Tag Archives: Sorrow

Sorrow Is

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sorrow
is the
most sensitive
of all created
things

(aye the
question lingers,
hangs, remains…
who created
sorrow?)
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Sorrow has taught me much
of Holy Ground and tears
and coming times when
people realize that we
know nothing about
life until we know
sorrow and
sanctified
ruddy
dirt.
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Sorrow
is such holy
ground and those
who do not learn to
walk there know nothing
of what living truly means
and that Life’s sacred truths
most precious are drained from
sorrow’s silver cup and learned in sorrow’s
frozen icy grip, so stark, lacey, frosty filigreed
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Sorrow is a
wound that bleeds when
any hand but that of love
touches it and even then
must bleed again,
though not in pain
but finally in
tenderness
and healing
evermore
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The Pain And The Poetry

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“If your pain sounds pretty,
it doesn’t seem so bad.
If you use beautiful words
to describe your sadness,
people may line up
around the block to read it.
See it. Hear it. Fall in love with it.
If people don’t know better,
they might think they want it.”

— saintly-sinner

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Pressed Hard On The Edge

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the fragrance of a thousand years
the sound of silent flying souls
my heart pressed hard against the edge
the thick and soft edge breathing hard
while loves sings always like the wren
and stars sing always overhead
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I have places that I live
other places that I dwell
and silence rings in golden throng
words idle cannot do their wrong
and I take up your judgment eyes
and try to ride the dashing waves
until I fly, leave earth and try
to nestle soft and comforted
between wings of the butterfly
pearls beautiful drop from my heart
delicate, riding, perfumed red
or is it white, or golden black
and glowing lustre carmel clean?
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but you…still…
heavy with your ego looks
and thick with all your privilege books
and me?  Just ghosting in your world
a banner on the wind unfurled
my body pressed hard on the edge

On Ghomeshi, Memory and Trauma

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I simply have to press this…I am the victim of stories that intimate people tell about me that are lies.

Flat out.  They lie, because of many reasons, and I think all of the reasons are understandable:  my transition, their own cognitive dissonance, it’s easier to scapegoat me than accept that their life is the way it is as a consequence of their choices…it doesn’t matter why they lie.

I still love them, because I cannot do otherwise.  I am incapable of not loving them.  But the consequences of that lie are stunningly strong and toxic.

My only hope is that they come to their senses in a way similar to what happened here in this article.

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Have you ever had a moment when you suddenly realize that your memory of an event is not actually what happened? A few years ago I was talking to someone about a pretty life-altering event that happened…

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Source: On Ghomeshi, Memory and Trauma

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.

 

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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In The Midst of Ashes

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I would make it again…knowing full well what lay ahead

Crushed In Switzerland

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that illusion is breaking up
like ice squeezed tight and crushed
in the fists of inevitability
and spring

there is no such thing as neutral
in a world pulled tight, pulled taut
between that endless winter
cold and bleak
and ravenous in black
consuming every weak
meek heart and undefended

and the coming
time of harvest
when all things
are marked
paid in full
and the ever-day
dawns without the sun
and sings unto the moon

“olly olly oxen free!!”

But you, like the ice
must be broken up
must choose to become
either water, or air
or forever frozen
in evil’s horrid grip

You must become
crushed in Switzerland
and thus set free forever

Your Silence As Well

Your Silence As Well

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Miss You

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I miss you…I miss you so, in tears
I miss you with nerves frayed
nerves ‘fraid
and nerves numb
but never quiet
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I miss you in rainbows and winds
and the stir of the leaves
amidst the plum blossoms
and wild cherry petals
streaming down
like the tears I cry
in my longing for your
presence.
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Abandonment

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This poem is one year old…I wrote it last year trying to deal with my worst enemy in this world.

I wanted to repost it, because frankly right now there is a great deal of uncertainty in my life…forces vie and swirl around me. People are easily inconsistent and squirt out in weak places…some vie for power, and some seek to judge from outside observation and have no clue about inside motivations…to give up power in deference to one who seeks it, only to have another assume that I am shirking my duties hurts me immensely.

