Tag Archives: Love

The Difference Between

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the difference between living and dying
can be found in the difference between
the Grand Canyon and the Milky Way
Another way to say it is

mutual dependence
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Living               Mutual Dependence               Dying

We need the solidarity of the reaching skies
in swathes of silk and shades of grey
to close that gap completely
all the way
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Solidarity…
Mutual Dependence…

trump cards over torture and unbridled ego…
habits that engulf so many with such ease and lack of effort

Adversity sometimes coaxes out
the best and the most beautiful
in human beings but only if
the sky can partner them
thru the gap
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between

that unrelieved thirst
that threatens to engulf

and the utter madness
of misdirected sanity.

Ah…and the skies like banners unfurl
The Difference Between
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On Living The Gospel

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It is not so much our slogans and statements, our creeds and commitments as it is the way we walk them out with our flesh and blood.  Documents are empty hulls of potential…and every single day that we truly live those commitments we give them flesh from our flesh and blood from our blood.
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The challenge posed by staunch commitment to broken people is that you then will have dealings with broken people.
This can be troublesome if you unconsciously expect that broken people will live and act unbroken. If you dribbled a crystal globe, and it shattered, and then when you touched a piece and it cut you or poked you, the challenge you would be facing would be full blown in how you reacted to being cut.
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That is where the reality of creeds, statements and slogans truly emerges…the ones who react in shock or outrage or horror are the ones who thought that globe was a basketball. The ones who recoil in horror or anger or disgust are the ones who believed it was a soccer ball.
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That is the distilled essence of walking out the Gospel: realizing that it is a message that attracts the hungry, the lost, the broken and it is not the creed which transforms but the living Presence of Christ IN that creed that does the work of healing and restoration.
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Which means to live the Gospel is to be inconvenienced, to be confronted with wounds that stink and are infected, to change the emotionally and spiritually incontinent…and to do it in patient joyful tenderness.

Someone can make their point with stern words and terse actions…it is not hard whatsoever to understand a point that has been made…and someone else can walk their love with gentle hands and consistent presence, and then ask for whatever they want as the broken heal, and slings are discarded and casts are cut off and the lame begin to walk.
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And then…deeper…closer…at the pulsing core…the revelation that is couched in those words from the cross “Forgive them Father…they do not know what they are doing.”

Those words have such compassion and understanding in them…they assume that most people would do good things if they REALLY KNEW the impact their troubling actions are having.

It’s such a good thing that we are coming to the place where we can even see that our statements and commitments and creeds have a unique calling to be expressed in our current climate…

it’s an even better thing when we count the cost…

it’s the best thing of all when we keep going and the word(s) become flesh.
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A Handful of Memory

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it was a village
no longer existing
it was a laugh
that echoed that village
and hung in the air
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like smoke from a fire
extinguished in nightfall
and drifting in winds
and lonely midst stars
while crickets and frogs

lament as it faded
and pebbles and diamonds
all heaped up at random
and sticks and steel swords
all jumbled together
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useless in the corner
to argue, debate
about fighting or walking
together, together
to some better future…

my hair is a crown
that glows with the past
and shines in the night
as I take my courage
and face what may come.
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a handful of memory
a bucket of love
a torch lit in faith
and standing on hope
my face set like flint

my heart is a mountain
adorned with the night
a beacon, a presence
I swell from the earth
and kiss the soft skies
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ever Spring, ever Autumn

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it looks the same to you
whether you stand
in winter or summer

…the gate of my heart…

stark and golden and hot
against that steely variegated sky,
all clouds and light run thru God’s Grater
and piled up in slivers and shavings
of glory and stellar glimmers

of more…
The Great Gate

I stand in spring and autumn
my feet in water and my face in fire,
my roots ever fed with freedom
and my branches ever shedding
the ends of growth and fruitful life
blossoming, falling, spilling to earth
in cascades of truth and fevered dreams.
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my angles and lines seem stark to you
and you miss my curves and swaying
limber-love and hurly-heart throbbing
with the promise of harvests coming
and heavy with the presence of harvests here.

walk thru and look…
if you see me you will know
and if you do not see me
step away and scratch your head
with lightening bolts that shimmer
and strike the earth and the sky
and the glittering diamond waves
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and wander,
wander
as you ponder
how I look
the same from
all sides

(to your blind eyes unimaginative)
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or walk in awe
with leaping eyes
and hungry heart
marvelling how vast
is the territory and
how beautiful the land

Beyond the beyond

that you
just entered
into like
a child

with
eyes
opened
wide in
wonder
wriggles
harriet tubman

enters
into this
vast untrammeled life
and running from nothing
to the endless Something
of that great
ever Spring,
ever Autumn.
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A Winter Field

