Sunday, September 03, 2023

Coincidence.

 You hate what I love.
You hate what I eat.
You hate what I read.
You hate what I do.
You hate music I like.
You hate movies I watch.
You hate what I...
It's so specific... isn't it?
It can't be coincidence,
that you just so happen to hate
everything about me,
if you don't actually hate me?
After a while I can't help but think.
It it the food or the books?
Or is it just me?
Do you hate me?
And hey, that's fine.
After all this time,
and the way you behave,
I'm neither here nor there,
as far as you're concerned.
But at least be honest.

-o0o-

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Cry, Boy, Cry

I wasn't expecting them to publish this poem. So I took it down from here and you can read it over at Poetry Potion

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Me and my body

the people who are the most loud

about me and my body

the people who are most critical

of me and my body

the people who tell me to be ashamed

of me and my body

the people who deny me autonomy

of my and my body


are always the same people who want access

to me and my body without my consent


-o0o-

Polyhymnia would be so proud

It took one tragedy too many,
to rob me of poetry,
It was the final stone in my windshield,
that left me in pieces so many;
strewn across four years of asphalt,
that I have to walk back on,
and pick up the words as I go.
I've left a few words along the way,
"Sorry,
I got in the way of you hurting me."
"Sorry,
I'm not who you want me to be."
"Sorry,
I didn't accept your hate."
"Sorry,
I was so angry at your nonsense."
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
I left that word behind and
picked up a few old golden nuggets.
"Fuck off" is a choice phrase that I found,
re-entering my everyday lexicon.
Sometimes spoken.
Sometimes just a thought behind a smile.

-o0o-

Saturday, September 10, 2022

The Gossip Starts

Devil Devil. I saw him slither;

smiling in my coffee froth.

Halfmoon broken smile, sack cloth,

sixpence silver eyes - warning, mocking.

No the worst of omens.

But it begs the question now,

to alert (or not) our dear Romans?

...begging to make good,

on an unfulfilled vow.

Devil Devil so scintillating smiling soon;

gone with your neap-tide moon.

Gossip tongue to a jubilant tune;

Devil Devil, you speak too innocently.

Snatched stories from saucer and pot,

make me accomplice to your plot?

With one mouth serve,

with one ear take,

with one word shake,

with one fist break.

I'd leave such sincere song and sacrament to priests,

for my own heart's sake.


-o0o-

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Stars

 The stars have haloes.

They've seen and now tell,

stories like rings,

a woven text on the sky.

"It comes," they cry,

"The future foreseen."

"And tonight is the first of the signs."

The stars have haloes.

The moon clad with blood.

The sun beset by two dogs.

Ring the earth in warning.

The starry crowns shine through,

through cloud and doubt,

the stars have haloes.

The singing begins.

The forgotten have begun their march.

The book closes.


-o0o-

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Up and Down

Wither, wither, the flesh and bone,

and found his grace atop that hill.

Such winds that beat the rounded stone;

to see him tumble laughing still.

Our emblem, he, Ephyra's king,

for all his sins he might repent;

his hollow cough's and laughter's ring.

Must we so think the king content?


-o0o-


Wednesday, September 08, 2021

A Poem for the Antivaxxers:

After taking the vaccine,

my heart nearly exploded.

I shat my bowels clean.

It's still better than Covid.


👍👍👍

as i might

 try as i might

i cannot blame the new pain on the old

the old pain is a long since forgotten boyfriend

someone i dated in high school

the new pain is entirely my own

and of my own making

at least I could walk away from a man

there is no door leading away from this


-o0o-

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Mountain

I let you set me up with false praise.

Loose promises in my ears.

I was so gullible.

I would rise with you, you said,

only to find that when we reached the top,

you never even took a single step.

I was alone,

thinking you were beside me all of the way,

when you had never moved,

praising at my back all the way up,

and now unable to come down,

I'm so painfully aware,

that I am afraid of heights.


-o0o-

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Bless Tomorrow

 

Bless Tomorrow

by Charl Landsberg


Just for now, to catch your breath slowly;

I wish for you a better tomorrow morning.

An easy sunrise for you to dawn lazily,

from small dreams a peaceful awakening. 

A warm cup of coffee or tea;

before setting out to do your thing.


-o0o-

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Off with the Pigs

A fleeting bite, insulting slight, to justice,
love, and reason,
did little right when old men, so white, prefer,
the lure of treason. 
Were you there when Hero's prayer in death,
soothed Claudio's tantrum?
When three to a man did Caliban assault,
his slaver's sanctum?
You speak returns and big concerns for old ways,
imagined past.
But a verdict's deign doesn't raise the slain where ground
with blood is cast.
Justice is needed. Justice deserved.
Justice is more than this platitude served.
Justice is here. Justice is now.
The pigs need to be sent home to the sow.

