the car. Later, a firearm was found on the seat of Smith’s car, but the weapon bore only Stockley’s DNA.

“The issue is not imaginary…”

Source: From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity | The New Yorker

When The Whole World Howls

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what did you see there,
on that road when setting sun
began to blink again, again
and turned into a threatening heart
beating so slow and pumping out
the blood of stars and planet-scars?

How did it feel when phantom friends
just went on walking, on and on
oblivious to open wounds
in skies above, your breast below
and the railing reached and grabbed your hand
and tired death grinned madly dull?

You heard a noise, a scream of sun?
A scream of clouds, of blood or heart?
A scream that slashed thru everything
so real, so loud, so everlasting
What to make of that?  That sound
When the whole world howls and howls

and howls?

“I was walking along the road with two of my friends. Then the sun set. The sky suddenly turned into blood, and I felt something akin to a touch of melancholy…My friends went on and again I stood, frightened with an open wound in my breast I stood still, leaned against the railing, dead tired. Above the blue black fjord and city hung clouds of dripping, rippling blood. My friends went on and again I stood, frightened with an open wound in my breast. A great scream pierced through nature.”
Edvard Munch

The Holiness Of Empire | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Last year there was some sort of change that occurred within me…the events of 16 years ago, horrendous as they are, began to appear to me as a boil, a corpuscle, a pimple deeply infected…a symptom.

I decided that I was not gunna write anymore tribute poems, because been there done that.

Nothing else really can be said about the ones faced with horror thrust upon them in the land of ease and plenty.

But what of those, millions rather than thousands, who have had empire shoved down their throats and up their ____ …?  I started thinking about things differently.

Becoming the fuck toy of Empire never ends well.  Supporters of ttaf are soon gunna discover this.

One year ago…I think I began to nail it a bit.

“…and what of empire…
or is it Empire
and how
it sanctifies itself
in the blood
of many martyrs
in the tears
of all the saints
and quenches
every thirst
in the wailings
of the haints…”

Source: The Holiness Of Empire | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Across the Aching Blue Sky | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Three years ago…
Are ashes ever really dead?
Or just a different form of life?

When you see that I have died,
when you look into that place
where my odd, quirky connections
once melded resonant
and found resonant splendour
in heart…and in hearts too

and you see the ashes, chilled,
overlaying stone cold coals,
become grey overcoats
covering what I finally learned
to be so ashamed of?

Scrape those cinders up
shovel and shoe them,
trowel and trough the grits,
find a yearn to place them in,
decorative and strange,
intricate and engraved
and singing,
like me back then…

and carry that vase back
across the silent square,
and toss my ashes high,
yes toss them in the air

Let them fly across the sky
in one last kiss, then wave goodbye,
and falling, floating, snowing what made
me special and vibey…

I will let go gently…and slip away,
away…

Source: Across the Aching Blue Sky | Charissa’s Grace Notes

That Awkward Moment… | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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We have all experienced this, haven’t we?  Everyone?
That moment when our head goes from Bugs Bunny’s smug smile
to a jack-ass head because we feel so foolish and dumb?
Or is it just me who feels this…

it lays there, bloated
in between when you
and the other person
connected and laughed
(or that’s what you thought)

and when you speak
and your heart falls
out and open
on the floor
with the inscription

would you like
to come over
for dinner and wine?

eyes narrow,
furrowing brows
and glance off
to the side
and it shifts

and it’s game over
flowers fade
the smell of smoke
and burnt cookies
lingering

Source: That Awkward Moment… | Charissa’s Grace Notes

On This Shore I Break, We Break | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I wrote this for the first human other than my dearest darling to really see me, Charissa…she has never not seen me.  She has never seen him, even though she knows all about him, and I have told her everything about him that matters and also that she has asked…

I would tell her everything without reservation…but sometimes, she simply is bored by him, because he is an absent caterpillar and she loves the butterfly.

By the way…where do caterpillars go when the enter the chrysalis?

I love you Dani…you are my first friend and my dearest heart of friendship…special and distinct from the many friends and sisters I now have.  ❤

PS:  Pay attention to the line length…just a hint

Listen…
you can hear
my words in waves
breaking on your beach
and celebrating…

lament at long last left limp
in clammy depths
‘neath the surface of seas
of blessed forgetfulness
and chuckling…

midst the shells and sand swirling,
rejoicing surf returning resurrected,
remembered, sanctified by sorrows
faced and sorted…yielding
wholeness certain, sure…

on this shore I break,
we break,
on this shore gently
and joyfully too
we break…

on that shore
that someday shore
we will unbroken break
on that shore and in that circle
by and by…in that circle

by and by…

Source: On This Shore I Break,We Break | Charissa’s Grace Notes

no melody down here in sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I wrote this a couple of years ago…about being othered by dull insensate humans…or did I write it about supporters of ttaf…or likely I wrote it about evangelical so-called christians whose blood sport is the judgement and death of anything that sings, that moves in beauty…

or did I write it about you?