I think most of those feelings are exacerbated by my old enemy:

Abandonment

You, long my nemesis and hater of my soul. You’ve chilled my days and frozen all my long night’s coal in hours of stark terror and silent desperate screams on razor blades I’ve la…

Source: Abandonment

Your Tragic Tranny Chalice (dedicated to Costco)

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I was feeling fine, my day was good, and the sun shone outside.
As I walked the aisles looking for the stuff deemed so necessary
(after all, it HAS to be the Costco brand…cus KIRKLAND)
people smiled and we were soft on one another…

until I got to you, Checker, you with your fear become repulsion
become anger become hatred become revulsion become revenge
and your decision that I was a fraud and committing fraud
you who have let 5 ft tall dark skinned dark haired women
use the card of a nearly 6 ft tall blond norwegian woman
you who let half a dozen people use this common card,
the Holy Grail:  the Sacred Costco Card

and yet me, who most coincidentally and closely resembles the card holder
but happens to be trans, me…you choose to police.
And loudly, and publically and angrily, and relentlessly.

whoever you are, you hard hearted shrew, I hope you never feel the way I do
I hope it never happens to you, for it is worse than the underside of dog-vomit
which is about what you thought I was made out of, based on your words and tone.
and then when you called over the henchman to loudly flat out dehumanize
and disappear me into what you want me to be in…boxed in your word SIR
(as if sirs walk with flowers in their hair and flowing jewelry and trinkets and flair)

and everything inside that I was began to melt
it was your western version of acid in the face

thank you, Costco zombie of horror and hate.
you don’t even remember anything but
the spectacle of tears and your own sweet wine
of derision that you drank from my heart become your tragic tranny chalice

but I will never be able to forget, because your acid burns my face yet and still

and I don’t even know if anyone cared enough to hold you accountable
and that diminishes me further, becoming even more of no account or worth

may the Lord restore my heart and give again to me an unscarred face

A Different End To The Story

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All full of himself and stiff
gait wobbly, bopping up and down
walk waggly, blipping circley side-side
aggressive lean forward looking
for something to pierce, to rip

pent up all day inside the clothes of decency
but out now, unleashed now from the world of men
and striding like Colossus thru the realm
of women and children and all that rage
and self loathing his ticket to intoxication…
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just looking for a reason, a place
to vent…and vent that place, tear it
to shreds and bloody ruination plunging
his vicious teeth deep into soft innocent
flesh not yet on the planet 5 years.

He wore his privilege like porcupine quills.
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And then his tongue, bullwhip cracking
his pig eyes squinty and squealy and sweaty
and his anger was only surpassed
by his sanctimonious self righteousness
and utter unawareness of anything but himself.

And I?  Constrained by bonds of love and consternation
responsible for hearts and souls, and yes his own as well
I bit my fucking lip until it bled, and imagined
my nails raking his face to shreds
the way his words tore the heart

from my precious precious angels
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and here I sit, impotent work
with keyboard and words and tears
of sorrow, of ruination, of rage
and longing for the day when a man
won’t be such a dick.

I sit longing for a different end to the story.
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Gravity That Rules

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…perhaps this could be me.

Right now?  Sadly, it is still gravity that rules
and in times like these?

It’s hard to see
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I Am The OtHeR

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they sit beside the brook
its merry song tinkles around them
music from the heart of
the earth’s blood clearer than diamonds
more fierce than oxygen
and all they hear is the sound
of piss bouncing off stones
and fouling the dirt
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in the presence of waterfalls
roaring with the immanent joy
of the void becoming UN-void
and spray like pearls on the way
from nowhere to as yet pregnant
oysters in deepest seas and
deeper sees
all they hear is a vague
annoying buzz of
an insignificant tramp.
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and at that shore vast
that shore that makes them
wistful, hopeful, weak, strong
in, out, shrinking, growing
never changing never same
and the thunder of the deep
calling to Deep…
they cast their trash
and drop their gum
after taking my picture
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A Gulf So Imperceptible

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the distance between you and i
is the same as that distance
between myself and me
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a gulf so imperceptible
two souls that intertwine
and yet a smokescreen intervenes
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and my heart never to be touched
my inmost parts so liquid, so creamy
laying fallow, uninhabited
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thinness, membrane thinner than
a butterfly wing, or maybe even
just one molecule thick
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but never can be broken thru
never can be jumped across
to stand there with you
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Merely Tossed On Currents

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They brush,
just brush up against,
in currents, drawn close,
and enter inside
my soft tender places
and I think they’ve found
their way there, by choice
and thus become company,
constant companions…
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when, well
really they merely
are come here at random…
in currents.