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there is a field, a winter field
surrounded by the pawns of spring
who jump up swift and quick laughing
but turn away at the first sight
of frigid dull brown slanted light

refracted from that frosty grass
and bifurcated by those blades
as sharp as ice cold edges grey
in stalemate stand off with the sky
the crushing pink-stained falling sky
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inevitable in its swift
descent unto the frigid earth
so stark, so separate from all
the rest of the land, trees, the wind
that dances on the distant peaks

but the field, the winter field
holds itself high and falters not
beneath the fuzzy falling skies
within the breathy blasts of wind
and in full view of vernal sun

that field remains that winter field
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The Place Where All Horizons Meet

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“bring me
the horizon”
you said…

as if horizons
were singular,
just some
pearl, some
place to
go.
tumblr_n2rlthrgkx1qb30dwo1_500you show what
you don’t know
when you asked,
you don’t
know
me.
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“I am horizons” I said
and rose my sun over
my mountains, casting
crimson crowns in
delicate dewdrops,
hanging pearls on
silk-stranded soft edges
soft, all my edges, all my
vast untrammeled lands
met together, met together
on my skin translucent.

(or, is it in?
in my skin,
transparent,

opalescent, white,
unmarked,

untrammeled?)
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translucent skin
trammeled skin
tattooed skin
my skin
(my skins)
unstained and stained
all at once and only
by the shadows of the past
marking me indelible
in shadows playing
hide and seek with shades
tumblr_o4q9jrKTyG1trdezwo1_500(on my hide,
in my hide
so pure and
so unblemished
but only on
the outside)

shades that
lurk and lurch and loom,
arising from some world of
yesterday revolving ever in
my mind, in my
imagination, in
my tears that run
everlasting down my cheeks
in waterfall kisses
of grief…
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and that horizon where past
and present and future
meet in shadows,
in kabuki dancers
dancing ever on my skin
(tattooing)
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and I feel its pressure deep within,
the coming presence of a moment,
a moment sacred, a pregnant moment,

it feels so light,
it feels so heavy,
it sets me free
and paralyzes
with crippling fear
and aching purpose

in me,
the place
where all
horizons meet.

 

“The Art of Blessing the Day” by Marge Piercy

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The Art of Blessing the Day

This is the blessing for rain after drought:
Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,
a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.
Let the parched leaves suckle and swell.
Enter my skin, wash me for the little
chrysalis of sleep rocked in your plashing.
In the morning the world is peeled to shining.

This is the blessing for sun after long rain:
Now everything shakes itself free and rises.
The trees are bright as pushcart ices.
Every last lily opens its satin thighs.
The bees dance and roll in pollen
and the cardinal at the top of the pine
sings at full throttle, fountaining.

This is the blessing for a ripe peach:
This is luck made round. Frost can nip
the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop,
a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus,
the burrowing worm that coils in rot can
blemish it and wind crush it on the ground.
Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.

This is the blessing for the first garden tomato:
Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store
sells in January, those red things with the savor
of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name.
How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm,
warm as the flank of a cow in the sun.
You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin.

This is the blessing for a political victory:
Although I shall not forget that things
work in increments and epicycles and sometime
leaps that half the time fall back down,
let’s not relinquish dancing while the music
fits into our hips and bounces our heels.
We must never forget, pleasure is real as pain.

The blessing for the return of a favorite cat,
the blessing for love returned, for friends’
return, for money received unexpected,
the blessing for the rising of the bread,
the sun, the oppressed. I am not sentimental
about old men mumbling the Hebrew by rote
with no more feeling than one says gesundheit.

But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.

Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.
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Me Moon

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when you speak of me
you speak of weeds and brambles
thorns, nettles and stoney ground.

when you think of me
it’s craters and dark
and bare landscape stark
and lacking curves.
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I am gardens, moon, roses, sea.
I am me, in bowers and blooms
and labyrinth beds of unusual growth.
I am small trees and tall firs 
fragrance stirs, honey bees

I am Grace in the echo
of the moon’s deep wells
I am tides reaching and running
yearning and aching

I am reflected light
soft yet bright
sometimes yes often no
but always…always…
always aglow
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Please…think of what you know.

the endless ache of bones
the songs sung in your marrow
the shadow in your eyes
the light that holds your heart

think of who you know

vertigo
when gravity gives up
finally worn out
in my grave insistent
persistence at breathing.
tumblr_o46w3ckPYT1s93t2co1_540And why…yes, this is important
the why of me
dancing on desolation
rhyming in respiration
overthrowing tables of treason

and though it is dark,
it is not night, My Love,
no.
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it is the season of silence
that speaks, that sings
sings in me garden
sings in me moon
sings in me roses
sings in me sea
sings in me
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A Seascape Moment

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the careless sowing of seaweed
in the currents, in the tides
in and out and out and in and in

the fog clinging melancholy
to its ever love green heart
hills, bristly beneath its touch

the singing needles verdant
joying in the glimmering sun
glancing off the bright dancing waters

the artful accidental masterpiece
of a world random in Intentioned Love
and the soft mercy of knowing eyes

and you, me, a part of everything
apart from everything
and everything in its place
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The Fog, The Earth

