So blows the wind,
blowzy and loud
Tugging, tickling and
talking of life
on the water
Without boats,
without pride.
I have squirmed,
crawled, walked
and danced this far
and the air
shimmers and shivers
(a puppy wanting petted)
And She sings on the wind
to step off the end
and walk on water,
walk on Love,
Walk.
So I raise my silver sail
and rise up heart first
dancing over mercury waves
and cobalt deep blue to
merge with the golden end.
I wrote this poem this morning, after thinking most of the day about the notion that when we seek to understand our identity, we risk losing the gestalt of our Self…reducing ourselves inadvertently as we seek to understand ourselves. This fracturing may perhaps be necessary as a beginning, even as when we want to create an amazing dish we must first understand the components and how they go together and interact. But ultimately, each facet, each ingredient must willingly give up the ghost of its independence, and join the unity to become married into the dish. Otherwise, the dish fails.
We define ourselves by gender, by sexuality, by occupation, by spiritual allegiance or lack thereof, by ideal, philosophies or concept.
What if all of those things were like the stones and glass shards of a kaleidoscope? What if they all could marry, come together, and we might actually be something far more wonderful and complex…and simple? And what if the kaleidoscope of me was a mere shard going with the kaleidoscope of you…and you…and you…until we were a blazing mandala of God extending thoughout His universe in His hand and we would ride on Her song and shine for Their Glory forever?
This poem is about that…the idea is a deep one, and needs to be unpacked inside you for days, perhaps months or years…I know that I am understanding ingredients easily, but only just realising that they must now conjoin, and consummate this marriage of me.
Bright colored stones and lacy graceful glass,
Refract the Light and bend it beautiful…
(our world is bent so Grace responded with
refracted Beauty), hand to grasp, hold hope
and twist that tube, Tender Kaliedoscope.
And wakeful bright and peering eager eyes
convert sensed input into wondrous meaning,
Glad riot glorious, such brilliant beauty
a visual symphonic concert singing.
The sullen bully was afraid to look,
afraid to feel, so afraid to become
a subject. His hand ragged, rudely rough,
and she, her slattern eyes sloppy with fear…
Their mouths shot stones and cannonaded curses,
cascades of clouting shouting wounding words
until I broke, until I shattered final
and glad glass, patterned fragments intricate
of my me placed just so to catch the light
and burst with grace that glowed and shone brilliant
to beauty forth with glory-shine and SHINE…
Now broken, fallen shattered, they were able
to clench at last, to fumble furiously
To grasp and rape and ravage with their fingers
and hot insinuating tones of terror…
they grab a bloody shard and cut themselves
and cut each other “proving” I was poison
reducing me to that fragmented shard
and say they named me, no more numinous.
But I rebel, reject their brutal label,
and gather up the pieces of my beauty
and bring them, mourning to my tender Lady
and lay them down there, shattered and so dull
and praying, hoping, believing and knowing
She is my Mama, Warrior-Sister too
and She will integrate me intimately,
so that I coalesce to shine again
and turn in faith and love and shine in Hope
that I’m no more Broken Kaleidoscope
Will you look?
There, beneath
grey quicksilver waves…
Under brown boulders
lashed by billows and tides
Wreathed in seaweed strands
of surface stuff that clings
and grasps and changes
ever in riptides and caustic currents.
Will you look?
There, I am sitting
small, quietly azul and shimmering
Circumspect in flowing thoughts
Piled up like surf
queuing to rush the beach
and show themselves
in my limpid eyes,
my starry smiles,
my liquid laughter.
Will you choose
to grant me freedom
by limiting yours freely?
Then join me, and fly
Underneath the Surface.
She walked, head held high
like a servant who pilfered a sweetcake
from the grouchy old cook
(who ruled her kingdom with iron,
a slave who fancied herself sovereign).
She took their glances,
their sneers, their horror
and fashioned it with cake and hope,
and bullheaded faith
To make flower out of flour,
and freedom out of fashion,
and roses out of ruins.
