Words do not a Poet make; A beating heart that bleeds To break Over and over and over again Is the ink that forges the tortured pen- Is the blood that spills and fills again- Is the open I that struggles through time To weave the words that wake the mind As Holy Athanor holds inside The broken Shards of Soul and Sines- Waving magic in tragic rhymes Bleeding seeds that tie and bind The love affair of Space and Time;
Words do not a Poet make; A desperate dance with the daemons Of fate Over and over and over again Is the ink that forges the tortured pen- Is the blood that spills and fills again- Is the whispered wisdom that bears thru pain A lucid truth that fractures the brain As sacred Golgothas hidden codes Implode within the neural nodes- The Christed seed is born anew From heavens leaven, the holy Dew The Time is Now and the Poem is You.
Charlene, also spelled Charleen and Charlyne, is a feminine given name, a feminine form of Charles coined in the United States in the nineteenth century; from French Charles, from Old French Charles & Carles, from the Latin Carolus, from and also reinfluenced by Old High German Karl, from the Proto-Germanic *karlaz (lit. “Free Man”/”Free Spirit”/Free Thinker); compare the Old English word churl and the Old German Kerl. Meaning Free Woman, Free Spirit, Free Thinker
Self Portrait~ Charleen Johnston 5-28-24
THE SONG OF A WOMAN FREE
I am a woman free. My song Flows from my soul with pure and joyful strength. It shall be heard through all the noise of things — A song of joy where songs of joy were not. My sister singers, singing in the past, Sang songs of melody but not of joy — For woman's name was Sorrow, and the slave Is never joyful tho he smiles. I am a woman free. Too long I was held captive in the dust. Too long My soul was surfeited with toil or ease And rotted as the plaything of a slave. I am a woman free at last After the crumbling centuries of time. Free to achieve and understand ; Free to become and live.
I am a woman free. With face Turned toward the sun, I am advancing Toward love that is not lust, Toward work that is not pain. Toward home which is the world, Toward motherhood which is not forced, And toward the man who also must be free.
With face turned toward the sun, Strong and radiant-limbed, I advance, singing, And my song is as free As the soul from which it flows. I advance toward that which is, but was not; Toward that which is not, but is yet to be.
I, the free woman, advance singing, And with face turned toward the sun. Let Ignorance and Tyranny Tremble at the sound of my feet. I am a woman free.
Singing the song of joy, Strong and radiant-limbed, I advance toward the work which waits for me, The joyful work out in my home the world ; And toward the man who is my mate. Oh I am strong and magnetic — I have not wasted myself in sensuality; And equally strong and magnetic Is the man who is my mate.
For the glory of Motherhood I have conserved my strength. And for the glory of Fatherhood He has conserved his strength. I have passed by the lovers Who passionately called to me in the name of love, But whose lips were only hot with lust. I have remained true to my own soul And to the souls which are enfolded within me • And no man shall mingle his body with mine Who is not pure.
I am the free woman, No longer a slave to man, Or anything in all the universe — Not even to myself.
I am the free woman. I hold and seek that which is mine : Strength is mine and purity; World work and cosmic love;
The glory and the joy of Motherhood. I am not strong and clean for myself alone, But for all people ; My work and my love are for all people ; And I shall not be the mother of one child, But of all children — For I myself am the daughter Of all women and all men. Oh I am free ! My song Flows from my soul with pure and joyful strength ; It shall be heard thru all the noise of things — A song of joy where songs of joy were not.
Oh I am free ! I thrill With radiant life and gladness. I advance toward all that waits for me. I chant the song of Freedom as I go. My face is toward the sun, My soul is toward the light, My feet arc turned toward all that waits for me. I advance! I advance! Let Ignorance and Tyranny Tremble at the sound of my song!
There is a calm undercurrent of anticipation A night without armour as stars penetration Peels back the layers of initiation From times before in spaces torn From the watery depths of the mother matrix Cellular memories of transfiguration Lifetimes of fire and water and sensation Beckon the reckoning of powerful patience As sacred thunder and shards of wonder Ride the lightening bolt to Pollination Seeding Dreams in the Jesters Playground Pleading with the demons who keep me bound Feeding the fetus of futures merry-go-round Diamond body womb from carbons dark tomb As eclipse slips thru truth to birth sacred sound. And here I Am Found.