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i think fog unwraps itself
to show what lives beneath
takes off its clothing graceful slow
removes its wispy sheath…

and naked the earth stretches out
languorous and sure
and becomes whole as I look on
my hurt heart’s ever-cure

Marking Time

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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

Like Blossoms

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I fall in love with
you, like cherry blossoms fall
utterly to earth
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in the wind my kiss
wanders, floats, and my desire
aches to find its home
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in your arms always
if not, I will fade away
hoping in the dark

I Like The Rhythms When We Love

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i like the rhythms when we love
the way we move in time as one
and yet distinct and separate
and yet not separated

they come, the movements, just like waves
we wash up on each other’s sand
and drink up each one’s offerings
from shallows and from fathoms deep

and fingers move like lacy spray
and arms and legs like breakers sure
and hearts like rocks, like booming waves
and souls like everlasting sand

yes…
i like the rhythms when we love
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Such A Long Way Home

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I have such a long way home
such a long league of the sea
the last one, longest of them all
as I swim home to my True me.

I have come so far across
the desert sands so red, so hot
no water any where to dip
my tongue, my pen, my deepest thought
But here I am, the sand and sea
embracing in an endless dance
where there is both and neither here
as I transform in this last chance

to swim the promised depths, my home
in waters full of mystery
I have such a long way home
but I will get there, true and free

Demure In That Sunset

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you looked out on our landscape
the one we saw outside
that just mirrored the one
we share between our hearts.

you said that it was beautiful
and though I did agree
I said nothing, and did defer
demure in that sunset.
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the winds blew cold, freezing
like un-freeze-able ice
that twisted round our toes
and nipped sharp at our nose

but it did not seem to phase you
there in that beauty sprawled
as stars began to sing
and blood began to bring
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you to my yearning soul
that never will be whole
in this night breaking bright
we held each other tight

and then our lips did meet
the wind paused, then attacked
and drove us closer still
love you I ever will.
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In The Still Hush

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in the hush, in the still hush
of the dying day, the waning day
see the sun, ohh the setting sun
shining rays, rays trickling
down the winds, on the breeze
to the beach, in the reach
of ocean waves, wild waves crashing
to the sands, the sparkling sands
in the cold, the rush of cold air
all around, and fresh in us
on that quiet, quiet darkling
winter evening.
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Lacking Intoxication

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your words are like
a frozen lake thawing
in spring not much
and now just
floating there

all burbly ice cubes
clinking against shores
like chips kissing
a cocktail glass
and yet lacking
intoxication

you are undecided
if you will thaw
or just sit there
while fish wait
for you to figure
it out…you out.

You
out

A Poem By Susan Spileki

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I like this poetess so much.  This poem touched me in a deep core…I am posting the poem, and then linking to her original post as well.

Shyly, X. Tries Her Hand at Poetry the Morning After

Four hundred nights I must have watched you sleep,
The dying fire catching the gold in your hair.
Your sweet breath rose and fell and rose again
With the rhythm of your dreams I was not in.
I did not see you clearly, not at first.
Experience makes innocence seem weak.
Not until you fought beside me did I see
That you had steel in you and your own light.

You were a secret I felt I had to keep.
I could not ever let you catch me stare
When you, eager, scratched the parchment with your pen
Or dutifully cut our dinner, gill from fin.
But it was the long spring nights that were the worst,
As I lay by the fire, cold and bleak,
Knowing my desire could never be
More than a whispered dream of warm delight.

I could not know how time would make you weep.
The violence of my life you chose to share
Would take your light and heart and try to rend
Them apart, a battle you could not win.
Your pain, my fault; because of my past, cursed.
What changed it all was tragedy. We are Greeks.
We never take life easy. You and he
Married, deflowered, widowed: one day, one night.

The poets say that what we sow, we reap.
I had to make it right. I could not bear
To see you in such pain, my more than friend.
My vengeance had little glory, was messy, thin,
A deed I had to do, although perverse.
And after, it was hard for us to speak
Of any of it. The silence between you and me
Crashed through the trees behind us like a kite.

It took a few more months for you to steep
In your grief, to face the morning air
Without mourning his reaching of life’s end,
His power over you and its long romance.
You threw large stones into the watercourse.
You say you did not dream. Tears on your cheek
Kept my hand from touching your knee
To “comfort,” a self-deception I had to fight.