I try
to latch on and hold
what just isn’t there
and then there are thrashings,
and pushings away…
and silences,

which I
despise even more,
with utter abhorrence
and horrified hushéd
held breath and no oxygen.
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The lesson must then
be learned once again,
that lesson I’ve learned
again and again

the lesson that it,
it is always again
and never at last,
no, it’s never at last.

Eventually, yes,
I can stick with
the smart strategy
of the open hand
letting goodness  just flow

and when
those who float there
on the aimless swift tides
wash in?  Simply flow
and when they wash out,
when on waters they go,
well there is nothing else
that happens to currents
and what’s in them…no.
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How many
waves have these rocks
been washed in to date?
Each one in shape
and form, like, and yet
different and rolling and
rushing and coming and

then boom!! and boom!!
and thunder and boom!!

And then
shatter-spray…splash!
and then?  There’s just water
(no wave), withdraw…and
recede and return…and
remain, waiting wet
for the next…
and the next…
and the next…
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til the
rock finally wears down
in ever-come waves
and gives up the ghost
(holy and profane)
and rejoins the sand
(the dust of the heart
of the earth hung in space)

midst the
stars in the dark
and the songs in the spaces
and heaven awaiting.
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Dinner And Diversion

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the rattle of teacups
against those saucers
laced in time and air
with the lazy lovely
scents of scones
and cardamon
and swaths
of slathered
butter.

and then windows rattle
in their frames, pulsing
and buzzing in steps
as Important Things
stomp to the door
and lean hard on
that bell dongly dinging
incessant insistent

and the back door
opens, swallows me
and I am kicked
to the curb
casually,
casualty

of the business of busyness
and life that excludes
a spot at the table
once set for tea
and me

and now moved on
to dinner and diversion.
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Une Matinee d’Hiver

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an afternoon in winter…
the geese above the field…
the field beneath the rainclouds…
so thick and straining full…

the lonesome sounds of wind-song…
the listless rustling branches…
the silhouettes so stark…
the weak grey skies above…

Une matinee d’hiver…
the useless summer stubble…
it lingers on the creek-banks…
I tarry…there…I wait…
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And Gold All Underneath

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Behold, the darkness thick and lurking, growing
like ennui in my soul, in my heart doomed and waiting
in this long moment, seemingly forever
it will remain, this painted grey, this second…
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this minute is an hour is a decade
and I exist here…floating in the nothing, growing-shrinking…
it defines me as some-thing…no…as Some-one
whose breaking renders her unbreakable…
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The growing darkness lurking, insubstantial,
The river Ennui flowing out to nowhere, to everywhere
The shocking joy and wonder also shining, in
This painted grey, and gold all underneath.
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Advent Poem: Seeds of Sorrow

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The end of exile and darkness
began at the manger of Jesus,
where seeds of sorrow sprouted
(sorrow Theirs and ours)
in Joyful Birth, and drawing
near to earth from heaven
as angels’ song is hushed

in holy hesitation
as Jesus Christ is born.
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He, God’s seed of sorrow sown
into the earth in Hope
of such Divine rejoicing
and harvesting of many
children returned Home
and exile at last over,
that exile self-imposed.

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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The Lense Thru Which I Read My Lil Red Songbird…

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I need my small, meaningless lies. I need all my self-created semi-truths.
It’s the only way for me to keep exclusive parts of myself to myself.
Believe me, I do not even perceive them as lies.
It’s something different that keeps happening inside my head.
At the same time, I long to tell you the truth about me, always.
I want to share with you each important or unimportant detail and feel and fully embrace the very act of sharing.
But it occurs to me that it’s the hardest of tasks; I hate it.
I hate unveiling bits and pieces of anything permanent or temporary that resides in me.
I loathe it with my heart.
You can find more honesty in the smallest of my gestures rather in my words;
my words are too impatient, too loose, too doomed in some way.
— Anaïs Nin