I told you I'd write you a poem. I've stared at the blank page over and over again. Everything I write comes out cheezy. How to say what I want to say when it's all tangled up within me?
I remember you , thru my young girl eyes... I don't quite know what I felt then. Attracted to danger, to life, to risk. Attracted to freedom, to leaving the confines of my little world. I found it. I traded my innocence for a peek at the underworld. There were times I hated you. Felt you deceived me. There were times I hated myself, for allowing you into my sacred soul. There were times I loved you. Wanted to save you from yourself. There were times I loved myself. Felt strong and deep and whole.
I remember you, thru my femme fatale eyes... I don't quite know what I felt then. Wanting to give you danger, life, risk. Wanting to show you freedom, drag you from the confines of your little world. I gave it. I lured you into my underworld. There were times I craved you. Wanted to show you how a woman Fucked. There were times I craved myself. Wanted to feel at home within my skin, my bones. There were time I needed you. Wanted to own my own soul, to understand. There were times I needed myself. Wanted to return to my innocence.
I told you I'd write you a poem. And this one doesn't rhyme. Sometimes It takes a different style, a different voice, to share what we find. Somehow you have been woven into my life, woven in and out of scenes and dreams. Always reappearing at the crossroads. Did I ever imagine you would be a constant symbol on my path....showing up when I least expected to find you? Did I ever imagine you would trade your darkness for the light, grasping for truth, craving deliverance, sustenance, salvation? Did I ever imagine you would bask in your role as father, nourisher, provider, redeemer?
I told you I'd write a poem for you. A different kind of poem than the poems I wrote long ago. A poem filled with experience, with living and loving and coming together and coming apart and coming over and over and over again in many beds and in many scenes and in many dreams of things between the seen and unseen burial mound of things freed and things redeemed. I imagine you now, alone. Solitude! Aloneness. There is nothing more beautiful, to know oneself. To understand the magic within, to anticipate the patterns and habits and mind-traps, and to remove the obstacles from your path. Growth. Evolution. From Youth to Wisdom. From Faith to Understanding. Don't walk blindly, the road is peopled with parts of you, parts of your life, parts of your truth. Wake every cell, wake every mourning dream, take everything given you and Breathe.
I told you I'd write a poem for you. There is so much more I could say, so many things and feelings and memories wrapped around the images in my soul. In my heart. There are many roads, and they all lead to Self. There are many dreams, and they all lead to Life. In my heart, you are whole. You are the Waker, the Taker, the Thief. You are the Faker, the Breaker, the Jester. You are the piece of me that spoke to me of possibilities and ether dreams. A decade has passed, or more, since our lives were interwoven. A decade of different stories and dreams and lovers and smiles and fears and tears and things left unsaid... This is the poem I told you I'd write, scribbled out in rouge, bled from the heart beating, within me, a rich pomegranate red.
Here in the hypermedia digital era, it’s easy to become desensitized by over-stimulation. As I passively absorb more and more sound bytes, videos, and impersonal data generated by external sources, the more desensitized I become. It doesn’t stop there, though. The more desensitized I become, the greater my craving for more intensity- intensity of sensation, feeling, visions, intimacy, action. This craving has never led to more intensity, but n u m b n e s s , a state antithetical to my life as a creative and feeling person. That’s when I stop and become very still within myself. In this stillness, I withdraw my attention from the outer, and realign with my inner V e r t I c a l sources- energy rising up from the earth through the base of my spine, and the cosmic energy coming down from above through the top of my head, the crown. My previous intensity craving soon vanished. Eventually with enough time and practice, the natural sensitivity of my central nervous system restores itself, allowing me to experience the innate intensity of the Life Force itself- when life itself is enough.
(From Last words by Antero Alli ; Vertical Pool ; )
🔥🫀🔥 As a cyclical scorpionic need, I go into seclusion from most of the outer world, to restore my own sense of integrity within my nervous system. As an extremely hypersensitive raw nerve exposed to an ever growing array of assaults form the electro-smog of modern technocracy, it am constantly having to re establish my own boundaries in order to not cross completely into the Abyss of Madness which has been hunting me for as long as I remember. Here, now, in the corridor of my Uranus opposition, ( natal exact conjunction with Sun….if you know you know)…. I am taking a break from most outer sources of stimulation. I will be making a journey to a state inward to rebirth as the new Self that is forming beneath my skin. I’ve died and returned over and over in this life, letting go each time of all that is most precious to me, in order to follow what is asked of me within my own Spirit. That time has come again.