Then, one evening I heard you moaning in your sleep,
Crying out my name, demanding more!
You were tearing at your clothes and then
Reaching for me. I felt my whole world spin.
I touched your face. I thought my heart would burst
As your eyes flew open, blushing that I could see
All of you now seeing all of me

Finally! At last! And then, all night…

by Susan Spilecki 2015
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https://buildingapoem.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-problems-of-the-epic-fantasy-fan-poet-reportage-character-and-style/

On Mountain’s Face

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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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To Text My Heart

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Use this
to text my heart
to write upon
my sanskrit soul
and scribe your name
into my being

it’s the only thing
that can connect
with me, on my
wavelength

Say Not A Word

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Hush, Love…
say not a word
as I sit here in light
and desire is wafting
in shivery delight

see how it settles
and falls out of air?
Here, on my shoulder
precipitates there in
a silvery sheen of dewy desire
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my love a
melty hot flower of
mmmmmm
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say not a word, Love
but if you wish
you may bend close
here, to taste of my neck.

The Final Coming Thaw

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I am floating on free seas held captive
in the ice of your remove and shrewd appraisal.

My heart passion like living rock moving
red and liquidy, red like plasma pulsing
scorchy and inexorably drawn in hungry
longing for the icy stillness of you.

And where we meet, I melt
you, steamy/dreamy, and yet
you run quick-cold to the reaches
and rime-rimmed rocks and reefs…

And there I sit, captive in you
and waiting for the thaw of Love
to be finally completed.

The Fall Of Ancient Time

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I am not a place
for the faint of heart
or blustery of soul!

But I do get lonely
as the night wheels past
my achey longing heart.
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Do you not suffer
the war in this world?
Do you not feel
all the pain in this world?
The loneliness and the
no hope in this world,
the boredom and fear
of failure, temptation
too strong to resist in this world?
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Bitterness of heart
amok in this world,
not knowing fully
who we are or who thou art,
not knowing this,
just knowing thy love
is beyond every knowing.

No other love has power
to fall on us and make us whole.

No other touch can withstand
the fall of Ancient Time
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Here inside a civil war
between me and me.
all the time winning
and all the time losing

because I am a world,
a universe and I cannot
be explored in just one day

It will take seasons,
whole winters and
years of summers
to mount up on wings
and cascade over mountains
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talking with you
sometimes is either
a slap in the face
or a slammed door,
and yet the Void…gaping gulf,
it is but exhalation
in the Light of your shadow!

And falling
into that seeming nothing,
yawning and gulping, well
it is but a dropped stitch
in the Banners over me
of You.
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This Speckled Star-lit Night

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Ohhh Love,
it longs with me for thee
even though we’ve forgotten
thy name’s shape and feel and sound
and the way it breathes in me,
the way it speaks to me
in whispers, like wind
whispering between the clouds
to speak to earth
in breaths from beyond
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like the way
you touch my ankle
when we sit upon
the floor there,
by the fire
in the speckled-star-lit night
gathered close
outside the house
just like a mama bird who nestles
down so gentle on Her chicks…
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I miss you terribly
and ache so,
ever in this moment.

City of Bones

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Barcelona,
oh City of Bones
laying hot and dry in the sun
beating down on streets, on tombs
and tiles so red over white and so hot
and shimmering radiant still,
oh ye bones!
barcelona_above___revisited_by_coigach-d9h3eegBarcelona, City of Bones
Baking before the gates of the Sun,
I sacrificed my purity for thee, such as it might be
(my purity, not my sacrifice)

Purity…
of thought,
of mind,
of heart and soul,
purity of
song and deed
and strong intention.

Barcelona, my sacrifice
so droll, so dirty is actually
sterility masquerading
as purity and thus is merely

the absence of jazz,
the absence of spice,
the absence of that
jagged noise of exultation
and thus there is no
purity and nothing
quite acceptable
enough.
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Gladly do I lay it there
(my sacrifice, not my purity)
on the bony altar of your burning eyes
hung there above the freezing flames
of your sharp haughty sniff and thus
do I seek sanctuary in the fires of
your hunger, games appeased and satiated.
Image 002 And these words I leave
(my longing words so red, so sharp)
along the edge of your wet teeth,
hard teeth so white and glistening,
and there, blurred,

there they mingle
with your breath,
with the liquid you
and thus become
inflammable and ready
to leap up like the Phoenix
to take their ease in air and be
us, there, us there
be us there in the air.
Rise

And this city here,
right in plain sight and swaying
in the salty breeze blowing in stiff
off the racing aching blue seas,
this City of Bones dancing on air

with my words
there in air
like banners in the wind,
like thirsty golden kerchiefs
flying midst meteors, comets,
midst stars in the night

flapping in the solar flares
and furies of the sun and lapping
up the finest purest beams
of silver, argent grey moonlighttumblr_nw4iwesgqi1s2clnyo1_1280

And those fires
(of the night)
my words those silver fires
streaking, shooting across
the vast expanse of velvet
black thick nothing, silver flames
curling, licking at the bones
of the City hanging
in the deep dark void
shimmer And the music rounding there amidst
those handy banners sounds like owls
talking soft and hooty in the wind-torn branches
and our hearts are slender limber flexing long flagpoles
and we fly our flags of love like maidens flying
tokens for our champions…tumblr_o03sa8dubM1unv2uco1_1280Together we all