Attacking the barrier with faces,
we dent, crack, and bust it.
We see from our side
Progress! Advancement, baby steps.
Them? We are
Cracked, obscured, broken
Forgotten…
But the cracks run ragged, the breaks flow deeper,
and freedom’s whisper is strong
and Insistent.
I dip, low…
Leaning in over these words like
She moves over her cello.
My mind moves busy,
back and forth,
a bow vibrating
over those words,
seeking for
Resonance and Mystery
latent within
waiting poised,
ready for release from
just the right
strike, touch, draw.
There! Sound it so, clarion
and my words will
Sing in your soul like
her music o’erwhelms mine.
Go ahead…say it!
Tear me apart and
blood me with your firetongue.
You think so little
of it.
You think your right
and you’re right
but you are just a slave owner
marking time on the old plantation
before the dispossessed
find their arms, their legs
and their tongues
to speak of freedom and
walk in your world at last.
she ran me down
with her eyes…and words
as she walked by
clutching her child frantically.
Her angular frown glowered
and she slid sideways with her heart and
threw up a covering
for her own panic…
but that covering
was a wall to me, a barrier,
and her cruel mouth and
silent slashing slap to my face
cut me, gashed me,
and left me trapped and alone
behind the barrier that
only the outcast can see and feel
Time slides sideways
and runs rapid and drags
doggedly.
I watch my days
march closer to the end,
and I feel fresh life
fragrant hope and
promise
flow into me from beyond
as I gain access to myself
and the silver that
lay so long dormant
in the lining.
I will dance forever,
regardless.
She laughed as she thought about that
sideways thinker,
or was he just hungry,
the one who first thought to look past shells
and the smell of seafood…
limpets, mussels, clams, shrimp, snails,
oysters (omg shudder shiver).
Desperate, or bored?
Interested or Inspired?
No matter…what a world he opened up, what a
feast of delicate and wondrous
flavors, aromas, delights.
I lick my fingers,
and suck butter out of my
garlic escargot, and ask Lady Grace
to give me courage to look
past shells, smells, false tells,
with no fear and great inspiration
to find true treasure in everyone I meet
drawn up from
God’s Great Sea.
Roll back stormy waters, roiling steely dark and deep.
Roll back clinging finger-waves and the icy grip they keep.
Make a way thru waters where there isn’t any way
And lead me laughing, walking, running out of miry clay.
Elder voices rebound around, echoes from my past,
Deep bass rumbles, gruff and loud remind me of my caste…
Hairy, clumsy, unrefined the world which held me chained
Roll them back, please scour me, set me free from all that’s stained.
Behind me, tumult quiets as I stride forward in grace,
At my left hand are threatening wails and rain-lash on my face,
At my right arm benighted phobic zombies gibber shrill
Roll back the waters Adonai, and lead me up Your hill.
I walk on dry ground breathlessly, forward in the night
Reminding myself all the time I walk by faith not sight.
My soul will someday sing the song of Miriam and rejoice,
But now, ROLL BACK, please…save me, for You are my always choice.
Flowers sprout
with fierce purpose.
Pushing, unnoticed, til thru
dark and unconscious earth
they poke, appear, and sing.
Blossoms of hope,
of song, of trailing beauty
and fragrant comfort.
My heart soars,
rises like the wave rises
and longs for Her
as the wave’s curl
longs to break
onto the shore
and be wasted there
in adoration…
and I too
will break on her
and rush over this earth
as a tide of fragrant blossoms.
This girl,
your garden of Grace,
this Grace
Golden
Grateful and
Glad.
Give ear, sharp, perked up
Oh Lady Grace my Liege
to my words.
Consider my meditation.
Draw near, hover,
snuggle down over
my fear, pain,
anxious moments and
tossy topsy turvy turnings.
Hear my inner voice,
may it call true to You,
from mourning to morning,
may my soul learn to trust Thee.