-o0o-

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Aurora Redux

Whoo, that fairy gave everone a terrible fright.

Throwing curses born of hatred and spite.

That curse is gone, unsewn, a seed that will never find root,

I unknit her weave, and cast it to the wind, broken, moot.


But what of gifts, this is a celebration, yes?

So I give you a gift to uplift and bless.

The most simple of spells, a cantrip of light,

you can call upon when sad or in the dark of the night.


And I gift to you wisdom of heart of self and kin,

a compassion that sees to without and within,

a knowing love, a kind love, that doesn't lose sight,

of what's good in the world, what's true, what's right.


And the call is the third gift, a beckon to me,

that if you are in danger or sad or lonely,

say my name three times, give my ear a bend,

I'll be there as teacher, a confidant, friend.


-o0o-

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Tonguetell

Image Transcription:     Tonguetell   by Charl Landsberg    There is a candle of a lie that illuminates:  told by the mouth of the wicked man,  in sly attempt to shadow his crime,  that only survivors of said crime recognise;  instantly.    When you overhear that wicked man,  who speaks his little occulting spell,  and he knows by the flash in your eyes,  that he made such a crucial mistake -  and now two share his dirty little secret.

Image Transcription: 


Tonguetell 

by Charl Landsberg


There is a candle of a lie that illuminates:

told by the mouth of the wicked man,

in sly attempt to shadow his crime,

that only survivors of said crime recognise;

instantly.


When you overhear that wicked man,

who speaks his little occulting spell,

and he knows by the flash in your eyes,

that he made such a crucial mistake -

and now two share his dirty little secret.


-o0o-

The Problem with Anger

Transcription of image. The problem with anger. By Charl Landsberg. Let the steam out bit by bit. Anger is like a pressure pot. It can do so many wonderful things. Cook food, cut steel, slay enemies, the lot. But seal it up and never let it out, boom! - Rain like red sleet. Friends and foes and strangers alike. Scattered about your naked feet.

 

transcription of image: the problem with anger by charl landsberg

let the steam out bit by bit
anger is like a pressure pot
it can do so many wonderful things
cook food, cut steel, slay enemies, the lot
but seal it up and never let it out
boom - rain like red sleet
friends and foes and strangers alike
scattered about your naked feet

Originally published 29 March 2021

-o0o-

Sunday, March 21, 2021

The Different Stories

Your friends and family speak of you in hushed tones.

You were such a good boy. Never did anything bad.

You were a model student and example to your peers.

That sort of shit.

I irritate them when I speak of you.

Because I knew you.

We met on Kwazulu Natal copper autumn leaves.

We met behind festival tents and market stalls.

We met behind the YMCA where we started fires and shot off crackers.

We met behind the Musica where we stole CDs and snorted cocaine.

You were such a good boy.

The terrible things we did.

And Sundays we would go to our respective churches,

And take the holy bread and wine…

only to receive forgiveness in each other’s arms later that night.

The subtle prayers that only lovers know.

I could shout it to the world.

The truth of you.

The beauty of you.

Not a small boy with auntie pinched red apple cheeks,

But a young man face flushed as he ran naked into a midnight Midmar Dam.

A young man who stuck his arms out sideways and twirled till he fell.

A young man who sang along to Alanis Morrissette very badly.

A young man stolen from us far too quickly.

They don’t remember you the way I do.

They remember you behaving.

I remember you smiling.


-o0o-


Saturday, October 24, 2020

Whoa Nelly!

(aka, the poem in which I lose my damn temper)

I am done with men fucking up after everything I say,
and going ahead with it anyway and then being so fucking surprised:
“I'm surprised! Are you surprised? I was so fucking surprised!”
Oh, you're his friend, are you?
No, I don't know where he went.
Maybe he's down at the store having spent,
his last silver dime on buying back the time he wasted;
or a balm for the consequences he wrought;
or a sense of responsibility; or... I dunno, some fucking shame.
Who knows? Maybe he's dead.
Is it my problem? Stop asking.
Is there something you'd rather have me do instead?
Like, sweety, I'd love to go headhunting with you,
but that boy's gotta make his bed some day.
So, I'm sorry, not my problem, he knew the rules, he knew the cost.
He came in guns blazing; to hell with the consequences,
and got his ass knocked two feet sideways from Tuesday.
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
If you're through, are we done please?
I'm not particularly busy today, but this is not what I had planned,
but if you're laying claim to that trash,
I can offer you a broom and the door.