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There Is One Thing Sadder…

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when your history is called lies by liars…

“The saddest thing that can happen to a person is to find out their memories are lies.”
— Juan Gabriel Vásquez

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Directive by Robert Frost

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Directive
Robert Frost

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry –
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there’s a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods’ excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone’s road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you’re lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.
First there’s the children’s house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny’s
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,
So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.
(I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

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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.
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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
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persistent, faithful, warm enough

to breathe on us
to break the ice
and give us life
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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!
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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,
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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

 

My Heart’s Heart

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the way you talk, what you write
like acid in my mind dashed
against my face and in my eyes

I wish I could eradicate
the you you have become
and keep in tact the other one.

but you are blood inside my soul
you are my heart drawn and quartered
and existing here within, unbidden

inescapable because you sprang
off from my heart’s heart
from my heart’s heart

which hopes eternal for
the return of spring
and the red songbird to sing
tumblr_nybh66BQWP1s7s6ngo1_r1_1280

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.
tumblr_nydpaoedn41qas1mto1_1280
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

Heartbreaking Every Time

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When I read that article…the gas-lighting kind, that retells my past in the worst of ways in order to paint the writer as the most burdened most fragile but simultaneously most strong survivor ever…we readers are all supposed to get all hushed and quiet and be in awe that somehow the writer survived such horrors…such horrors…

and me, my Baby, with thousands upon thousands of memories utterly different, totally opposite…

The only thing that gets me thru is what my therapist has taught me, that these things are not actually designed to try to tell the truth about history…

…rather, they are spoken in the desperate attempt to explain the writer’s own experience of the present, and much of that experience produced by brain trauma from the past…not the fabricated events.tumblr_nxkbeuPHhR1tpcnfko1_500
I get it…as a person who experienced epic brain trauma from conception…

But it hurts, and is its own form of erasure, of the theft of my agency.

It cracks me up in a way, because 10 years ago the stories painted us as lovey dovey neo hippy refugees from the 70s.  That fit the need of that moment.

It is especially heartbreaking that the hour of my becoming is the hour of unbecoming for the writer…and I am powerless to change that, and held by grudges and judgments in those chains in that place, but only inside the writer’s soul.  For I have slipped my leash at last, and now run free.  And yes…there is a holographic overview of how dysphoria affected those around me, no doubt about it.  They just cannot (or won’t) see the battle I fought to keep greater horrors away.

Yes, there are greater horrors.

I pray that someday the Truth can be partaken of together, and the Truth will set us free.
275ee585fa36e3a42337fbfcb3f030d1

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.

Only Different Now

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Be yourself only
different now
somehow
with all
that
grief.tumblr_mubepqA5O41qznczoo1_500In case you ever
thought that
you were just
a being, just
a humble
presencetumblr_lx4e3kosSN1qzwaddo1_1280you are not just
anything, you
mean something,
more than that
you mean
everything,tumblr_mplmt2mrm41rfp1lho1_r2_500because everything that
means something
beats inside
of you.Image 003

The Seams of Our Beautiful Story

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And all this time
I thought I was
building you up
as you grew
and became.

I really never
realized (really)
you were breaking
so unbecoming
and I was failing bad.

It breaks
my heart to
know you were
ripping apart the seams
of our beautiful story.

And now
tatters, shards
shatters, shutters
mutters and
clogged gutters

and it
is too late
at last
I realize
alas.tumblr_nx8qibvnSO1rum5sfo1_1280

My Unpicked Branches

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It’s the season of harvest and fruit,
the culmination of that brown sweat
shed in summer-shimmer sheets
and red-hot ribbons that somehow
twine around roots and snake up
trunks and push out thru branches
in the swollen tender tips of twigs
become blossoms become
fruit…ripe…heavy.

The real mystery to me
is why nobody picks these
crimson circles crisp and crunchy?
Why I stand here full and verdant
fragrant and feeling fine,
and not an apple plucked or pulled?

I cannot pick myself.
I cannot harvest that which
is perpetually out of my reach
but is only one ladder away
from anybody who hungered
for those apples bobbing
on the swaying branches.