I’m so filled with gratitude for the blessings in my life; the large community of souls who embrace me and support and encourage my creative expression; my haven of stillness, my home in the wild, which was only made possible by the insane trust Others put in me and my spirit, and the generosity of help from beings who I hope one day to be able to return some semblance of beauty; my son who has grown into a kind and unique and strong young man who will turn 18 soon; for my parents who left me free to become and express myself authentically, who without knowing it, gave me the gift of the wilderness and freedom, and no emotional manipulation or restraint when I chose again and again to head out in possibly perilous paths alone at young ages; for the many gifts over the years from all my friends in different lands and times, who have contributed to my life and soul in so many wonderful ways. I’ve been helped always, along my path, by so many. I never understood why others put thei confidence in me, or extended such blessing and generosity of heart and home…. I can only hope that in some way my own spirit offered something in return in some value that is not measured in material ways. Thank you to all who have been the foundation, the pillars on which my awareness of beauty have been honed and tempered; thank you to all the Fires and furies which have alchemists my soul, all the pain, all the disasters, all the woundings , all the enmeshments and entanglements that have forced me to step up to the plate and Know Myself. Thank you to all the traumas and fragmentations, which have given me a warp and weft to weave my own story and heal and transform my DNA, ever in process of freeing more and more of my selves from the dream; thank you to the Muses, the Daimon who has tossed me to and fro forever, demanding blood, commitment to integrity, descents into darkness and ascents into the highest realms. Thank you to the sometimes overwhelming emotional extremes I was born and blessed/cursed with, tyrbOntensiry of perception and devotion to the deepest tunnels within human experience, I made it out alive, and after 43 years I’ve finally found a way to remain somewhat intact, somewhat sane, amidst those furies…… learned that my nervous system needs huge amounts of solitude, stillness, wilderness, learned to honor that, learned that for every day of activity around Others, I need three to detox others’ energy and restore homeostasis to my body and mind, learned that my space is sacred, and can only be opened to another in specific ways and times and reasons; learned that my time is sacred, and after having spent most of my life trying to live others’ lives, with no boundaries, no sense of where I begin and others end, finally in 2019 drew a line Nd made a vow, to die in battle, which means I will follow my joy even if it kills me. When I stopped putting my life on hold and instead of getting tangled up in others dramas and lives thinking I could save them, help them, I pulled my energy back in to my own Self and began to create the life that had been hunting me forever, torturing me til I finally obeyed the decree of my Daimon, and let all else go.
And now the journey continues, a new descent , a new rebirth, a new way to play with life will unfold.
(young sterile dream of love) where are you hiding? Is it worth my mental birth for you to confide in? Confuse me confound me Search all around me My eternity is yours to keep. I want only not sleep Awake to take a gentle peek. To know is to lie, to lie is hate To hate is futile (and futility awaits) (sweetinnocenthope) of which I ungrasp- Grasping tighter but lighter still Than ever you will. How often does our love ride Upon the horse of doom? Sweeping away the truththetrustthehumanlust With the cosmic broom? Pity! Oh pity! Those who fell Were well ahead of the rest! Skipping the ripening feast of fest(ering cries) Stagnant and pregnant with lies. Deliver me, oh deliver me- Softly lay me down beneath the tree- Where its arms comfort me in the breeze- The breath of mortality. I ask not to be (forever be) But moreso to feel thee- Here and now… No whenbutwherehow And all I ask is to love thee- With all my heart radiantly.
(The poetic Bio from my old webpage....i was around 24 i believe.)