-o0o-

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Approaching Beltane


So bring a tiny pitcher,
fill it up with milk.
Come set it on the grass,
and wrap it up with silk.
Boil an urn of water.
Sprinkle in some tea.
Pour yourself a cup,
and sit here next to me.
Bring your pewter whistle,
and I'll bring my guitar.
You sing songs for the moon,
and I'll sing songs for a star.
Then wrap ourselves in blankets,
with a fire made of sticks.
I wake up in your arms.
We leave at half past six.

-o0o-

Saturday, September 26, 2020

I cannot wait to die

CW: little bit suicidal


I cannot wait to die,

to be so insubstantial as to have never existed.

I would never be fat again, hated for my body,

I would be so thin you'd never see me.

I would never be transgender again,

an inconvenient patch of grass,

that you can pave over with whatever story you like.

You can call me 'he' and 'him' till the cows come home,

and I will not be there to take it anymore.

To be the skinny man I never was in your imagination.

To be the stranger I never was living in your disappointment.

I cannot wait to die,

so everyone else could experience that absence of being,

as I lived a ghost in my own life,

as if I had this invisible twin brother everyone spoke to,

instead of me.

Maybe when I die I'll meet him, finally, and kill him too.


-o0o-

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Love: A Dictionary Definition

 Love is a noun and a verb

Love is the tongue and the fist

Love is the threat and the delivery

Love is tragic and heartbreaking

Love is the cruelty of cis men

Love is being disappointed with cis men

Love is the unexpected wonder of cis men

Love is transformative

Love is being reminded that history is a circle

Love is being reminded that this doesn’t last

Love is loss and doing it again for the hell of it

Love is beautiful

Love is loneliness in the following years

Love is memory and far too many hours

Love is seeing your face in dream

Love is never being alone

-o0o-

Wednesday, September 09, 2020

13 Love Poems by Charl Landsberg (a copy of my book)

 As always Amazon sucks and my book isn't going to be promoted in any way shape or form... so here's a free copy. Fuck, share it with whomever you like.

HERE

Sunday, August 23, 2020

From a tired atheist...

Look, child, I am not shopping, so stop selling.

No, I don't want a taste of your god.

Yes, I have met god. I've met a few men's gods.

And I've been somewhat, unimpressed.

Men tack gods onto their back pockets,

like collector cards "Look, mine's best! Mine's best!"

But the best gods I've ever met

were the quiet ones who sat on kind tongues

behind contemplative eyes, in compassionate ears,

not interested in saving me, or fixing me,

or damning me, or wanting me dead.

The best gods are teachers, not tyrants.

The best gods are roads, not graves.

You want a god, that's a fine place to be.

If that gives your life meaning and direction, 

that is a good thing and I won't have you any different.

But your god wants to stick his cock in my business;

then I have a problem with both you and your god.

And we know from history the surest way to end gods,

is to end their cultists.


-o0o-

Sunday, August 09, 2020

First and Last Rites

You were my first, you know,
but I wasn't good enough.
You went out looking for yourself:
travelled the world, came back,
...changed...
said how much you hated me...
because I have changed?
How clever you are:
gone digging in other folks' gardens,
just to find my grave.
Sorry I don't have a body or
something for you to bury.
But you've gotten so clever,
finding things that don't belong to you.
Religions. Cultures.
Other men's husbands.
Maybe if you go away,
you can find something,
to put in that grave you found,
or up your ass.

-o0o-


Saturday, August 08, 2020

Autonomy

Autonomy
by Charl Landsberg

Jack prefixes his opinions,
about my body, 
to be tattooed into my flesh with,
"You shouldn't..." and "you must..."
I suffixed his teeth with a brick.
If you want to write a thesis,
bring your own damn ink.
My skin isn't a public canvas.
Shit out your opus elsewhere.

-o0o-

Sunday, July 12, 2020

The Heart of all Things


The Heart of all Things
by Charl Landsberg

There are two kinds of people,
who speak of the deep places:
those who speak in fear and ignorance,
and those you invite you in.
Would you take my hand?
I will show you where the roads come from.
I will show you where the rivers end.
I will show you the heart of all things.
You will call me Blessed Azrael,
and I will call you my friend.

-o0o-

Wednesday, July 08, 2020

Dispelled



And how is it that you unstitch me so,
with one kiss, my every front unseated?
As glamours break you watch them go,
while I sit here, helplessly defeated.
Your soft smile serving a gentle glow,
asking if your spell might be repeated.

-o0o-

Monday, July 06, 2020

mango

mango by charl landsberg

when you use magic to wage battle,
all thats left of you by nightfall,
is the inedible stone of reason,
and the raw flayed skin of sadness.
all goodness sacrificed,
to distant gods of war.
all I'm good for is planting,
and a hope that i grow.