There is still time to influence who it is about, with your true song and love.


it was eyes,
everywhere each one
attached to a beak, each beak
trilling so shrilly, chattering
in clakkety chirp-chirruping
in brackish raucous screams

loserloserloserloserloser

this forest was once a place
of wonder and the night
so full of promise but now,
it’s like the stars have fallen
from the sky and become
these birds, these birds with eyes
and beaks and nothing to sing,

just screams in a trackless forest
with a past turned out to be a dream
and a future that’s just a strip mine
yet unzipped, yet undug yet torn open
and a present consisting of merely
the sound of these eyes so sharp
and beaks blunt just like red clubs

and no melody down here in sight

Source: no melody down here in sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

How I Became Fake News – POLITICO Magazine

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This is all about how you, supporter of ttaf, now prefer the National Enquirer and absolutely crazed versions of reality than the actual truth.

You are the Enquirerer Generation…and you make me want to vomit.

This is the literal actual picture of what that racist domestic terrorist did…caught in the act.  And yet you would rather believe all the craziness of stories made up, fabricated…and the preferred media of ttaf himself, the National Enquirer.

If you have a shred of decency, you will read this article, about a person who was there…filmed it and posted that film…and then started getting death threats from the racist assholes.

I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Then the conspiracy theories began

Source: How I Became Fake News – POLITICO Magazine

Have A Care (Ode To Eclipses)

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I speak in faith and deep knowing
that this monstrosity, this asshole manifested
in-human flesh and somehow flying
in the fair and tender skies so blue

just gibbers deep in ravings mad
derived from sucking his own soul
dry, vampire of his diseased self
his narcissistic empty self

and though he floats, he’s counterfeit
he is no poem, he is no moon
so take heart even while he sets
his sights on devouring the sun

and moves and gobbles greedily
and here beneath his blighted run
the darkness grows so threatening
he ultimately simply falls

pulled grave-ward by futility
imploding…that monstrosity
of incoherent hubris mating
with such ignorance towering

and as the sun is wont to do
it beams and scours dark away
and dries the eyes of every tree
that monster vile will just dead be

and us left waiting in the moment
wondering what just happened here
oh…that dark floating shade up there
was just a mirror………..have a care.

 

Reverend Traci Blackmon, Eyewitness, Says Donald Trump Is Lying About Charlottesville | All In | MSNBC

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You need to watch this.  Period.  I do not care who you are.  This woman is a lover of God, a Reverend, and was at the heart of the events that unfolded.  She personally witnessed them, she personally EXPERIENCED them.

If you cannot, will not watch this, then it means you are intentionally choosing the skewed and false version of this presented by ttaf…you are not facing the fact that ttaf is an out and out racist.

Which, of course is a domino tumbler for ya, ttaf supporter…because now all of the so-called Christian voices who say that ttaf is God’s anointed are now saying that God sanctions and anoints an openly racist pussy-grabbing sex abuser.

Can you not see how far you have fallen to swallow that shit from HELL???

I comment because I care.  Your wake up call will cause you to grieve more deeply than you can imagine.

Remember:  handsome is as handsome does.  I was taught that as a very small child…it is grievous to need to teach the teacher.

How one former president handled the Klan speaks volumes.

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ttaf has just flat out taken off all his clothes and abandoned every pretense that he is anything other than a flat out racist.  He did this in a press conference…and he did it with relish and boasting.

He lied about what happened over the weekend, in lies that are so easily fucking debunked that it beggars the imagination that he could be so bald-faced.

He reminds me of a serial killer who just finally gives up pretending and just wallows in the blood and gore.

He sought to equivocate, which is a bit like comparing the sides of the Allies and the side of the Nazis and saying they are equally morally reprehensible.

He is completely ignorant of the difference between Stonewall Jackson and and George Washington.

ttaf supporters…you put a mirror in the White House, and your faces are the ones he reflects…a liar, a racist, and a bloodthirsty bully.

God have mercy on your pathetic souls.

Below, I post a comparison of leaders…George Bush Sr is a man of principle, and this is what that looks like.


“I just felt I had to speak out.”

Source: How one former president handled the Klan speaks volumes.

Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America | The New Yorker

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This is what happened…and commentary about it.  A GREAT think piece!!


“Over the weekend, Charlottesville became the site of an extended white-supremacist revival meeting. On Friday night, like a nightmarish graduation procession, a few hundred white supremacists marched with torches down the long green lawn that leads to the Rotunda, the University of Virginia’s signature building.

“They chanted Nazi slogans in the open, undisguised, unafraid of being photographed, proud to be seen. They circled a statue of Thomas Jefferson and attacked a group of student counter-protesters who held a banner reading “UVA Students Act Against White Supremacy” at the statue’s base.

“On Saturday morning, flanked by militia men carrying automatic weapons, the white supremacists assembled in McIntire Park, with swastikas and Confederate flags fully visible; David Duke was there, along with other representatives of the Ku Klux Klan.

“The counter-protest had grown. Religious leaders had gathered at dawn to pray, and progressive and anti-fascist groups tracked the demonstration to Emancipation Park, which was once named Lee Park, after the Confederate general. There, the violence implied in a “white pride” protest erupted, and the rally was dispersed.

“As the counter-protesters moved on foot towards the adjacent Downtown Mall, a man who had come to town to show his support for white supremacy drove his car down a wide pedestrian alley, killing one woman and injuring nineteen people; he then backed out of the alley and drove away.