For in the morning
will I direct my cries unto You,
and to you shall my inner eye
always gaze straight.
There, ‘neath the charred and crisp skin
the hull, the shell, the null…
Something shines,
laughingly lurking and eager
to break thru the crusty cap and gleam
brilliant and true.
Fire and rain have fallen
and taken tribute from
my bleeding vital heart,
and twisted back again and over,
licking kissing and
claiming all their bounty…
what can be shaken is
what can be eaten is
Leaving…what? Who?
Leaving me
Charissa Grace
Shining thru.
She spins,
drawing down and deep
from her most secret treasure.
She carries with her silk,
gossamer strands and strategy
and patiently she makes
from who she is inside…
her one and only option.
And need. Her One Desire.
She gets life, sustenance,
exists for transformation
and creation
of her web of life.
And I watch, fascinated
by her patience,
her diligent patience,
her perseverance.
Mama, teach me
to take the traumas,
desires, longings,
emptinesses, hurts, wounds,
deposits and experiences,
Teach me to yield
and let this whirling
confusion become spinning,
and spinning out of who I am,
that I might spin a web
to catch Your Sacred blessings
and life.
I walk slow on a
road that bears leaves in mountains
on the peaks of spring.
#1
rain-filled ruts reflect
an apple-red summer sky
that highlights brown hills.
in the wind my skin
revels amidst bitter-sweet
echoes of that day.
wind, you will have a
terrible time smothering
my soft clarity.
#2
in fog a tree steps
back graceful, allows passage
shedding misty skin.
light fall of the moon
gently caresses the tree
and subtracts some dark.
silver sliver slides
through dark blue breaths of still night
on a cricket’s song
#3
voices of snowmen
call the white-haired children home
then melt in their mouths.
beggar’s withered hand
stretched out inert, silent as
if already dead.
The old ones, bookends
whose bodies encrust their lives
find peace yet again.
#4
a good poem somehow
makes what’s true a little more
DISTURBING/PROFOUND.
melting candles drip
with hidden light most precious
a grain-growth of gold
Poem within the poem
Grace inhabits this body–
Image finds its Source.
#5
I love you, but it’s
not the finish, not the end
but the beginning.
flow’ring thru silk sleeves
are come memories of all
the moments of life.
You say “I love you”
a sound so tender that the
dead could even hear!
#6
I raise my hands high
to have them remember you
they trace you in air.
together they sway
like a small boat on a lake
hull snuggling waves
there is no rainfall
no wind’s taste nor full moon’s touch
soft enough for you.
#7: Final Call
Come. Walk beside me
Heads held high we’ll sing into
the difficult dark.
River meets river
They meld, one to another
our beings, the streams
We journey slow, on
a long road that leads to a
Final, Always-Dawn.
They move, they flit.
I have felt Them.
Lumps of Life weighty, inert
thick points of presence.
Though there was thick stillness now
They have wriggled,
struggled and groaned
their way free.
I accept them.
I receive them.
They are me,
and I am free.
And I sit, pondering today,
tomorrow, but yesterday
Yesteryear looms large.
The shadow cast of those events shines
inverted and bright
Light on Darkness Backdrop.
Crystal clarity and
pure purpose precipitated,
linger now,
surge now,
stay now
inside me.
I face fears,
uncertainties and self-centered acts
that will wound and rend.
People of agenda which is
dark on light’s backdrop,
people of ignorance
who assume all things.
My heart quakes,
my bones are water,
my thoughts are anxious acid
that etches my soul.
I pray thee,
Precious Christ Child,
cover me in such a way
that all that is
etched away leaves you
Shining thru me
The Christmas Star.
For upon my heart will I play my song,
plucked and strummed and tapped
with fingers of faith-full thoughts and Hope,
Assured that I belong.
For Hope’s not hope that only wishing
waits in resignation.
Hope sings, soars, and gladly yields
And echoes Faith’s Vibration.