-o0o-

Sunday, July 05, 2020

Consequences


Living with the fallout,
is the hardest part of making the right decision.
I'm not happy here;
but I'll be damned rather than go back.
For all my fault and mistakes I am content;
let the carrion birds have the rest.
We will endure no fire that is not our own.
We will endure no scorn that we are not due.

~Consequences
by Charl Landsberg

-o0o-

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

haruspex

transphobes love demanding access
to trans bodies
playing haruspex with our corpses
telling of our imaged sins
crimes we might commit
if we are allowed to survive

Monday, June 29, 2020

longing



when the person you miss is dead
it's like your heart writing letters to santa claus
you know that nobody is going to get that letter
but your heart has the hope of a toddler
so she writes in broad crayon strokes
on printer paper, in an unmarked envelope
and sent to where those who know better
keep such things

-o0o-

Opal



I’m a little bit broken, starlight sparkle when the light catches,
reflecting back in bits and patches, I’m a little bit broken.
I’m internally shifted, contorted, and aberrant,
enough to affect my market value when cis guys come shopping:
if you’re buying crystal clear, shop on, because I tend to shine.
Every piece of me, even the broken shit, is mine.
I’m a little bit broken, over-sugared-coffee-breath depression.
Anxiety struck lightning glass, pain induced angry bitch.
My insides are nebulae. I give birth to stars.
I bleed daily, and where the drops fall scriptures grow like weeds.
I’m a little bit broken, plural brained, blood stained,
bruise maned, fist trained, and queer who gets up anyway,
and ask to know who the fuck you think you might be,
to think you have the right to fix me.

-o0o-

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Afraid

The owl fell dead from the tree,
nobody noticed.
The moon sunk low into the ocean,
nobody noticed.
The vines gave fruit to rotten meat,
nobody noticed.
The trans girl cried no,
nobody noticed.
Nobody learned.
Nobody listened.
And when the world crumbled around them,
they said,
why didn't you say anything?
History is a circle.
Driven on by dead birds and empty oceans.
Driven on by rotten gardens and transgender tears.
Nobody learns.
Again it happens.
I see it coming.
I have no proof for you.
I have no evidence for the court.
All I have is my screaming stomach.
For the tragedy that comes again, again, again.

-o0o-

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Hiberna


Hiberna
by Charl Landsberg

Lady Winter is here to complain,
her daughter gone again,
the year spun long left with sons-in-law estranged.
She sits on the cherry branch by my window,
"It wouldn't be fair if I didn't rage so,
but nether if for all the world I changed."
I offer her my cup and she accepts with a grin,
as if all of summer hides below silk-cut skin.
The earth sleeps and the craning depths groan,
as cthonic wedlock robs the queen of her kin.

-o0o-

Sunday, June 14, 2020

She told me to Climb



Of all the great sins life has permitted,
the greatest crime I ever committed,
was the failure to love when it mattered most.

There is no punishment that can absolve,
no great moral convolution to resolve,
this, small depravity of which I boast?

Is there justice in my daily parole,
for the wound I put on an innocent soul,
for the failure to love when it mattered most?

I spoke to Time as she visited yesterday,
and she stopped a moment just to say,
"Hope is for the mountains, leave your guilt by the coast."

-o0o-

Friday, June 12, 2020

Cassandra


Invisibility makes pain sinister.
It's a crime with no witnesses.
In a court of public opinion,
it yells: "It's my word versus yours."
Nobody will ever believe you.
Troy still fell.

-o0o-

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Ode to being Transgender


"I killed an imaginary boy once, 
A lot of people haven't forgiven me.
I stole his shoes, his stuff, his d&d dice.
I live in his bed. 
I read his books.
I regret nothing."
~ Ode to being Trans by Charl Landsberg

For JKR (Poem up on Poetry Potion)

"You sound like one of those hate preachers:
"but I don't hate queers, I love them,
I'm only preaching the truth."

How lucky are we unfortunate creatures..."