(words and banners and bones)

shine upon your battlements

Barcelona
City of Bones
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Champagne Kisses

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I long for champagne kisses
to be given to me
your mouth the open bottle
me goblet gaping, me

so thirsty for an altar
and vows once said renewed
and toasts in night air ringing
and union Reunioned with you

and champagne from your sweet lips
pressed gently onto mine
our love Their wine so bubbly
and life, so sweet, so fine
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Turning Inside Out

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my skin is stained by your lips
stained red, stained wine, crushed grapes
delicious between your white teeth.
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my skin is blue from your touch so cold,
so hot within ice cold choice austere,
your love so cold it’s hot
5f3d3b868dc358b9da8e1ae93d6c9223-d35s09w
my skin is purple, it’s smeared
with your tough tenderness, your fingers
painting in loops and whorls
ea88c8541e04ff2e0779f8d56b198401
and I, tattooed by your love
and thinking it done, it forever
indelible fait accompli…
Matthew Joseph Peak-www.kaifineart.com-1
But it washed off in the rain
of days, of years, of lifetimes
until I was white as snow

*as if untouched*
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So I turn myself inside out
and I wear my soul for my skin
and I’m stained always and again
tumblr_nzs4li1cxF1rwuj4qo1_500
by your lips
by your words
by your touch

*by you*
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Feast Upon The Village Green

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I am the bristly nest from which the great blue heron springs.
I am the stones upon which stinging ice-churned runnels ring.
And there, those fires hot from which the Phoenix rare takes wing.
I’m scintillating embers, coals ablaze and life giving.

They named me foul pale heretic and laid me down to rest,
outside the white-washed churchyard walls, outside their ruddy fold.
And there my hot blood flowed rich-red to feed their bloodless grass,
I deep red died upon that emerald sward of murder bold.
And I do let my bones peek from the curtain of my skin
and thus do I me nourish every living thing herein
with my authentic self and my unconquerable song,
my passion unquenchable and my me a sacred throng

of birth from death and life leapt up in winds, in rain and dew
I am nest, stone and embers singing always clear for you.
and thus it is unholy ground is cleaned, hallowed once more,
and every living thing’s communion, ever opened door
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In Your Wonder

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Here I am
caught up in your wonder

and wondering how
it is that you have

written it all
over me and

around me.
I am here

inscribed by
your eyes, your lips

your hands have
writ large in wonder

upon my soul

 

Illustrated Woman

My Baby Loves God Like A Boss!

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My Baby loves God like a boss!

She ain’t no red-light winker
or Fleet Street wanker
when it comes to
loving Them, HELL NO…

She’s a street walking swinger
as long as that street glows golden
and is called The Way, or just plain
Beautiful, or if that street is a market

and she will buy Their wares…
pearls here, pears there,
peas and poultry right next
to peace and praise…

Ahhh…

My Baby loves God…loves God like a boss!!
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Advent Poem: This Waiting Time

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Sometimes frost grips limbs
once lean and limber in the wind
now long grown stiff and creaky
and I hear them crack and groan
in those sticky clutching fingers
cold and frosty, fingers
cold and frosty.
Processed with VSCO with t1 preset
Sometimes ennui (cold)
grips my soul (grown old)
and in its grip I groan
(groan old) and my soul
(my waiting soul) runs
around my heart and
around my heart

as the clock’s tail
ticks and twitches, chases
its tail like a cat relentless,
(useless) and that (waiting)
that frosty cold difficulty of waiting
remains there clinging tightly
in the fading day.
But Advent…

Advent
Advent comes again
and gives her gift.
In the cold and dead of winter,
trauma seems to sting much deeper,
and healing for the broken parts
of my life…and the people that I love?
Seems so much harder to obtain…
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When it comes to these things
things so staggering and important,
healing, peace and goodness
on the earth, freedom from suffering,
well…waiting is hard, so hard and painful.

But in these moments I’m remembering
I’m troubled in soul and looking
for something transcendent, greater
than the hurt and pain and suffering,
something, someOne warm enough
tumblr_nvsyj8Csu51tweelio1_1280
persistent, faithful, warm enough

to breathe on us
to break the ice
and give us life
tumblr_nynz57yGXw1rlitzfo1_500
Long familiar sweet hymns play
wherever I go, I remember
I am poor, imperfect, waiting for
the God Who comes down,
Comes Down, God With Us
Emmanuel! Hosanna!
In the Highest Holy Fire!
tumblr_mbreiw9fEy1qaxmg0o1_500
and I feel again
the gentle nudge
of a knock deep
at the door
of my small
and icy lonely
heart.
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Advent is the time of waiting
waiting for the One (the One)
Who embraced body, embraced sorrow
Came to show us all the fullness
of just being home, present, and real.