“This wasn’t the first white-supremacist rally held in Charlottesville in 2017, and it likely won’t be the last. On Saturday, the self-promoting white supremacist Richard Spencer, a proponent of oxymorons (“peaceful ethnic cleansing”) who is also a University of Virginia graduate, filmed himself saying, “Your head’s gonna spin, how many times we’re going to be back here . . . We’re going to make Charlottesville the center of the universe.”

“The white supremacists have successfully pushed a narrative that they chose Charlottesville because it represents progressive values. Ostensibly, this is all a protest over the impending removal of a large statue of Robert E. Lee. Jason Kessler, the organizer of Saturday’s rally (and another U.V.A. graduate), calls Charlottesville a “very far left community that has absorbed these cultural Marxist principles advocated in college towns across the country, about blaming white people for everything.”

“In fact, Charlottesville, while it is home to many progressive people, skillfully models the exact sort of coercive propriety and self-exculpation from the legacy of American racism that has allowed white supremacy to publicly re-emerge….”

Source: Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America | The New Yorker

Eyewitness Accounts Really Combat “Fake News” Claims

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https://www.facebook.com/mtschwemin/posts/10155016494531775?from_close_friend=1&notif_t=close_friend_activity&notif_id=1502683096604924

Here is a link that goes to a Face Book Post of an eyewitness account of the weekend’s racist eventsImage may contain: sky, tree, plant, outdoor and nature

A Lament, The Day After…The Day Before

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Our culture is infected nigh unto death, and death is walking the planet in the guise of human skin…in pustules of hate that infect the brains of privileged THINGS that are fallen OH SO FALLEN from grace, from their birthright…

drunk on privilege and wasted on hate and mainlining the toxic excitement of hunting and killing, these sorry pitiful lost WRECKS have willingly gone werewolf and become nothing but sentient beasts.

Quite simply, you must. YOU MUST. Effect some change in your life right now this very day…and NO!! GET AWAY FROM ME, asking ME what it is you can/should do…why are you asking this small child, when there is a Slain One who showed us the way in the days of His flesh, and He lives even now and speaks to this world thru Holy Spirit, my Mama, who sheds light into darkness…

and into the darkness of your unknowing She IS SHINING and will speak if you listen…

…and then act. DO. DO WHAT SHE SAYS.
Maybe you should walk to work everyday carrying a sign that says something on it.
Maybe you should go next door, a block away, and reach out to the person that rises in your heart to reach.

MAYBE WE SHOULD CANCEL EVERY FUCKING CHURCH SERVICE TODAY AND WALK THE STREETS IN SACK CLOTH AND ASHES FOR OUR UTTER FAILURE TO LIVE OUT THE GOSPEL!!

We need some kind of antibiotic to kill the strain of bacteria loose in our body politic…well, I think that antibiotic is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (not the gospel of evil so-called preachers and fearful status-quo priests)…and I think that every single one of us who can still see that this is evil and deadly are the white blood cells.

I see a culture that has engaged in self mutilation, has engaged in drugging itself…and I see a people in power who wring their hands and say there is nothing we can do that is a sickening echo of the mantra that was shoved down my throat when I was executed and cut loose from a place that supposedly thought I was something valuable and yet when it came right down to it the man-made thought up written down rules were held more sacred and inviolate than my bleeding torn and tattered heart.

How has there not been a dropping of all things and a rising up?

We need a nation-wide deliverance.
And even within my own circle of acquaintances, I KNOW there are those who blame the BLM protesters rather than the racist, drunk on demonic doctrines of death, hate infused SENTIENT BEASTS who have willingly discarded their Divine Spark…

and this makes me so sick I wanna puke.

To be very vulnerable, I don’t know if I am safe around people today…well, to be more honest, I don’t know if they are safe around me…Because

I WANT to inflict THE WOUND THAT WILL NOT HEAL UNTIL WE SEE OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF ALL RACES AND RELIGIONS HEALED…
I WANT to step on your toe so hard you will limp forever, blessing the name of the Wounded Healer Himself…

I WANT to vent your side, so that you would never again gather possessions to it to feed rapacious greed and instead would gather the least of these to staunch the flow of sorrow and slake their thirst for mercy…

When the prayers of the people go up this morning, and the presiding human says to offer the prayers not yet prayed, how do I not just SCREAM AND SCREAM WITHOUT CEASING…so loud, so offensive, so volatile that NO RELIGIOUS SPIRIT COULD STAND IN THE SUMMONING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD TO HAVE MERCY ON OUR SORRY GREEDY SLUMBERING ASSES?????

How can I not pray for an hour, in vehemence and tears?
And to be quite honest? I TRULY and DEEPLY suspect that the vast majority would call for me to be disciplined and reprimanded, more upset with my disrupting of the expected order of a worship service than the absolute defiling of our culture with the disruption of justice and the flow of mercy.

Yes.  The Cows of Vashon would mill and moo and low and trample…and chase me out the door straightaway…Or WOULD they?