I dare not hope in my own strength
for strength is but illusion.
I rest instead in Their own Rest
and dwell there in Collusion.
HA! Trite and amusing rhymes
occupy my busy and anxious soul…
And give space and time
To Choose, to know Whom,
and Play the Harp of Hope
Amen.
Altars within.
What lies inside leads Outside.
Windows and pathways, like sunrise
Faithful and free.
I sip, slow, as spectrums
Bloom and what was fullness
drains, swirls, and I see beyond
Wavelengths.
There is a forgetting that is born of folly,
There is amnesia kissed by Grace
How to remember and forget in this
stoppered Lonely Place?
Oh Creation, be my window, be my pathway,
Be my temple to stretch out and
Fill with GloryGrace.,
And toast That Which is Beyond
And They Who are Within
Windows and Pathways.
Numinous Vineyard!
You place unnamed and unashamed,
flourishing in the swirling and tenacious
embrace of splendor and beauty…
STOP!!
Turn around!!
The True Wine is behind you…
Come sit with me, still
in the cold and winter wonder
of the singing silence and
radiant velvet dark night.
The moon hovers,
a hen nestling down
on us, chicklings,
and our sentinels
stand watch,
stand guard for
our place.
Come sit with me,
my love,
my love
Light, fragile, buoyantly beautiful
and strange they emerge from
woolly woven tombs and skins
of hairy fur and no wings.
Just legs, too many and multipede
in creepy ambulation from plant to twig
avoiding the crushing boot and pecking beak.
Do they know, what they are and will be?
Do they crawl in faith, miracle filled
and waiting?
Or do they toil, in their
earthbound blind and brown dimension
to fall into chrysalis, not knowing that
Emergence waits?
Oh Mama,
may my cocoon be wrought
by Your Faithful and Loving Hands,
May my tomb be rent
by His Faithful and Fierce Sword of Light,
and may my cage be carried
and left behind in moments
of metamorphosis
and eternity.
I watch carefully and slow
and peaceful.
Stress claws constant, gnawing gnashing
teeth sharp and white
and tipped in red.
And yet I live, sustained and filled
as I am drained and killed…
Grace-God reigns and wreathes me
in Comfort-Smoke-Incense
and I am watching
for the page to turn.
Behind the set the Makers Move,
Hear, Feel and Pray.
Grant grace so I too this day.
And every day to come remain
Faithful to turn the page.
I’ve swum and I have paddled
For years, all senses addled.
To finally break thru
And surface, all things new.
Today is a beginning
I’m somber and I’m grinning
I’m in, but coming out
Grace protect this tender sprout.
When light struck my soul and I blazed
fierce and exultant into awareness,
I bled radiant joy like the horizon
bleeds the sun at dawn.
And when I gazed into the glass of exultation
(seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was
glad and wonder-full.
Until it rained
titters tinkling,
then rebukes raging, lashing at my roof
and thrumming drumming until
I saw no more darkly and thru a glass,
but thru the storm and eerie green glow
of radioactive remarks and careless cerulean (cruelean) comment,
alas. I came to know what I was not,
and I was awful (dropped an e I did).
Into days long and same,
passing people of 2 kinds that
belong and never see beyond,
never see within.
But still I pluck
throbbing buds, thorn
blood price cheap,
and hold them out
on my side of the glowing glass
(dark, through)
and wet with stormy tears
and the washy rivers of assumed presence.
But flowers fade and grass withers…
wheat words last forever
dying and reborn
to die and be born again,
as life and glacier glances grind
and move without mercy
till I am caught
between that frozen moving flow
and the dark rocks.
Bones strewn around me
in pick-up sticks of
careless hands and players
who tired of children’s games
(forgetting they must become a child)
until at last long
awareness bursts yet again
from heights dizzy and brilliant
and bleeds over me in fullness
and in terror tinklings,
thrumming and cold and stark
and cold blue clarity.
And I remember who I am,
and know what I am.