But I am used to that, being
a feast for birds and bugs
and winter worms in the cold,
a fermenting hearth in a frosty night
under the stars so bright
and dancing and the wind
still caressing my unpicked branches.

 

Morning Meditations

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When you lose the rest of everything
and the curb merges with the gutter,
wander on down the grey road
in the weak darkness, thin and sorry
for its skinny powers.

Like you, it has been stripped
and hollowed out by pillars
of strange orange man-made lights
that pulse to rhythms eldritch
and out of whack.

Turn left at the golden arches
and meander downhill toward
that weedy field of thistles and look
beneath its frosty veil for the path, no…
the part traversing that bristly mane
low and lurking deep in the foot
of the silent graveyard speaking so insistent
of what it cannot say.untitled_by_beyondimpression-d86j5snHead to the pylon, pushing thru the wild roses
and brambles and you can find me, sleeping and still,
swathed in brilliant reds that have been infected with
the sicknesses of too much and too little.

Cast-off Goodwill wannabes swaddle me
in the mangy light so far away from even
Bethlehem let alone a stable, and I struggle
to stay beneath the thready stream of thin sleep
doled out to me like penitentiary-gruel
to dulled-out dwellers in the dimness
that masquerades as just desserts deep-deserved.

Feel that moist air clinging to your cheeks
like my fingers used to cling to those faces
cherubic and innocent and unaware of the plague
awaiting outside the place we all used to live.tumblr_nvjxog2KC61u9koqpo1_1280Smell that rank faint scent that lives only
at the foot of graveyards and only creeps
out in the dead of night…and take a deep breath,
for that breath is your inheritance now, in this
long first night in the fake wilds beneath
the petty-coats of this town but no longer with
a place to call home, or even a cover to keep out
the creeping dread of realization that this will happen

over and over and over and over and over and…tumblr_n6myj3d0Re1s2fme1o1_r2_500

you can curl up behind me and we can spoon and
maybe our touch will lure the moon over
the crouched hump of the bridge that sings once
in a while with the passing of scrabbling
metal beasts scurrying thru this place
on the way to nowhere.

Or if that small comfort is too slow and uncertain,
trek across the creek and look under the bridge
by the trestle beams so dark and still and
certain of their strength.

They sweat in cold beads
and if you stick out your tongue
you can trap a few drops there and here
that will cool your ravaged hot throat torn
with such thirsty longing for what used to be…

and if you stick out your arm, well then
swift flows the river current for those
who would brave the rapids and ravages
of those waters.

But then again, you may as well
take the shortcut, up the twisty hill
and lay down amidst the still stone angels
and the lumpy skeletal headboards
amidst the sighing dead awaiting
for the Rising Morning…

I live here now, in this red infected light
of lone loss and dewy violet memory and
I’ve learned to thrive off things despised,
I’ve learned to sift the dregs and love
the cast-off lees and living here
wrapped so warm in Autumn Leaves
and with The Least of These…

I think I prefer authentic life even
in light somewhat diseased rather
than the full on blind brilliance
of that time past asleep in true light
but wasted light streaming on by
while my eyes were shut and sealed
and my heart full of things I knew
that just weren’t so.

Wander on
down the grey road,
for I am waiting
here.tumblr_nvl3hgGvBu1ty8kogo1_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

Just Fit

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so often i find
myself outside of walls
looking intently in
thru the windows and doors
at the tableau inside

i have my strings of lights
at the ready, plugged in
to the moon and the stars
and the songs of the night
and the love of the dawn

but I always find out
I am simply too big
to get inside the walls
with the rest of the ones
who just fit…who just fit