What are the odds that during the night the watchmen have been gathering sack-cloth and fashioning slip on garments, and burning the watch-fires to collect ashes

(why Charissa, you dumb bitch, it is not Ash Wednesday, wtf with the ashes, idjit???)…

What if the leaders are ready, handing EACH person a garment made and saying that unless you don that cloth and take a mark of ash, for THIS SUNDAY, you do not come into the house…for it is a time of repentance and rending garments. It is a time for face falling and weeping aloud and BEGGING for the streams of justice to wash thru the House.

Well. What an…EXTREME..girl you are, Charissa.

Umm…okay. SO I WILL SETTLE FOR THE TRUE HEART ATTITUDE OF SACK CLOTH AND ASHES THIS MORNING!!!

Can you even summon the fucking COURAGE for THAT???  Can you BURN your fucking programs and orders of the day and expected liturgy and smear your own HEART with ashes and let your face be rent with tears on this day??

What the FUCK is there to preach on if not this?
If our dire and needful moment is NOT front and center and a call to repentance not issued then we do indeed serve a false god made from human hands and not the GOD of gods, the One who came and suffered and bled and invited the outcasts first.

Let us go outside the city, bearing His reproach…for there He awaits for us among the outcast. And in returning to the city after, let us draw near to the gates, and to the entrance of the doors, and to the high hill beside the Way where our paths meet…and hear the voice of WISDOM…the voice of Holy Spirit…the voice of MAMA who is SHOUTING SHOUTING SHOUTING to all fools and indolent ones DRAW NEAR!!

Statements by ecclesial bodies are just that, especially when the orthopraxy of said bodies still is exclusionary in so many ways and practical applications.

I don’t know what to do with myself right now. My chest is red and scratched as I claw and claw seeking to tear this pain from my heart.

I am well and truly troubled and do not know the way forward today.

Julius Goat on Twitter: “Imagine if these people ever faced actual oppression. https://t.co/dhPCbtfEjO”

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Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect 

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There IS no “other hand”.  There IS no “other side” that must be heard.

There is hatred and devotion to satanic ideologies that have slaughtered millions and millions…and there is resisting this.

If you are not against this, and openly against this…then you are for it.

Period.

Any attempt to ameliorate this, to talk it away, to justify it…any attempt to “Fox News” it is in itself evil and enabling.

++++++++++++

From the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect:

MR. PRESIDENT, LEARN THESE WORDS FROM ELIE WIESEL OF BLESSED MEMORY: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Source: (6) Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect – Home

They Are Your Family Now, Not Me

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ttaf supporters…the ones in the background are your family now.

Not me…not anymore…not until you denounce them, and their new avatar of bigotry ttaf.

ttaf is saying to us that there is moral equivalence between the Nazi demonstrators and the counter protesters…

there is not.

If you think there is, then I have no truck with you.  Ever.

I denounce ttaf.  I denounce all of his supporters.  I denounce the hatred and bigotry on display.  I denounce those who claim the name of Jesus who refuse to have their eyes opened by this orgy of hate and racism.

God save us…we are truly entering into hell.

Image may contain: 3 people, people standing and outdoor

An Eclipse Of Grace

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we are down to it now
here in the land where dragons
have forgotten their names
and deny their children
who loved them

Puff and Jackie are no more
it is now all sturm und drang.

A monster has arisen
and graves quiver and tremble
as fingers long thought dead
scritch scritch scritch
on those coffins so
recently buried

and show that they live
and gibber in glee
with prospects of release

scritch scritch scritch

but the moon has not forgotten
does not forget her beloved
now hot and baking in the
disjointed unhitched sunlight
called not-Puff (Sturm) not-Jackie (Drang)

called alt-
and hate
and patriotism

the moon has made her move
and soon will shed her grace
a respite from unrelenting baking light

An eclipse of Grace is coming
to save from the eclipse of Grace
found in this screaming perpetual
day without softness
without tender coolness
and velvet still…

I hear the moon move
in the dry drumbeat of bramble
as I pass by, smelling their
desperate intense perfume

the canes of thistles move
in the wind like bones
and sing to me

sooon  soooon…
beneath the croon
of probing beams
that are definitely
way more than they seem

the sky will bend and yield
as moon she rides in day
and comes to eat, to take within
her belly all the taint
of poison so-called light

our moment of escape will then present!
a moment, chains can break and curses rent!
in dark while others fall upon their face
we who watch well an eclipse of Grace…

can learn there at her knee, her royal knee
and small eclipses everywhere we’ll be
from our burnt courage burnished bronze in heat
as we the moon and grace together greet
and mercy kisses truth…at last they meet

may things be healed by our eclipsing feet.

The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I wrote this poem in 2015…taking on the topic of privilege, and how it devalues everything it touches…like entropy works…especially erasing the humanity of those who serve privilege to the same degree that they exercise it over their fellow human beings.

Supporters of trump the absolute fucker, I am taking DEAD AIM at YOU.

Some of you ttaf supporters think I am mean…but you are wrong.  If you were to wake up, there will come a day that you will thank me for keeping you from a fate FAR worse than death.