A lass.
Will you find the mercy today?
Will you find the care?
Will you go gently into our long night
and rage, rage
together with us to bless
the living of the light?
You too are dual natured,
all ye who sing sanctifications’
sweet and austere song
(old and new in one fighting)
(dead and alive in one struggle)
(corrupt and incorruption deadly dueling)
You….are US.
and we are you…but
without arms,
without eyes,
without mouths
we scream loud
and cry for release…cry out for
midwives of mercy to meet us,
make us beautiful for situation
and delivered of our awful charge.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS FOR US.
See us…
hear us…
do not fear yourself,
to stare down your stormy floods,
but see, glean and grow glad.
Oh Pharaoh’s Daughters, reach down
and lift up from the reeds and mud.
Light strikes in blacksmith blows again
and soul sparks chip off and away
As She sings and joys over me
(and you).
And on this day
I intention and remember,
remember the radiant flood
and bleeding light
of day’s eternal promise,
remember the rolling thunder
and frowning floods of painful
gushing gouts and waterspouts
in the long years walked in
the country of lost men
(and despair),
remember
the pangs,
the waves,
the start of labor as I,
pregnant with my own mystery
and full of knowing
began to emerge
and break forth, touched,
warded by Grace,
and kept from the pit
which has tripped so many
and eaten them
like Goya’s devourer
chews and rends
(let their fate haunt you and give you holy hush and silence).
They too are
Eve’s sons,
Adam’s daughters,
trapped
and
yet aware…
who fell by dreadful hands
and eyes of no symmetry.
Dare. Look. Feel.
I will too, and somewhere
we will fight off the things
that so easily entangle and be
free again to fly and
Bleed Radiant Light.
When light struck my soul and I blazed
fierce and exultant into awareness,
I bled radiant joy like the horizon bleeds the sun
at dawn.
And when I gazed into the glass of exultation (seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was glad and wonder-full.
Until it rained
titters tinkling, then rebukes raging
lashing at my roof and thrumming
drumming until I saw no more darkly and thru a glass,
but thru the storm and eerie
green glow of radioactive remarks and
careless cerulean (cruelean) comment, alas.
I came to know what I was not,
and I was awful (dropped an e I did).
Into days long and same, passing people
of 2 kinds that belong and never see beyond,
never see within.
But still I pluck
throbbing buds, thorn blood price cheap,
and hold them out on
my side of the glowing glass (dark, thorough)
and wet with stormy tears and
the washy rivers of assumed presence.
But flowers fade and grass withers…
wheat words last forever
dying and reborn to die and be born again,
as life and glacier glances grind
and move without mercy
till I am caught between that frozen moving flow
and the dark rocks.
Bones strewn around me in pick up sticks of careless hands
and players who tired of childrens’ games
(forgetting they must become as a child)
until at last long awareness bursts yet again
from heights dizzy and brilliant and bleeds over me in fullness
and in terror tinklings, thrumming and cold and stark
and cold blue clarity.
And I remember who I am, and know what I am.
A lass.
Will you find the mercy today?
Will you find the care?
Will you go gently into our long night
and rage, rage together with us
to bless the living of the light?
You too are dual natured, all ye who
sing sanctifications’ sweet and austere song
(old and new in one fighting)
(dead and alive in one struggle)
(corrupt and incorruption deadly dueling)
You….are US. and we are you…but without arms, without eyes, without mouths we scream loud
and cry for release…cry out for
midwives of mercy to meet us, make us
beautiful for situation and delivered of our charge.
OPEN
YOUR EYES
AND EARS
FOR US.
See us
hear us…
do not
fear yourself,
to stare down your stormy floods,
but see,
glean and
grow glad
Oh Pharaoh’s Daughters,
reach down
and lift up
from the reeds and mud.
Light strikes in blacksmith blows again
and soul sparks chip off and away
As She sings and joys over me
(and you).