READ FULL POEM: HERE

-o0o-

Sunday, June 07, 2020

Offering

To be transgender means,
to have your genitalia become dinner table conversation.
Something people would never do with cis people.
But suddenly my cock and cunt is carved up,
to be consumed by polite cutlery.
To be transgender means,
to have your life sidelined by an imaginary person,
that people speak to and wonder why you don't answer.
My pronouns are they/them. My pronouns are they/them.
It is not that hard.
To be transgender means,
that every statement about you by cis people,
is university incorrect. Always.
And don't dream to correct them, 
because you will drown in wrath and tears.
To be transgender means,
there is no being. You don't get to just be.
Oh you get to identify as, but never just be.
You either disappear completely,
or you identify as.
To merely be, is not an option.
To be transgender means,
everyone gets to have an 'opinion',
over whether you get to live or die.
Existance isn't guaranteed, it's reduced to schoolyard 'debate',
and whether you can muster the wherefores and whytos,
to legitimise your claim on a heartbeat.
To be transgender means,
being constantly surprised that you're surprised.
Being constantly disappointed that you're disappointed.
Having dreamed to think things might be better this time around.
To be transgender means,
that when I was hurt, it wasn't really hurt,
I must have asked for it, or else I must have deserved it.
Besides, TERFs are just stochastic terrorists, 
they're not responsible for male violence,
except when it wasn't a man who threw the punch,
pushed the hatred, told another lie.
To be transgender means,
being tired, all the time.
Because no amount of sleep cures this.
No amount of rest brings your head above water.
To be transgender means,
you are constantly drowning.
To be transgender means,
I am not doing okay.
And it's not getting better.
And I don't see a tomorrow where this gets better.
And I don't think I'm going to make it.

-o0o-

Saturday, June 06, 2020

A Stranger's Bathroom Flood

I wrote a thing about a thing I experienced. Original link: https://medium.com/@charllandsberg/a-strangers-bathroom-floor-3ba67a3164b0


(Image of toiletries: baby powder, cue tips, nail polish remover, floss, a spray bottle, pumice stone.)

“Bye bye mein lieber Herr.
Auf wiedersehen, mein Herr.
Es war sehr gut, mein Herr, und vorbei.
Du kennst mich wohl, mein Herr.
Ach, lebe wohl, mein Herr.
Du sollst mich nie mehr sehen mein Herr.”
~Sally Bowles in Cabaret

CW: TALK OF RAPE, DRUG USAGE, BLOOD AND VOMIT, SUICIDE, CHILD ABUSE

If you’re not going to deal with your shit well at least deal with it as dramatically as possible. This has always been a maxim of mine and in all my years of sage wisdom and aged learning I have yet to forsake this particular trait of my character. A friend tells me it’s because I’m a Cancer cusp of some other sign. Another friend tells me I need therapy. I know, at least certainly, that the latter is true.

And the truth is I am still ashamed of myself for waking up on that bathroom floor. I am ashamed of myself for not knowing where I was. I am ashamed of myself for feeling pain in my body where pain should never be. I am ashamed of myself for crying about it. I am ashamed of myself for making it out to be a funny story in hindsight, when the truth is that I was afraid. But this isn’t a sad story, so I won’t tell you a sad story. It isn’t a funny story, although if I do laugh I do not blame you. I laugh about it. To me, it was strange beyond everything. I don’t have answers, just questions.

In my retelling of this story I noticed over the years that my telling has drifted somewhat. This is due to three factors. The first being that I was high and it was long ago, and I can’t be expected to remember things clearly, this is partially a lie I tell myself and others. While I do not remember everything, I do remember. The second being that I find myself being charitable with some details I don’t always wish to talk about or commit to words. The third being that I don’t really like who I was and am at the best of times struggling to cope with who I am.

When waking up from a crash after a high (that involves having ingested or snorted chemicals which I can only vaguely remember) the first thought that always crossed my mind is that waking up was the first mistake. Your mind and your body remind you of this fact loudly and in clear, visceral pain which you see as flashes of either blinding white or black static. The second thing that crossed my mind, as it always did, whether I was in my own bed or on a stranger’s floor, is that I had no damn idea where I was.

I was on a floor. I did not recognise the floor. I did not recognise the bathroom rising out of that floor. The blood was mine. The vomit was mine. I knew this because they were currency my body was still in the process of spending. The trick was getting up and staying up. There is a kind of pain in the body that will at least try to prevent you from doing the most mundane things. Picking yourself up. Making your limbs move. Opening your eyes. Keeping your eyes open. If you’ve experienced this pain, you know what I’m talking about. That fear that if you close your eyes, that will be the thing that snips the puppet’s strings and leave your body to collapse to the ground never to get up again. But the scene around me was one that I knew was going to have to be dealt with, if not by me, then at least by a team of professionals.

I remember thinking smugly to myself, “Fuck, you don’t look as bad as all that.” I was skinny in those days. A heady diet of cocaine, stress, binge-purging, and self-hatred had my body at least looking something the way I’ve been told my whole life how I should look. I could play this ‘boy’ everyone expected. I had a slight stubble, the blood underlined the stubble, my face wasn’t bruised. I could salvage this. I could get away and nobody would know a thing.

The moment passed and I realised that there was no way I could leave this bathroom in this state. So I stripped down.

Blood in my underwear confirmed what the pain was telling me. Something happened. But I won’t deal with it. I won’t deal with it. Not now. I have to get up and leave. I’d been raped before that night and this didn’t feel like that, so… no I won’t deal with this. And… I never really did. Not even as I write this.