I am the eternal girl, starchild and roguesmile and weaver of dreams both brave and wild... Born in a bustling blue dream, to a couple wit h lightflakes and dreamcakes in their innerspace! Grew up in the mountains of Virginia, free and fair, tangled hair, feet bare, there somewhere... Enjoyed school because of access to books, hated the authorities and teachers and crooks who feasted on the childrens minds, wasted all their precious time on frivolous things...though there were a few who seemed to know, who seemed to see, who seemed to feel the breathing dream...and in their lives I saw some light, and inspired with life I prepared for flight, escaped the gaping hole of home to soar the skies and freely roam. University, ah, big disease of society...wasted time and wasted braincells, tasted life but also hell, flew so high but nearly fell...nearly drawn in to the spinning flash of tangled thoughts and mangled mass of human drivel of human waste of human tears in sad dark place. Then free again, light peeked thru, home again, round two. Still the prison of closed minds and zombie sheep, they're awake they say, from their bleak deep sleep...Off to an island in the sea, Jamaica breeze calling me...to put together the peices I lost wandering amongst the holocaust of deadened creativity...and there discovered my mind was scattered, ego ripped and tattered and shattered, self awake but not on the ground, seeking my soul from the lost and found...and I glued remains of flesh and brains into a coherent and capable flame to withstand the pull of the world and the fool within my spin of twisting spools...and home I crawled with energy high to bid my time till next dreams flight. Then off on bus to coast on west, to possibilities unbound...to peace of mind still not found...and there I met myself and Love, my priddy twin flame, my husband in Soul...now with partner to share the smile to swim the wave in webs of life, I felt complete and strong and sweet and ready to begin my task of breaking the worlds coffin of glass...and we twisted and tugged and loved and hugged, my priddy one and I, back to the land of his home, the emerald isle , the mystical bone of all I sought and found within...and now life begins again...And now with eyes open to life I see that home was never the strife, the mountains begetting the flame of light that lit my soul and sparked my smile, yes Virginia my dear, I am a child...of your trees and flowers and breeze and rivers that flow and winters deep snow, and yes my parents were right in their ways to leave me free to make my way with mind and heart and soul so free, they never forced a mould upon me, never drowned the I that was Me...within this coagulation of life, energy, consciousness, within this mass of 'IAMTHIS' and now that time has shriveled into a point of light I choose to peruse, I embrace the heart of the world with a smile. I am the eternal girl, the magical child...rogue smile and laughter wild...
A little flip book of pattern play…. Hidden agendas and timelines of pain The master orchestrator always remains The being that’s seeing thru the eyes in our brain Majestic mazes of manipulated minds Creating a Space that challenges Time Eating images and projecting reality Holographic breeding of dystopian fallacy minds under siege as fearful hearts close The challenge to balance the whys and woes The fingers point outward in terrified blame Initiating the lock on the grid of the game The architect cleverly hidden inside The engineers blueprints of cold dead light The synthetic overlay ushered thru stages As the prophets, poets, saints and sages Paint the picture with poignant passion Proclaim the Game as their Saving Mission Whichever Timeline in the fractal you choose There is no Final Boss Stronger than You You will decide in each belief that you Eat How the story goes whether loss or defeat And when the jesters Chessboard is cleared We’ll Play again with Tears and Years To ReMember ones Power in the face of Pain Is to Step into the Joy of Process again To joyfully inhabit ones body and Place To face The tangled web of Destinys Grace Is to Simply reMember you Rolled the Dice In the First Place
In winters deathly grip, I choke to spell Your name, in frost, upon the lonely hills, The appendage that writes is wrong, now, Somehow, shaking from the suns low brow, Right at my hearts strange eye, the appendage Has appendages which dangle, unseen, Gangrene in the walls of my mind… Where do the shamans go to die? Where do the moments go and why, Do we tear at truth till the bleeding shows, Till the meetings end, cleave thoughts From the gentle wind, upon which blows The written recipe for the mend, for the Mend of all this tattered flesh, these broken Vessels of forgotten truths, made lost By the echo’s of the hidden hooves Of the horsemen trotting through The moon. The past is played Upon the theatres of light, wrapped Around the core so tight, they cannot Fail to suffocate, to impersonate What they fail to see, what do they see, Do they believe that they are free? Winters face is masked and turned, I burn, I yearn… to learn the tide, To turn the cycles inside outside Over the underside of all that I know, And all that I do not know. All I know, Is that the tunnel beckons me, Warp speed, to the essence of the seed, Point of light traversing the worlds, ah, Galaxies, inside of me, a billion worlds In one single cell, and in my cell, my Prison shell, I retrieve once more, The part of my essence I let slip Thru the door…
BlissNinja 