And on this day I intention and remember
remember the radiant flood and bleeding light
of day’s eternal promise,
remember the rolling thunder and frowning floods
of painful gushing gouts and waterspouts in the
long years walked in the country of lost men
(and despair),
remember the pangs, the waves, the start
of labor as I, pregnant with my own mystery
and full of knowing
began to emerge and break forth,
touched, warded
by Grace, and
kept from the pit
which has tripped so many and eaten them
like Goya’s devourer
chews and rends
(let their fate haunt you and give you holy hush and silence).
They too are Adam’s sons, Eve’s daughters
trapped and yet aware…who fell by dreadful hands
and eyes of no symmetry.
Dare. Look. Feel.
I will too, and somewhere we will
fight off the things
that so easily entangle
and be free again to fly and
Bleed Radiant Light.
lie quietly by my side
like a still lake.
My heart beats
on your heart
as we hold each other’s
breathing in our arms
It’s as simple as it can be.
I’ll leave the clothes off my words
and address you nakedly as anyone can
Each one was perfect–
that is what I want to say–
PERFECT
The perfection found
only in loving.
Do you understand?
It seems against everything we know and
It seems against everything we believe and
It is true.
To say “I love you” is a humiliation for
It is the Absolute Narrowing of Possibilities
And everyone, down to
the last one
Dreads it…and wants it…
For only in narrowing is found
Endless widening freedom.
Plunging, plunging with screaming speed,
Oh Eagle of Flame, Whose lidless eyes
Have looked into the Light behind the sun.
When all other creatures are blinded
You soar–and then–faster faster
With talons outspread–You plummet to earth.
To spit fire and speak
Speak of Her! Firebird–Flaming One
Give me words of purity!
If I could walk free through this shadowed place
And Time was on my side, Charissa Grace
Would step on flowers’ fragrant in the air
And keep my head up for to see you there.
My level gaze made confident and sure,
If I was free, if we had found the cure,
Then I would sing of sunsets in the night
And we would swing so high in radiant light.
And from my gut would gush great gouts of joy,
And I would ne’er again be sorrow’s toy,
If I could walk free through this shadowed place
And Time was on my side, Charissa Grace
.
“We were dead before the ship even sank” she said.
Thin tendrils of pain wreathed round her face
unnoticed and they left scratches unseen.
The Dutchman walked the decks in her eyes, and
in her voice was the echo of wailing and tentative tongues
trying to tell themselves they were sailing
on the ship of the dead.
Her hair crowned her soaked skull, a holly wreath
presenting her own crown of thorns and those claws
dug in to her waxy and pale fishflesh and clung
like limpets and mirrored the
cold and enflamed tendrils of grief.
“One by one we fell, overboard” she droned, as if hypnotized
by the drumming of the waves,
the thrumming of the engines,
and the humming of the wind
in the torn and tattered sails.
“Gone, given up by the ghost we gave up the ghost”
she murmured.
“We fell into the vast
and bottomless sea,
and the ship Sailed
unheeding on into
the long and everdark night.”
I thought on these things
as my feet were burning hot
in the bright and gritty sand,
and my face baked in the grip
of the gleaming sun
and the taste of salty strain
and the happy ache of
love’s labors in my bowed back…
and I was fiercely glad
that I had never taken that voyage.
From far out in the center
of the naked lake
A Lost Loon’s Loud Lament
Echoes the cry of someone.
My love, we did not arrive at this place
To remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like trees.
Trees are broken in winter and start again
Drawing up from
The Great Root.
Like Trees
We live again.
I am longing,
as a sailboat
longs for water,
Longs for the
cool swell of the river.
I am longing
as a dark soft curl
of a woman’s hair
longs for a flower.
I am longing,
as the blueness of sky
longs for the rhythmic
fables of bells.
I am longing,
as an empty cradle
longs for someone’s
tremulous sleep.
I am longing,
as a mirror
longs for
Reflections.
Such a longing.
Such a long time,
such a long way,
Such a longing.