I stood in the bath and used the detachable nozzle to shower myself. I ground the bar of soap into a hand towel and lathered it up to clean myself off, and then the floor. I washed my clothes, getting as much soap into the fabric and then out of the fabric as I could. The water ran mostly red. It never did stop running red. “Do bodies have this much blood?” I thought. When I couldn’t smell vomit or blood anymore I pressed as much water out of my clothes with my knees in the bathtub. I was still dripping as I stepped out of that bathroom.

This is where the second part of this adventure starts. Stepping out of the bathroom still doesn’t tell me anything about where I am. I don’t know this house. A cursory glance at the photos on the walls and on the tables offer me little answer as to whose house this is. There is a girl my age, she looks at me the way I imagine someone would look at an armed assailant. To her credit she doesn’t make a sound. There is noise downstairs.

“Where am I?”

To my annoyance, she doesn’t make a sound. So I find my way downstairs. Downstairs doesn’t help me find out where I am. Where there are far too many people. A party? The noise is a lot. There is music playing and people smoking and dancing and drinking. Everyone seems to be my age, but I don’t recognise faces. I think none of them recognised me either. One by one, face by face people start looking at me as I make my way down the stairs, dripping rose coloured water, if there was someone there who knew me, they didn’t claim me.

I wanted to ask, “Where am I?” But I couldn’t form the words anymore. This is where things get hazy in memory for me. I remember the not-silence of a room in which people stand silently with music blaring over their faces. I remember my car being there. I remember thinking that I must have driven there. My keys were there, but whether I had them with me at the start I don’t know. My bag was in the car. Driving out of their driveway did nothing to tell me where I was.

I could have been driving an hour or I could have been driving all night, but eventually I found myself on the highway that led back to the city as I descended from the little town where the rich people lived overlooking the city below as I returned home, to a home I didn’t want to return to. At least that part I think I remember. I don’t remember getting home.

I remember that I didn’t cry about it then. I would cry a day or two later, before it faded into memory and became something funny that happened to me. For what it’s all worth, I never did turn out to be the handsome skinny boy in that bathroom mirror. I became someone entirely else. And for that I’m thankful.

I often think of the small transgender child I never was. A creature hiding in plain sight while everyone spoke to an imaginary boy that never was. I often thought of the thing that came crawling down those people’s stairs that night and wonder who they saw. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your bathroom, and your carpets, and your towel, and your soap.

Even though Charl in 2003 and Charl in 2020 are as different as two people could be with 17 years and a lifetime of mistakes between them. In those years I thought of myself as a boy, a man, and if stubborn unwillingness to confront the truth of myself then the fact that words like ‘nonbinary’ were not available to me till years later should give you indication of some of the pathos of who I was. Why do other trans folk seemingly deal with this shit so beautifully? And here I am on the floor, bleeding. And when I think this, I am always back there again, on that floor.

Joan Didion in Slouching Towards Bethlehem writes:
“…I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”

This is advice I have not taken well… ever — much to the sighing head-shakes of anyone who knows me and who undertake the ill-advised labour of loving me. I am a mess. But, so are you. So I guess you’ll appreciate this. But I write these things not because I’m ashamed of the boy I was. That boy never existed for me. That boy was a fiction made up by others told as a funereal dirge sung over my life’s every waking moment. I write these things because I’m ashamed for always having been the coward, the hypocrite, and dealing with a shitty situation in the worst, most self-destructive ways possible.

I was nineteen and young and couldn’t cope with the abuse I was suffering. I wasn’t a child because I was nineteen and I wasn’t an adult because I was nineteen. I had tried to kill myself before then. And Think of Maya Angelou who said, “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.” And I wish that was true of me. Although looking at who I am now, perhaps I succeeded.

Maybe once that little child from so long ago had finally drawn their last breath. Maybe I could forgive myself after all these years. Or maybe I can become the person that little child needed. It has been nearly as long since then as I was old then.

This is all the products of my reptile brain, mind you. My rational brain knows everything about blaming rape victims, and the stigma of victimhood, and the possibility that I was drugged beyond what I did to myself and both those thoughts are things I can’t deal with so la la la I can’t hear you.

Okay, it’s a little sad, I guess. Yes, I did go to therapy eventually. I’m still healing.

-o0o-

Holy Ground


CW: anti-gay slur

"Faggot!"
You yell.
Okay?
Although to be clear:
I am a goddess.
I am queer herald,
and fag chic with buttermilk nailpolish.
I am my mother's pride,
and my father's punching bag.
Who are you to demand an audience?
You are wearing shoes,
standing on holy ground.
You are a child,
who just learned a naughty word;
expecting,
to be treated as more than just that.