And we are long reminded in
our cold dolorous longing
what we’re longing for actually
a Who, Who, Who we long for,
God…always coming nearer to us.
tumblr_nxyvx0qB8d1sbg1lmo1_500I have found a place
inside (in Advent, inside you)
that place where once
you die, you…
you come Alive…
A place where pain
and pleasure weigh out
just the same
and all that’s left
is only Love,
tumblr_nveprpyg6U1tdo940o1_1280And every sorrow touched
by the wild gold Promise
that in this very place
(of waiting)
Jesus has been born
(is born)
and will be born
again and again,
and again
breaking thru
tumblr_nvtonjz7IJ1qam6uto1_1280that icy grip
thawing out
our longing hearts,
melting all
our sin and deaths
so we can
laugh again.

IRISH THANKSGIVING

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Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: IRISH THANKSGIVING


It was a year ago on this day that I read this poem, and I am struck just as strongly today as I was on that day a year ago…by this work of such stunning power and beauty and longing and fulfillment.

Melissa Shaw Smith is a poetess that I respect immensely, and a woman that I aspire to be like.  I have never met her, except thru her work, and thru a few emails in which she graciously allowed me to bloviate opinions about her work which in hindsight seems to me a bit like the 2nd grader who can do the times tables up thru her 5s talking to Madam Curie about the wonders of science!!

No matter…Constance, if you think my poetry is any good, just know that it is as if it were a child’s lego creation side by side with El Capitan compared to Melissa’s work.

Mel, if you are reading here…I love this poem with the marrow-bones of my tears.

Much much love…
Charissa

 

Your Approaching Presence

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Dressed in red
and wrapped in white
I wait in warmth,
wait in splendour
for the high and shivery
delight of your approaching
presence, in your silver
laughter, in your ringing
song that echoes off the stones
and reaches here inside
these ermine furs
so soft.

Advent Poem: To Go To Bethlehem

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Uncanny, peculiar,
uncomfortably strange,
I tend my fires and tell my story…
tumblr_n40izwKWgH1s5neh1o1_1280the story of
this quirky girl
overly-intelligent
and stuck in time
that is not time, so
unreconciled to time
so bound up in its realm.
tumblr_n5np124LJd1s5neh1o1_500I am strapped there
on Your wrist (watch)
a condor in a cage
passing from quick present
to some furious future
and thus so fast becoming
dim, and dark, and past
and wondering if I amtumblr_n3ng7oK9xj1s5neh1o1_1280ever?  present?
ever a moment?
ever a significant occasion
or an immeasurable quality?

I want real time!tumblr_nyhnrwYzEl1qllucco2_1280time which breaks through
with a shock of joy
like a leap into Crater Lake
on a snowy New Year’s morning,
time where we are completely
un-self conscious and far more
real in some eternal now
I thirst for a moment jeweled!
tumblr_nycmluCX5a1qat5pio1_500a moment
so sweet or magnified
it seems to stop time
but doesn’t because time
becomes a point so limply moot
and thus no longer dirty moat
between me and my true self
tumblr_mz5pbxrvwe1slvh08o2_1280And here I sit, beside time’s bonfire
tumblr_nvpeukM0QC1u7b31go1_1280and sparks fly up
and away so quick
to join the stars
and glimmer and
I poke at this fire
hot and tender
and tend it…
with my tinder636e5f6d27dbf806212c969a3560ca33and wonder how to be
here in this already
and not yet, between
That Eternal Now
and this one,
and the One
Who There Inhabits?tumblr_nxgij6jzXP1rnl2wvo1_1280wonder how to be aware
of life while I am living it?

wonder how to limp courageous
and relinquish all control
of self and self awareness?

wonder how to laugh courageous
and look for glory
in the storied
wonder of the ordinary?

wonder how to live courageous
and be surprised by One
who dares draw near?

wonder how to love courageous
and take off rings and watches?
tumblr_n1uzzfw14n1s5neh1o2_1280
I burn calendars and open
my heart uncanny,
strange peculiar…
tumblr_nfi2j2A3Sf1t043jao1_500to see eternity in
the midst of time
to go to Bethlehem
today and everyday
in this time and place

where glimpses of the eternal
come quiet, unexpectedly
they come and they upset
our every notion static about time
and all we discover there within.
and in the east her long shroud trailing
I open
my Uncanny Peculiar
Uncomfortably Strange Heart
to the story of All and Ever
ending Never

I choose
to live somewhere between
the already and not yet,
caught and held
by the One who
dwells within Outside.
tumblr_ny2xn8zBkj1trdezwo1_540And so the fire burns away the moments
And we must choose our portion:
whether here we tarry or if
we choose to journey
Pregnant by some God

To Go To Bethlehem
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I Am A broken girl And I Am

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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.
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Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?