In the poem, there are italicized lines.  They signify to the reader that the reader is to “sing them in their mind” with the tune that corresponds…

“…We stand before God today
even though entropy
deferred yesterday
we stand before God
as Their Potter’s clay

the urgency
of the present moment,
shaped not by nostalgia
for what once was,
but remembrance
for who God was,
and is,
and ever will be.

that fierce urgency of the now
within a world in need
not of more pointing fingers
and dividing speeches, but of
people willing to rise up
and work as if we now already
are God’s people willing
and surrendered.

I deferred entropy yesterday
It was the least I could do.”

Source: The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Tears Of Grace | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This poem is from 2015, and a deep immersion in that wonderful book Women Who Run With Wolves…

it was the tale of Bluebeard that chilled me the most.  Indeed, it is the one MOST applicable to a transwoman.

I really like some of the images in this poem, some of the phrases…”shuttering houses and shuddering hearts”…

I hope you enjoy it, and end up being able to flow as your own tears of grace.This time of day…“l’heure bleue.”
I know it as “the gloaming” and was conceived
in it’s glimmer glisten and was born
in its radiant dark glitter-glamouring.

It’s the glamouring that the earth casts
when she hides from the hunters who roam the world
and gobble up the quiet dark and then rough-belch
their choking smothering counterfeit-communion

*non-light*…

Source: Tears Of Grace | Charissa’s Grace Notes

We Lords of Tuscany, We Ladies Of The Meadow | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This poem is a tender special one to me.
The imagery involves a person who is on the gallows,
and staring off down the valley as the wind whispers thru their hair…
remembering their life.

Anyone who loves poetry will adequately apply the metaphors…and if you are new to poetry, try to remember that so often times the best way to talk about stuff is to talk “beside it” and “around it”…so the real Truth can leap up on you when your heart and soul is ready, and not before…you cannot wrench it up unto yourself without murdering it…it must “tumble” to you easily and all in a moment.

It’s why it is so difficult to talk about it…
breaking it down kills it, and not breaking it down
leaves it too big to describe well.

At last we finally
have come down to it,
perched here on this edge
of sun-bleached splintery white planks
and darkly stained with shadows and blood.

I hear the wind winding
thru the distant trees wistful,
insistent and full of desire for
golden times long past and golden
songs sung oh so long ago.

It saws its way, the wind, it saws.
Forth and back, across again
that one long thin strand fixed just so
to that grey ancient, heavy beam
that I can barely see because

history’s speck embedded
in my eyes and clawing,
scratching them
and clouding my ocular
true blue vision…

Source: We Lords of Tuscany, We Ladies Of The Meadow | Charissa’s Grace Notes

13 past 13 | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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One of the most important and least favorite things from last year was being faithful and diligent to listen to my muse as She SCREAMED in warning and horror regarding the monster who was approaching power.

I mean, c’mon…I don’t know what is greater:  his sociopathic narcissism, his intention to do harm to less powerful people, or his literal willful stupidity!

ttaf actually said in an interview that Jeff Sessions should NOT have accepted the nomination to the Attorney Generalship of the United States “if he knew he would recuse himself over Russia…”

Constance:  let that sink in.

If you were picking someone for something, and you ended up getting investigated for something…how would the person who you picked have any way to know you would be investigated, especially if you were innocent of all wrong doing?  So why would there even be a need for recusal?

If you were the person picked…would you fill out the papers completely?  If so, there would be full disclosure and thus the person picking could assess ahead of time whether there would be a conflict of interest…but only if they knew ahead of time there was a possibility they WOULD be investigated!!

Except that ttaf insists that this whole thing is made up!  That it is ginned up and is fake…he claims there is no there there…so why would it matter if Sessions felt the need for recusal?  (Which, by the way, is so patently firm and completely established, he likely would have gone to jail if he did not recuse himself).

ttaf insists this is all out of nowhere…and yet he says in the interview with the NYT that Sessions should have told him ahead of time about his need to recuse…which clearly gives away his lie.

ttaf does this kind of shit continuously and consistently…it is the only thing consistent about him:  his utter ruthless commitment to his own survival.

He knows that he is guilty and in deep shit.  HE KNOWS.

And he also knows that you, supporter of ttaf, do not give a shit about any of the crimes, the ways that he has sold YOU out, for his own profit.

You used to be intelligent and thoughtful, parsing lies easily.  But now in your greed, your need to preserve your privilege, you will lay down for him like one of his underage models and beg to be raped by him.

I literally despise him…and I despise and pity anyone who refuses to see that he is the biggest political disaster to hit the USA in history.

He is a mirror to you, ttaf supporter.  Look at him…that is who you are.

the cuckoo clock so pasty white,  so dull
ticktocks its hands to point at the orange cull
and jumps out crazy, chiming, shrieking shrill
the wall is trembling in its echoes still
CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO

Source: 13 past 13 | Charissa’s Grace Notes

This World Too Much

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It was somehow so moving, so compelling
up from the shaggy earth, looming and shorn
so sleek with steel and concrete ribbons running.

It wrapped around the way
the way entwined with it
and it was wet and smelled of wind forever.

I stood, soaked to bone and fully brindled
against that wind that prodded at the dangle
of knots, of cracks, of edges all atangle.

And yet, somehow it still all glowed in glory
and still my eyes thrilled at the vital touch
of movement, place and people in the crush

perhaps I love this place, this world too much.