And I find at long last
the days taste of black licorice and
camphorous witch hazel
scrunched over my heart,
and ground-in dirt and gritty green and gummy pain
crust thick and stale over its surface.
I pull my brown drab blanket closer
and cling to clotted adhesions
of inner and outer worlds in collision.
Cornered, walls of the past and the future
hem me in. Raw, bleeding tears
and tears
where I seek to
strip away small comforts
but only tear pieces of me
off with them.
cornered.
and how deep runs the river,
how cold the current
how silent the stream.
One of my very favorite poems ever, appeared in a newspaper years ago…I am blown away at the capturing of the power of a Woman, and the ready relish her man takes in being hers.
She is lovely, I think, as she sits,
one hand draped lightly over the shoulder
of her breathless companion, the other moving up and
out, as it punctuates the monologue she is murmuring
in his ear. Even from here, I can see that fines lines
break and run from her eyes, and banks of invasive gray
have taken root in her wild black curls. (Later today,
I will read that Sharon Stone has proven older women
can be beautiful, and I will think—was there ever
any doubt?) My God, this woman looks like a queen,
except she is sitting sideways, balanced,
on the back of an old, black bicycle.
The late April heat is already up,
and anyone looking would see
this man of hers is hard at it; his pressed
white shirt had become untucked in the back,
and the slick bare skin at the top of his head
is pearled with sweat. I wonder
if he finds himself wishing
he could trade the load he is pedaling
for a bottle of cold water, or an FM radio.
Suddenly, the corners of her lips elevate slightly,
and taking his right ear between her thumb and forefinger,
she tugs. His head snaps back, mouth open wide,
and he laughs with such force
that even the dogs drowsing
in the dusty shade that lines this road
lift their heads and sing.
I watch, fingers for eyes,
as she Sleeps
night pulled inside her,
down her eyes
like a velvet blanket
I touch…face, and see pain flying away,
ducks from the pond
breaking
dashing in the dark
feathers fluttering feebly
all that is left of the fight
i stroke and see
strife shuffling off
shambling shibboleth
gross golem
gone.
my hands heal, they speak,
and call the sun
rising inside her, restoring her to
light to
love to
life…and life.
my lips preach with
a kiss upon her brow,
and she sighs
and i know the dawn is come.
After A Kill There Is A Feast.
Toward The End, When Dancing Dies,
The Hounds, Drunk On Hares’ Blood
Begin To Talk Of How Soft
Were Their Pelts, How Graceful
Their Leaps, How Lovely
Their Scared, Sad Eyes
Regression
I have seen, in my solitude
Very clear things that are
not true.
The poet does not pursue
the fundamental “I”
but the essential “you”.
Things to ponder:
a heart that is solitary is
a heart no longer
But when you criticize me,
Catch also
a cricket by the wing
and accuse her
of chirruping!
In misty morning’s early grasp
autumn rituals of smoke
and crackly leaves
lay strewn around about…
and I hover
twixt two times,
two places and wandering
from side to side
and place to place
and me to me,
fading, forming,
transparent and thin
dropping (fig) leaves.
this tree longs
to slumber
and lay dormant
awaken and
break free…
I take on form and visage
and gather threads together
of my true heart,
and feed to life’s
warp and weft and beam
till I am fashioned again,
with face and substance shining…
me…
Her glowing Grace-Kissed Gleam.
3/4 time the music swirled
unfurled and rolled along
while life just twisted, doubled, curled
and sang its starry song.
Pastiche, panoramas, plans
click by like slides before
the slumbering spirits too drunk on draughts
of dreamy days of yore…
and nights of normal life, assumed,
taken as granted and gifted
while life just twisted, doubled, curled
and sang its white swan song.
Waltz time strains echoing through
A life time of refrains
But Joy endures with compass True
To dance, to love, Sustain.