Can you endure my very worst days and stand

me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror? tumblr_nycmluCX5a1qat5pio1_500
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”

Why would anyone?

I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?

Why won’t you chase me?
tumblr_ny2eewVQ1e1tbryhwo1_1280

Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?

Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
tumblr_nu4grakCop1rthbito1_540
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.

I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars’
commitment to shine in the night.

I am a broken girl and I am
dust_and_ashes_by_art_de_viant-d6ci8m9

My Peculiar Love, Arise!

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Look up, arise
my Peculiar Love!

You tumble still
wracking rocks
wrenching ravines
clawing cliffs
and scratching
with nails broken
and bloodied in the plunge.

No…I have not left
your side, your side
(it’s only bruised, Love)
so vulnerable to that lance
and the stinky rough
warhands of that coward
masquerading as a shepherd
covering for a rapist

And on that note remember
He who lays by your side
He who took the lance
He who went all the way
coming to common terms
with loss
blind as wind…

But I float now…see?
You will too soon…

And this is waiting…
there…and so I lay these words of care
upon your lips like mountain blood
white and clear and clean and cold
to slake your thirst with sop
(not hyssop)
of beauty, healing, Promise…

Oh my Love…my Love Peculiar
the day will come to
Arise

and join me in the Liberty
you prophesied when you spied
your baby’s heart eternal.

The Truth About Transgender Suicide | Brynn Tannehill

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“Suicidal behaviors in LGBT populations appear to be related to “minority stress”, which stems from the cultural and social prejudice attached to minority sexual orientation and gender identity.

“This stress includes individual experiences of prejudice or discrimination, such as family rejection, harassment, bullying, violence, and victimization. Increasingly recognized as an aspect of minority stress is “institutional discrimination” resulting from laws and public policies that create inequities or omit LGBT people from benefits and protections afforded others.

“Individual and institutional discrimination have been found to be associated with social isolation, low self-esteem, negative sexual/gender identity, and depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders.

“These negative outcomes, rather than minority sexual orientation or gender identity per se, appear to be the key risk factors for LGBT suicidal ideation and behavior.”

Source: The Truth About Transgender Suicide | Brynn Tannehill

This.

I am sharing this truly scintillating essay, and the pull quote above is the core for me.

I just wanna say that I was raised white…but I was…raised white. Fortunately for me, I was never inculcated with racist bull shit, to the point that in college in the 80s I had a dear friend literally shock me when he told me I was the least racist person he had ever met…and yes, I did hear and note his use of the word “least”…which said volumes to me but in a language that I could not decipher or understand.

Well…since coming to terms with myself and understanding my gender journey, my life has changed in shattering ways, stunning and transcendent ways…but most importantly of all I was delivered from the ocean at last…

and became aware of so much that I never knew, could never see, even as a fish in the sea has no clue that it is in the sea.

I understand the comment of my friend now…”least racist”.

I wish I had the words and ways to let my friends, acquaintances and loved ones who are subject to that which they are subject to for the absolute worst and most insignificant of reasons KNOW that I get it now…

Oh, I will NEVER get it for the reason that they are made subject, anymore than any cis-gender person will ever “get it” in any way other than developing a deep and sincere sympathy and resolute commitment to love and live that love…

But I do get it now, the persecution, the othering, the abuse, the hatred and the fucking demonic unreasoning irrational stupidity of those besotted and drunk on the luck of the draw and the fate of biology.

My friends, and you know who you are…this post is for you…may I always find the joy I have found in solidarity with you and the love of your deep suns of being that shine undefeated and undefeatable! May I always have the heart, the eyes to see and to be inspired time and again with your indomitable spirit, will, but most of all your LOVE which just fucking never quits, CAN never quit.

You have no idea, the moments you have dragged me thru…you bearing the hate directed at you due to skin and me bearing the hate directed at me due to a variation on skin but essentially a common thing we walk in…times I was on the way out, and I would read sumfin, hear sumfin, think of sumfin…and be inspired and lifted up in your heart of hearts.

Now? I can at least have the means to find the remaining privilege I have and divest myself of it intentionally…it doesn’t always go, it is stuck to my skin color…but at last it is not stuck to me.

I regret only that it took as long as it did for my understanding and seeing eyes to catch up to what my heart must have known for my friend to tell me what he told me. We intersect…and for the rest of my days on earth I am expanding that intersection with every ounce of love, faith, hope, grace and mercy that is mine.

To the rest of my friends: please take it in faith that your privilege is there, is stuck to you, and is a legacy that you can use if you will but set your heart in a frame of humility and ask that your eyes be opened…hopefully you will gain insight without experiencing it being ripped away…but if that is what it takes, it is better that this occur rather than go thru your life blind while thinking you see.tumblr_lh6nzks1YS1qgnixvo1_1280

A Morning Phase

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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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Heart And Henna

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Mark my heart with loving henna
not with needle-inky hate
let me feel your brush-sienna
early, lasting, long and late

Worry not that it will fade
victim of time’s ceaseless flow.
I am inside, tender-laid
and marked by your faithful brush blow.