The Outer Rim Of Ruin

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I walk around the outer rim of ruin
and ruin walks the inner rim of me
and ivy climbs, caresses every beam
as I surround and caress every bone.

The ravens, hated birds of spite just sit there
and croak in harsh and squawking dark duet
their song of ruin running on the old walls
and dripping down in tears inside of me.

The empty windows stare on desolation
the broken columns gnash the air in sorrow
the floors are jumbled messes of despair lost
lost trying to just get from here to there

But still I walk around the outer rim
and still it walks the inner rim of me
I wait for that return, that restoration
When love comes home, comes true, and I’m set free

A Spoonful Of Sugar | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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The bitter lil pill…narcissism…this from 2016

ttaf mainlines it

Can
you swallow
the bitter pill?
The pill that’s come
to dull our conscience,
cushion comfort, corners
nipped just so, sides longer
than tops and bottoms,
that exquisite little
emerald coffin-
shaped bitter
little
pill?

Life’s
fragility, life’s
impermanence…

Source: A Spoonful Of Sugar | Charissa’s Grace Notes

It’s The Blood Of Stars | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This poem hearkens back to the poetry I wrote directly after the Pulse massacre occurred in Florida last year.  I was interested as it emerged…connecting different threads from those immediate poems (you can find those right around the dates in mid-June 2016…use the calendar at the bottom of the page)…up thru the poems of around July 4th…and on to this one (and “Hidden From Your Eyes“)…

It breaks my heart that the foreboding of these poems came true with ttaf…

…but it breaks my heart even further that so few were even aware.
and now it all melts
under falling skies
skies weeping
bleeding

it’s the shining blood of stars
dropping and everything
spinning and melting
down under just
one touch

one

touch of that stricken star’s
living draining dying
diamond
blood

Source: It’s The Blood Of Stars | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Hidden From Our Eyes | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From last year…a tragically prophetic poem about life in the time of ttaf…


Can you feel it
bouncing off steel beams
ricocheting off raw stone,

the sound of gunfire
off in the distance
grim and getting closer
in cold grey shuffling
grave-steps clotted
and rotted
and ruined…

Source: Hidden From Our Eyes | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Reaping Waves | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This was a couple years ago…”viking” is metaphor for “patriarchy”…and the rest should follow naturally…


I’m no Viking, not me!
Charissa Grace?
Pshaw…I do not sail
on waves like crops,
oars for ploughs
and battle lust for seed.
I shudder at the thought!
Of harvest moments
in peaceful lands
and no limits but my lusts
and the certainty of loss
at the end of Ragnarok…

Source: Reaping Waves | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Poems About Gender Dysphoria From 2014

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Here are a couple of poetic attempts to describe the special hell of Gender Dysphoria.

In the first, I talk about the feelings of guilt and self-loathing…what it is like when they are tyrants inescapable.

In the second poem, pay close attention to homophones…words that sound the same and sometimes are even spelled the same and yet depending on context they have different meanings.  This is extremely important to understand if you wish to get inside this poem to the place where it will give up its honey to you.

I hope you enjoy them…3 year old poems that stand up pretty well.

That Numb Relief

Born On The Edge
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Microphone cut after Mormon girl reveals she’s gay at church

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Hey…this heinous and evil action is not unique to this one church, alas.  It is standard operating procedure in evangelical cultures.

But notice something particular…read the article and notice:  she was not doing any sin.  She was not sexually sinning, she was not defaming anyone else…she was simply being authentic and vulnerable.

That list in 1 Corinthians 6 which is used to rape, pillory, and execute LGTBQIA humans “In the Name of Jesus” is a list that refers to actions taken which flow from an unredeemed heart…here they all are:

sexually immoral
idolaters
adulterers
thieves
greedy
drunkards
slanderers
swindlers

…and of course the infamous supposed ban on same sex relationships which was actually speaking to the unequal and evil power dynamic practiced in those days by men of power over young and exploitable boys…very similar to how today’s Rape Culture looks.

Sexual immorality is a perversion of sex
Idolatry is a perversion of worship
Adultery is a perversion of relationship
Theft is a perversion of property rights
Greed is a perversion of desire
Drunkenness is a perversion of pleasure
Slander is a perversion of truth telling
Swindling is a perversion of relationship

…and the practice that was mistranslated by the KVJ translators is simply a perversion of sex no different than sexual immorality…

Not one of the root things is in itself an evil!!
This list is by no means exhaustive…but what is exhausting is the evil idolatrous, slanderous, swindling undertaken by millions of so-called Christians EVERY SINGLE DAY who carry it out in Jesus Name…and ignore all the other things in the list.

You’re merely a sinner in need of God…unless you are a homasexshul.

Truthfully?  It is your own guilt and shame which you scapegoat onto LGTBQIA people as a sop to your own guilty conscience.

This girl is far closer to the kingdom of God than the rest of them put together…because she is authentic!!