No

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that moment when I am walking
no, floating, no…that moment
when I am flowing down
no, up, no…along the river
no, stream, no…torrent of
life and you decide

that you can just touch me
without permission or permission
no, consent, no…yes permission
and I stiffen in horror, in fear
no, terror, no…in anger because
you make me into nothing with your touch

but i mask it with my smile
no, grin, no…with my grimace
that you miss, you absolute oaf
because you think I am an otter
sleek and preening when I am
actually a hedgehog all quilly

no, thistly, no…all covered with razors
and shattered glass and broken promises
and splintered insults and shredded judgements

no, no—no—no, no
tumblr_nv0y4oL2iQ1qllucco3_1280

i am the moon

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i sit in tall grass, silky
lashing back and forth
quiet like tiger-tails
talking in air, with movement

i think about earth
hung spinning in space
hurtling round the sun
amidst the bright stars
(but none of them close
so i am really not amongst
them, not at all)

and i am the moon
growing in silence
fattening on gentleness
increasing with time
and in finding myselftumblr_nuso16lJkp1rr74i9o1_500and then come those sharp
hungry teeth gnawing
and others come clawing
with silences ringing
or spoken words shattering
indictments sharp thrusting

and I shrink, get smaller
my light become shadow
and me just a sliver
barely hanging on

and then the world spins
and moves round solaris
and this achey cycle
starts over again

i am the moon
and i miss you sotumblr_nsd4seCFI41urmjt2o1_1280

The Rustling of Those Wings

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I always thought vultures
slept at night, devil-red heads
bulbous on scrawny leather necks
tucked under fetid wing and pinion.

I was wrong.

They never sleep
but circle
endlessly
always

gliding around the dying
the rotten and discarded
waiting for that last quick breath
and then they land nearby
and hop like feather frogs
to their last supper never ending

I stick my head
out in the night
and cannot see them
but I know they are there
by the way
the rustling of those wings
echoes in my hearttumblr_nulpidcDV91utvlmvo1_500

The Crucible of Grace

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If you seek to extend grace and love to cover over a multitude of sins, the worst thing you can do is undercut that extension by talking about it and pointing it out.  Right?

This weekend has been excruciating, because the long-awaited and much dreaded article outing me to the entire world was published.  And I am letting it stand uncommented on, because the person who wrote it apparently needs this as they deal, process, and move forward in becoming.tumblr_nj9hjr55am1sodq0ro1_1280But it is awful having my voice stolen from me…it is awful being portrayed as a cruel caricature of who I am and who I was…it is tragic to see the consequences of what I chose and lived twisted so tragically as life spins on by and the gravity of the Fall pulls everything to that fierce collision with nothingness…and it is heartbreaking to see the person that I literally would instantly die for, right now this moment, if it would restore them to wholeness, flail around trying to recover their bearings and watch as they grapple with emotions and choices and basically just suffer a sort of death process.

The place this article was published did not contact me (though if they had, I would have said to go ahead…my loved one needs to speak unfettered)…the things that were written, well let’s just say that one person’s account sounds right until another person in a situation gives their lived experience, and then things are usually a lot more complicated and delicate in determining “what happened”.tumblr_n892glA3he1rmz4wdo1_1280Mostly what happened?  The binary.  The binary punished me from the beginning of my life, it trapped my parents into seeing me as someone I wasn’t…it tore my soul in half and left the only option forward for me a dissociation from self and adopting performance as my currency and agency in the world…it left a bloody gaping void within me that never ever could heal, and in which the Love of God was sufficient, but only just…it led to the birth of children who deserved more and got less in spite of me trying to give them everything…

What happened was a flawed imperfect person full of hope and love and wanting only to have kids and love them and raise them up into life did her best in the skin and role of a man…and is now vilified and excoriated for this…what happened is that I was born in a time and place and culture, and practiced the things that I thought were right and true and proper, and those so at odds with what I know now, what I matured into, grew into, and yet how does that undo things that happened 30 years ago?tumblr_nrqhpzN6nu1s5u2cno1_500And what happened was so much pain in my decision to transition that an entire narrative had to shift to account for the horror and the loss of a father…and I read of things, and am painted in ways that just do not match up with what I lived, what I remember, what emails and letters say to me, what other people who knew us and were around us a lot recall…

What happened was my dysphoria and depression and despair did indeed affect my heart and soul, and that affected everyone around me, and likely was the metaphorical equivalent to belts and abuse so does it really even matter if I never did the actual things I am accused of doing?  Actually no…it doesn’t matter that I never did them, because it is clear to me that I was them…poisonous, toxic, radioactive, damned for being absent and cursed for being present and above all accountable for every last ill in those lives so precious to me.