Ever shall your marks on me
Bind my soft heart to your own
So mark me love, with glyphs made free
Heart of hearts, Bone of Bone.

In The Waves

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If I should walk into the sea
and find a bed soft, sandy-wet,
and there lay down, there, lay down me
would you reach out with your heart-net?

I’d lay aside my evening gown
of gossamer and pure moon beams
and let my feet find pathways down
beneath the waves to swaying dreams

that shimmer thru the quiet deep
and beckon me with promise made
If I lay there still, would you keep
my heart inside, every debt paid?

We share a bed upon the land
and swim there in the waves of night
Ah, but in that bed beyond the sands
Will you there be my sweet delight?tumblr_nmyqh44LgX1qat5pio1_500

This Water, Cloudy

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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

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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
tumblr_nuoplsUK3F1tijmqfo1_500

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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A Thousand Times Again

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Dearest Darling…

I would choose you…anytime, everytime.

Again and again.

You are the best forever.

“Her mindset will raise your children.
Not her body and good looks.
Choose wisely.”

I saw this quote…and I thought about the things that have been hurled at you this last year.  I want you to know that the only choice that really matters is the one I made, and that I would make it again, as many times as I had it to make.

You are the person that I loved, and love.  It was your SELF…your way, your mind, your heart that I wanted wrapped around any children I had…and I still think that you are the cream of the crop and a fabulous mother.

And you’re hot too!!  Lol!!!

Love, metumblr_ntt9x896Ux1uasc29o1_1280

Love And Breath

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When light fades in upside down slow burn
that looks like sunset when it’s actually
just God’s Hand on your heart
Their dimmer switch of love
spinning round on and off…
brighter…not-so-bright…dark.
tumblr_nvck8mikGp1uhc27eo1_1280
It’s in that plenary dark it seems
like love gets lumped together with
some lesser things indifferent to
light, and trumped by passions fading,
passing, dressed like love but there

beneath the pomp and circumstance
they lurk…contempt and loathing
lingering like endless expectation-fogs
of timid cold perfection leaving
just the loss of warmth
withholding cleansing cold.tumblr_nu0gldvkAp1sypuuko1_400

When love is dialed down, dimmed to death
within the dark in that slow fade
and one swift moment final…and then…
there it is when you discover

in the flipping that the one you love is dead
or dying in your heart that’s aching
for a dawn that’s never breaking
and your edgy flesh is melting
and the burning in your throattumblr_nul12uwgjZ1qas1mto2_1280is draining into every vein
inside the pulsing sack of pasty skin and flaccid muscle
and red blood gone white with grief…
and day it doesn’t stand a chance
amidst that endless drone of hope
distressed and impotent before
The Hand that keeps the lights turned
dim and distant

and all you can do is wait just wait
for brightness to return, slow, rising
up painstaking there beneath…
your heartache heavy…lumpy…
quicksilver mercury mercytumblr_nudhxd4RMm1qllucco1_1280 glowing faint, insistent, slow
becoming wonder rising but
indefinite and vague and blurry
your heart shaken shifted stirred
and torn apart and all that’s left is

love and breath

the dignity of daring to love
greatly, fiercely, full and found
in faith
that love and breath
alone remaintumblr_no3qtnxh201tpw2ero1_500

To You Some Where

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

and the flowers there

i fly to you some where
i fly to you

I Hadda Share This Found Bit

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so beautiful

“she was the rain
and I didn’t even bother
to bring an umbrella
because I wanted all of her
every drop in the wind
soaking me through
her kisses were wild flowers
sweet, colorful and divine
lips a mixture of
honey and wine”
— nightlyquote // b.r.j

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Like Sunlight, Like Fog

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I’m often told I’m confident
(like the march of blazing sun
across the hills of night
awakening each day)

I’m told I look like rushing waves
that roll in from the sea
and pounce upon the sand
in joyful swelling sounds

This makes me laugh inside my heart
because I’m more like fog
that silent moves unsure
which way it wants to go

But still committed to the march
inexorable and slow
to be true to myself
in soft embrace sold out

to be completely there
and wrapped around all things
I cherish in the hug
of insubstantial presence

there, and yet untouched.tumblr_ntubpx3qIm1qm86t3o1_1280

The Birth of My Fourth

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it’s a crushing weight
tangible presence
part and parcel
of the essence
of this thing

just like red is
the truth of blood
and copper is
the air exhaled
by laughing lungs

it’s the love I feel
for your fire-self
your glowy soul
alive and strong
and destined here

to speak with laughs
to laugh with song
to sing in truths
to love in speed
to linger ever

as the crushing weight
here in my chest
upon my heart
this bloody living
love of youaaa