I suggest you try some…you may end up having a few less “Lord Lord when did we see You’s” to answer for…
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A video of a young Mormon girl revealing to her congregation that she is lesbian and still loved by God — before her microphone is turned off by local…

Source: Microphone cut after Mormon girl reveals she’s gay at church

Deaf Earth’s Denial | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This is my favorite poem of mine…it is old, actually, comparatively speaking, having mewled and clawed its way thru my inelastic soul still soaking in oil to be made pliable and flexy…

This poem is explicitly about gender dysphoria, and specifically my own experience of that as a child…a child newly divorced from herself and dedicated to performance to be sure I remained loved and accepted…after all, I was the girl who wandered woefully, tearfully with no words to describe the pain and horror within and so my litany was “it’s the end of the world…to which the response from adults around me was to mock me with sarcasm telling me that “nobody loves you”…

…which most certainly was not intended to destroy me but which poison was no less destructive given the intent.  It was into that pool I dove headlong and knowing that performance had to be utterly perfect to avoid harm from shark and wave.

This poem is historically accurate, and related poetically.

When you read this, do try reading it aloud, as the rhythm and meter are very intentional and seek perfect repetition one with the other from stanza to stanza, so as to mimic the flow of the clouds overhead in the wind.

…I remember, sweet fields of red clover,
green stalks soft and new, tops dipped in crimson,
just before being baked by the shimmery sun
but after they’d stripped off their equinox frocks
to lay naked and sunbathe and snooze…

Source: Deaf Earth’s Denial | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Father’s Day: An Illusory Mourning

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If you read here regularly, you know enough about me to know why “Father’s Day” is a very problematic day to me…for I was in the situation that a woman gets thrust into when she for whatever reason is required to be “father” to her children, whether it is due to death or divorce, or the joining of two women, and each of them trade off time in that role.

As I was not out to anyone, least of all myself, there was the expectation by everyone that I would simply “know” what being a father meant…but really the best I could do was follow the example of my own father, watch what other males did, and try as hard as I could to be present in the lives of our children.

Alas, there was the unfortunate cultural baggage to deal with as well…something each generation discovers when their children grow up and become all-knowing teenagers and rip you to shreds with their withering rejection and depths of knowledge that “obviously” exceed your own!!

I have watched, read…and mourned as my life and history has disappeared before my eyes as it is recounted for others thru the pen of writers who leave me agog in the distance between their claims and what I have lived.  I hold in my hands letters, cards, and other mementos that say one thing and links that cross the transom leading to “myth-making” and demythologizing that seem to suit the maker’s whim and need while utterly ignoring whoever might have been present, however unaccounted for…

…and certainly there is great territory that I now see which I could not see then…mourning and grieving is hard work, but real transformation/metamorphosis is even harder because it demands first and foremost accountability to some truth outside one’s self…and it is slow…3 steps forward and 2 back so often…

…believe me, you have not known horror until you devote yourself in the midst of deep pain and sorrow over the course of years to this transformation only to find it entirely dismissed because of the presence of a two step back moment!!

But this is the lot of a transperson…dissociated in childhood, high functioning and intelligent enough to hide it from everyone including herself, only to find everything shifts dizzyingly in middle age and a brand new person who was always there emerges to the surface offering life to everyone but bringing so much death in the process.

One is forced to know one’s self…or die.
One is forced to live one’s life…whether accompanied or abandoned.
And one is at last glad to find moments of authenticity stretching into entire days, becoming weeks and promising a solidness that may last for the few years left on this stage called life before my candle is blown out.

And that brings me full circle to “Father’s Day”…and an interesting unfolding of meaning and history and experience as writ in the poems from that day in 2014 and 2015…

…I will never write another one.

Never.

Any further writing on that subject is more than adequately covered by the ones whose memoirs cover the gamut from memory to gaslighting, to myth making and destruction…and telling the stories that make sense to them not only their past but their present…for what a joyous role it is to be present scapegoat for those unhappy and not realizing that many independent choices have led them to the place they are in and that of their own volition and doing…as long as I am there, that result can be shunted off onto me…and thus provide some measure of relief and comfort, and maybe even some space to grow and grow up…

for certainly this is the role of a parent if not a father…

I love no less than ever I loved…perhaps even more now than then…but I am far less invested in measuring my own self based on the things that are said to others about me…because I know myself now, better than I have ever known, and I accept the successes, the failures, all rolled into one and called “a life lived”.

I think that I get to some of these feelings, emotions, conclusions in the poems on this subject.

At any rate, it is clear to me that there are new puppies who eagerly drink, and a multitude of souls who have begun to call me mother, or spiritual parent…and my job is to be who I am, in joy and full participation…if those from the highways and byways come willingly to the table, I shall serve them what goods I have, and continue in my quest to be utterly emptied of anything left to give on my final breath’s exhalation.

I suspect there is much to be gleaned in these poems for any parent of adult children…but I cannot be the judge of that…only embrace the process of being a parent to those given to me…and rejoice as I see the tools I diligently sought to impart put to use…even if it is for my flaying, dissection, and repudiation.

God knows I love them…miss them…and wish that I could know and be known by them.  But that option is not mine to know or even demand, for it is wrapped and concealed in the illusions and fogs of times future…

but maybe Christmas principles, lessons…perhaps Christmas visitations will give all Mr. Scrooges that reprieve we all wish for, but so few will embrace due to the fires of taking responsibility for being a chooser of free will in a determinative world…

And so to the poems…oh, I’ve many poems written to my children individually and collectively…but these three specifically concern the horrid day known as “Father’s Day”, and they are my only answer I shall ever make to the long horror show letter received on this day, or the articles about me that so deeply and mortally wounded my heart…I await with longing the day of resurrection that shall come.