The road rising from
earth to eternity
carried on by
terroir and terrain
a zigzag of
gush and glory.
the road from
heaven to earth
is trod by
brass brazen angel feet
who carry
hints and clues
of heavenly vintage
and teach us
that from grapes of wrath
will come forth
vintages of grace…
And I endure, face forward
into steely storms of bracing
whiplash crystal raindrops.
Whirlwind tempests,
tendrils, tongues,
tempos swirling in,
they ride and run like tides.
Face to face I stand in place
free in myself but chained to me.
And I endure, face forward.
Shall I dance,
invited to Solstice
morphing and spin,
silky and gushing
wet my heart essence
to caress this creature?
Encase and bury her
inside a tomb
of rest, a womb
of becoming?
Every blow,
every storm
strips me clean,
disappears me,
reveals me
Transforms me,
calls me,
uncoccoons me
Until I endure,
face forward.
Deeps call, cry, and break
on my heart in salty misty sheets
and then dissolve into tearful torrents
and groans.
There is much to weep for in this life,
and against too…and they stain
and leave their telltale tracks
(sandpipers cry and running evidences in the waves’ edges).
And yet.
And yet…from tears work a Power
A Grace
A Love
Benevolent Rumplestiltskin takes my dross
My straw and spins my
Tears into Gold.
BACK! Git Back,
Burka Bound Bitch!
you dare to undrape
and go graceful and glad?
You are nothing but
double trouble and toil
and you violate my space
with your notions of liberty.
I SWEAR! Ima
BLOW MYSELF UP!
Ima blow you up!
Iffn I don’t git my way.
Your soul belongs to me,
your heart, keep it hidden and draped
in my fables of your self!
You undraped is the universe
shitting on me special
(I’m soo special the
fucking UNIVERSE makes a point
to shit on me!!)
You uncocooned
is affront, threat!
Fingers jammed
into my ears
and palms over
eyes and mouth
you are
seeevil-
hearevil-
speakevil!
You have no place like me…
for I have been
natural borned
to my bone crusted throne!
Earned by springing from
the spiritual loins of
My Ancestors…
the great woman haters of history…
the great race haters of history…
the great religion haters of history…
the great sex haters of history…
We OWN you!
Burka Bound Bitch,
wear the skin I assign you
and be that
hairy bear-befuddled
muscle bound misslemuscle
I say you are…
WE SAY YOU ARE…
and are not.
I swear!
I blow it all up
and show everyone…
unless you stay
chained in 2 chains
you horrid gender freak.
The poet is a more
desperate person
than most…
she must
get it all down
before the
ages are up.
Which, as any poet will tell you
Is A BITCH!
Caustic and toxic silences
Scream with cowardly cadences.
Sulking, skulking coyotes
round the campfire,
Shadows, darting in
and nipping at my heart.
Worrying teeth and gnashing jowls
behind which hides…what?
Cowardice?
Callousness?
Cowardice?
Who knows,
for silence rules like Stalin
Over a bleak and barren land
from which the songbirds
have gone, have fled
before the Glower and Growl
of Self…
of Silence.
There are silences that kneel,
silences that cover over a multitude.
Silences that fall like snow
and make all things pure
and new and whole.
But this silence is
the nasty Hangover Sweat
of one drunk on self
and laying waste to the land…
yipping
kipping
howling
nipping
ripping.
Suffering has voice but
Silence, dumb and gibbering
in its self indulgence
Towers over all.
in the midst
of the slant silent snow
the bird is rising away
from the wild and barren tree
eccentric knotted twigs
bending forward ‘neath the wind
and horn-like
at the top.
You.
Fair presence
Whose
Name
I cannot
name,
only
“My Dearest Darling”
only
“My Heart”
You,
whose
Name
I cannot
name,
Because
it is
my
deepest
Breath
Haiku #9
face in quiet night
softly holds the fire glow
in her smoky eyes.
catching her portrait
in gold glistening harvest moon
her very essence.
she smiles quietly
lovely effortlessly free
laughing in the night.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.