-o0o-

Thursday, June 04, 2020

Cataclysm



Cataclysm
from Greek κατακλυσμός (deluge/flood)

I cannot carry more pain.
For you, for myself,
I have done what I can.
There's nothing left of me.
I've lifted as much as I could,
and I failed, I buckled, and broke,
and it overwhelmed me.
And now...
I cannot carry more pain.
My banks torn after bursting,
my floodplains washed away.
I cannot carry more.
There is no inch of soil thirsting.
The clouds have shed their sorrows,
and the sky was never this empty.
I cannot carry more pain.
The fields of wheat are gone.
The gutters and furrows washed away,
and no place for ravens or doves to nest.
My earth is washed for crying,
soaked from the constant crisis,
and lack of rest.
There is no escape from the flood.
The mountains covered.
The clouds drowning.
I cannot carry more pain.
I have drunk tears aplenty,
and my belly is full of rain.

-o0o-

Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

The Neverthere

You invoke ghosts so casually.
Terrible soul eating creatures:
from the very centre of your imagination.
Creatures carved from every thing I never was.
Be careful, before they drag you away,
to even places I can't reach.
A place where you'd go to live,
made entirely of imagination.
Where there isn't even a smidge of space,
for someone who disappointed you,
by committing the crime of existing,
outside of your expectations.

-o0o-

Sunday, May 24, 2020

In the event of my untimely death – a plea from a transgender person.

When I die, let me be dead with a little grace,
Don’t dress me up like a boy or masculinise my face,
When I die speak of me as I am,
They and them are my pronouns, even in death.

Do not call me by boy or man,
or male or son or him or he.
Do not speak prayers over my ashes,
and if you can’t control yourself, do it silently.

Do not bring my body or ashes into a church.
Do not have a priest give rites over my remains.
Do not show my body. Do not put my remains in a coffin.
Do not hold wakes for my body, I am not there anymore.

Any person who misgenders me or prays over me,
or befouls my corpse with patriarchal puppetry,
or makes me out to be a man is not my friend but my enemy.
They are committing desecration. I do not forgive them.

As for ashes, donate what they can use of my body,
and cremate whatever is left.
Throw my ashes in the sea, I don’t want to be shelved indefinitely,
a constant burden for the bereft.

Cry for me if you have to, but don’t you mourn my death
Celebrate the life I had with friends and food and song
Wear purple. Drink a glass of water. Eat something delicious or sweet.
Comfort those who hurt. And get some fucking sleep.

-o0o-

Saturday, April 18, 2020

BOOK!

Coming soon! Keep your eyes peeled!

-o0o-

Monday, February 24, 2020

Eight Kisses for Healing

One for the bruise,
lest it fester and rot.
Two for the cut,
and the blood wet and hot.
Three for the tears,
and the sorrows they've known.
Four the the ache,
living deep in the bone.
Five for the sinews,
that knit up and mesh.
Six for stitch,
and the joining of flesh.
Seven to call out,
the hale from the strife.
Eight to herald,
the dead back to life.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Two for One

Tonight, beware,
I'm just a night hag;
loosely held together by blood clots and rage.
I have a curse for you if you have pennies to spare.
Sell them by the pair:
Come browse if you dare.
one for you and one for the apple of your ire.
It's a two for one deal, take it for leave it.

-o0o-

Friday, October 18, 2019

Oranges (Video)


I miss you today dear lover,
How you’ve out-aged me in death.
Immortally young. Ancient in memory.
Ageless Apollo.
Are there still oranges where you are?
Do the copper leaves still fall about your feet?
And is death kind in your defeat?

I miss you today dear lover,
Your apple-grin smile that ensnares me,
Your brassy laugh that knocks air into the soul,
and makes the windows rattle.

I miss you today dear lover,
On a far-away coast,
So far from your grave,
I don’t know these winds,
The sky isn’t vital with that screaming thunder,
And your voice is still,
Even in memory.

I miss you wry humour,
Your simple kindness.
I miss your singular determination,
Your childlike ability to get lost in wonder.

I am sad to say that today was a good day:
Anniversaries being what they are.
And I have no desire to join you,
So I beg you to be patient.

Time will have us all in the end,
And there are oranges enough for now.

-o0o-

Sunday, October 06, 2019

Lines



Too much of my life,
                is full,
of attempted lines others drew,
                                         in my sands.           
Their battle lines, scratched across,
my body, my sex, my mind, my life...
...their permissions, prohibitions,
petitions, and protestations.

And how they rage and weep,
when my tides turn,
and wash their little lines away,
as if they were never even there.
Respect the ground you stand on, chaps.
It is deep, and hungry, and you are very...
                  ...very...
                               ...small.