I never really understood before why God’s answer to the horror of the Fall was to come as Jesus to this world, and suffer and die…I do now though.  Because there are no words that I can say that would explain it, justify it, make it right, make it better, disappear it…all I could do would be to simply die in their place…tumblr_nu4nj5Mkg51rdq2opo1_1280…and if I could do that, I would want it to happen hidden, without anyone knowing, and the provision of that death simply being wholeness and happiness for my hearts…

I love you, hearts…I will grieve until the day grief itself is satisfied and all things are made new.  Say on.  Whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you must.

I only ask Mama, please hold me close and sustain me in Your Love.

Forever In My Bones

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The echoing of silence
implications of ashes
a song inside my tears
a signifying bond
the moan within my blood.

The writing of a moon
engraven on this water
and carried by the winds
into your heart beyond
the reach of tongue or pen…

this is my ever burden
my sentence that I carry
forever in my bones

tumblr_n892glA3he1rmz4wdo1_1280

Pearl of Great Price

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what do I
do with all
the loss?

I never knew
the absence
of things
could weigh
so heavy,
could loom
so large.

Truly the Pearl
of Great Price
does indeed
cost everythingtumblr_nlh0bryEtH1tc258so3_1280

The Baby Box

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Lee Jong-rak is the South Korean pastor who created the “Baby Box”. The idea is that mothers who do not want their babies, can leave them inside the box which includes a thick towel and lights and heating to keep the baby warm. When a baby is placed inside the box, a bell rings in Lee Jon-rak’s home which the box is attached to, and he or a member of his staff will go and collect the unwanted baby and bring them inside to his orphanage.

Hundreds of babies are left abandoned at the side of the road in South Korea yearly and Jong-rak knew the perfect way to save the lives of these innocent babies. There is a sign above the drop box which reads: “Place to leave babies.” He confessed that he didn’t expect the box to be as popular as it has been.

On one occasion a mother dropping her baby off explained to him that she had poison to kill herself and her baby but because of this box, she had an alternative. On another occasion, a baby was left with this heart wrenching note:

“My baby!
Mom is so sorry.
I am so sorry
to make this decision. 

My son!
I hope you to
meet great parents,
and I am very, very sorry .
I don’t deserve to say a word.
Sorry, sorry, and I love you my son. 

Mom loves you more
than anything else.
I leave you here
because I don’t know
who your father is. 

I used to
think about
something bad,
but I guess
this box is safer
for you.

That’s why
I decided
to leave you here.
My son,
Please forgive me.”

Sometimes I say the same things to my own children, but there is no answer, nothing but the wind whispering in the trees and memories that stain my heart red.

Unplanned Grief #4

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Across the ocean, you,
there without drowning
and I don’t know how
that happened, because
I grieve and take on water
in sputter-gulps and gasps,
dog paddle-fighting every wave.

But this your journey you have chosen
alone and must…choose alone.
I regret so deeply that you also choose
to live this life alone as well.

But I have choices too
and I choose Spring
even though my favorite
season is Fall.

I will always be right here
to offer you swimming lessons,
yes, always and forever…
but I will not drown with you
because how could I see Spring
return to claim her crown?

So instead I sit and watch waves
in this unexpected storm, this fat
cloudburst of grief unplanned
and out of budget.

I grieve the living when the living lie
in tattered shadows of what could be.
I wish it were different, but nonetheless,
I am okay, in spite of all these griefs
unplanned.tumblr_nth3mqRDE01s5neh1o1_1280

Unplanned Grief #3

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Thus shall I let go
(like trees release their breath
and birds release their flight)
of all that keeps us bound.
Blood by blood
and hope by hope
and I swim, harder,
faster now.

Because my grief
is my life boat,
I know I cannot drown.
But I still hurt for you,
your loss your sadness
crumpled, misshapen
in all this…and this,
most of all I hurt
for the aloneness
of your journey

you unmoored
from past and future
dark and just beyond
the curvature of your
moon so dark tonite.

But tho I hurt,
though I have
no tears left
I am alive
and I embrace
my own life
as my own
and mindful,
vested in
this journey
that I take
and undertake
at last.heartwild-e1439930587744