Here are the links…if you are still here to click:

The Footprints Of Ghosts

The Blossom of Memories of You (Father’s Day 2015)

Beside This Ring Of Ashes One Year Later

I Am A broken girl And I Am | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I am a broken girl and I am

not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.

I live inside a fortress and I hide

inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.

Source: I Am A broken girl And I Am | Charissa’s Grace Notes

The Footprints of Ghosts (commemorating my first Father’s Day as myself) | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From the first “Father’s Day” passing since I entered transition…wow was I naive then.  Since then, the hell-words and deeper hell-silences have scarred deeply.

I will never ever celebrate or participate in this day again.

But this poem…ahhh, I was ringing the bell on this day.


The fire crackles and pops
its diphthongs and phonemes
in that hot and feisty
rapid-snap delivery.

“Dad!  Dad!  Daddy!  Father!”
It says this in living
letters of merry blazing
iterations of what …

Source: The Footprints of Ghosts (commemorating my first Father’s Day as myself) | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Suffragette of Sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From 2014…trying to tell people how we hide…


They leave marks, tears.  Look.
You can see them if you stand
eyes akimbo and uncrossed from normal.
They don’t show if you look usual-like.

But they shimmer
like living starry
liquid songs of sorrow…

Source: Suffragette of Sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

From Provence To Salamanca | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From last year, a poem describing leaving a place of fruitful becoming and ending up in a place of religious bondage…it wormed its way out of me freely and insisted on the geographical terms, which now in the age of ttaf make far more sense to me.

we had wine
rose wine, pink
blushing with laughing
joy in the midst of
a light crushing

we were in Provence,
and it was warm and sultry
but not thick or sweaty
in that yellow light seeping out of
the ruddy dirt…

Source: From Provence To Salamanca | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Burnt Offerings | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This is an older poem, and I really like its rhythm.  Try reading it aloud, for you will find that the sound of the words shapes how you say the coming ones.

These words are my offerings burnt
singed in fires of pain and hurt
written as gouts of bright blood spurt
from my contrite soul.

I take treasure from my heart
pleasures, pains, my every dart
burn them for a brand new start
the incense of my spirit …

Source: Burnt Offerings | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub

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This article is a powerful examination of how privilege works…and shows that trump the absolute fucker is the collective mirror image of privileged people in the USA, even those who do not have copious wealth and yet still retain utter privilege as elites in our country.

I am trying to imagine a whole four years of this corrosive soul…and I cannot.  I imagine that those who place their trust in trump the absolute fucker will find themselves with no soul, having sold it in exchange for the delusions and empty nothing that trump the absolute fucker and his minions will visit upon us.

Empty, washed out and vacant souls, gaping like some bank had foreclosed on them, and stained forever with the blood of millions.

“He is, as of this writing, the most mocked man in the world. After the women’s march on January 21st, people joked that he had been rejected by more women in one day than any man in history; he was mocked in newspapers, on television, in cartoons, was the butt of a million jokes, and his every tweet was instantly met with an onslaught of attacks and insults by ordinary citizens gleeful to be able to speak sharp truth to bloated power.

“He is the old fisherman’s wife who wished for everything and sooner or later he will end up with nothing. The wife sitting in front of her hovel was poorer after her series of wishes, because she now owned not only her poverty but her mistakes and her destructive pride, because she might have been otherwise, but brought power and glory crashing down upon her, because she had made her bed badly and was lying in it.

“The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too.

“One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him. One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall. Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man.”

Source: Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub

To Come Back To | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This is a simple love poem…it’s about that moment, that one timeless on-the-precipice moment

the one that you wish would never end…

Source: To Come Back To | Charissa’s Grace Notes

it’s that moment
when lungs forget
how to billow
in and out faithful

when air is tangible,
shimmering silvery-alive,
right before our
hushed wide eyes

that moment when
we both know finally…

Holding It Tight

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you’re there
I see you in the
glow, the fierce proud
glow that melts snow and
vaporizes anything in the know

you hold
your bouquet
of blooming hatred
tight, vise-like, clutched
and gathered to your chest

where it
burns everything
it melts anything that
even thinks about getting
close-like, including your fingers

clutched
gripping

so tight
that you cannot
shake it off of them
your fingers and your face
so that your heat could even

get shared.

Pauper-Heart And Paper Mind

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And though Your feet find every path
how is it I can see no sign
that You have ever cared to pass
along this trail, travail of mine?

I, pauper-heart and paper mind
bequeathed with Heaven’s own dear Breath
look at this empty road to find
it circles, curls unto my death.

That I stand asking is itself
a rich and bottomless grand gift
and that I scrabble at Your Shelf
and fumble, clumsy drop and sift

Until there’s nothing left to see
while all around me diamonds gleam
Until I take my eyes off me
then shall dust to riches be

The gifts are not in garlands rare
Nor ease nor comfort fading fast
Thy gift is very Breath, it’s Air
With me til I breathe my last.