~Charl Landsberg
2019

Sunday, June 09, 2019

Storm



When the storm gets bad I return to my art.
It is good to remind the wind that I am the ocean
and no matter how hard it blows
I will return to the deep.

-o0o-

Monday, April 22, 2019

When you're feeling self conscious...

If the moon wanted the work to be done like someone else
she would ask someone else to do the work
but she asked you.
So she knows.
Your heart.
Your hands.

-o0o-

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Phoenix

Kiss me, hitherto forgotten anger,
that sits like a pike in the heart,
waiting to bloom.
Come to the furnace, little ones.
Let me show you how to bathe,
let me show you how fire consumes.
Will you be reborn with me?
...or crumble beneath my fury?
I would wait for you,
but the sun rises,
and the day won't wait for you.
The shadows are long,
and I have other pyres to build.

-o0o-

Friday, February 15, 2019

Ricky Man

Please go have a look at my poem "Ricky Man". It's up at Poetry Potion HERE.

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Write

Write more!
Write more!
Write more!
Write!
Does it still count as poetry,
if it's written out of spite?

Bark

People will strip you,
so unhesitatingly,
of your scars,
for the sake of their own comfort.
As though trees could survive,
without bark.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Late January

I haven't written here this year.
But today I saw the wind in the grass.
I saw the sun shining through the grey clouds.
I read poetry I didn't quite agree with.
A strange hot day.
The air smelled of sweat.
I held the seeds of a plant I grew in my hand.
And I can genuinely tell you,
I don't know anything.
Bukowski said some lose their mind,
others lose their soul,
I've been split down the middle,
mind and soul,
human and animal,
water and fire,
for so long.
I haven't lost anything,
it's just that we're,
not in one place at the same time.
That when we sit together and drink coffee,
looking at the world around us,
it seems so alien.
People calling me weird,
but then they refuse to see the sky,
they refuse to hear the music,
they refuse to see the wind dancing.
I don't know anything.
But I know the seeds in my hand.
I know wind in my hair.
I know the whispering heat,
that simmers on my chest.

-o0o-

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Ricky Man (on Youtube)


Ricky Man

I knew Ricky Man.
I knew Ricky Man back when.
I knew him when the Earth was flat.
I knew him when the moon was holy.
...when Coca Cola was cheap;
when he sat slumped,
face down, drunk,
cooking his brain in some second hand philosophy book,
college of life burning late on his alchemical tank,
and adding fuel in small white powder sniffs.
-Breaking into one of his familiar tiffs with the tiny bar lady,
the one he swears he fucked.
..but I knew he was as gay as a seven rand note.
And he smiled at me with his knowing eyes,
the only times I swear he saw the world soberly.
I knew Ricky Man.
I knew Ricky Man back when.
Ricky Man smoked a pipe.
A glass pipe.
Called it his caterpillar stick.
And he told stories like a magician.
His teeth clinking on glass,
like a groom calling his audience to class,
and we small children sat at his feet,
in a long forgotten street,
and listened to spinning stories:
of long ago alleyways, brothels,
and that one cop that owed him one.
He curled over the edge of his table,
and drummed the story into the wood,
with the ball of his palm,
stuttering through the haze of drink,
and the jagged segues of coca daze,
his haphazard bedtime mazelike stories,
that twisted around you,
like carousels of living horses.
We didn’t believe a word he’d say,
but it was all about the way he'd said it.
I knew Ricky Man.
I knew Ricky Man back when.
His foot sticking out this way,
fingers pointing accusingly at every audience member:
till one by one we were shot down,
one drunk,
one coked up,
one just tired from a long day.
Us, just as hazy as he was,
boiled out by the familiar heat of a small town sun.
And he’d finally fizz out and pass out,
kicked out for sleeping,
or puking on himself,
he just needed to get up.
He just needed to find his feet.
One last person to greet.
...and as he crossed the street.
...well.
He didn’t see the car coming.
I knew Ricky Man back when.
I knew Ricky Man with his soda ash coat.
I knew Ricky Man with his blood libation to mother night.
I knew Ricky Man before we spoke of him in backwards facing sentences.
I knew Ricky Man.
I knew Ricky Man back when.

-o0o-

Saturday, October 27, 2018

On a moonless night

On a moonless night I sing to you:
a song of wind and sky,
of water in the ocean deep,
with a hope-enchanted lullaby.

On a moonless night I sing to you:
a song of breath and air,
of Zephyr friend and Naiad girl,
would make such a lovely pair.

Oh sing to me you endless wind,
that knows the oldest melody.
A heart so free that soars within,
I call to you to dance with me.

On a moonless night I sing to you,
a song of dreams and sleep,
where I lay down may I think of you;
my watcher in the deep.

-o0o-