Variations on a Theme

Follow-up to my recent post, "Heads up, Writers":

Five or six people in each age of men  
Express something true with the brush or the pen 
And others repeat it, again and again.

And falsehood, if clothed in a nice-enough rhyme 
Is also inscribed in the marble of time.

Poem by Rani Kaye - All rights reserved.

For Kira -- Who Just Built Me a Poetry Corner to Play In !!!!!

I can write a limerick!
I can write a sonnet.
I can write a song of love
And put a new spin on it.

I can Haiku Japanese.
I can psalter Hebrew.
I can Frost a two-forked road
And Shakespeare thee till ye do.

I can play with words all day,
Till Doctor Seuss eats french fries.
I can make my muse skip rope
Until "Hot Peppers!" he cries.

I can hang with logophiles.
Now we'll amuse each other!
"Get your nose out of that book!
Go play outside!" said mother.

Okay, I'll swing and sing me songs
And dream in words that rhyme.
Some day there's gonna be a place
To play with words on line!

-- Poem by Rani Kaye -- All rights reserved.

1979

I need a savior
Who is stronger
Than the troubles of this life.

I need an anchor
That pulls tighter
Than the tumult and the strife.

I need a master
Who is bolder
Than the ones who hold me slave.

And when someone comes up to me
And says "gimme"
He says,
"I already gave."

-- Poem by Rani Kaye -- All Rights Reserved

Particularly Prolific

Poems I wrote on June 17, 1989, in order:

Five or six people in each age of men 
Express something true with the brush or the pen
And others repeat it, again and again.

And falsehood, if clothed in a nice-enough rhyme
Is also inscribed in the marble of time.

On Generations:

At seven, we wonder, and move things about.
At seventeen, we just try to get out.
At twenty-one, we begin to pursue.
At twenty-five through fifty, we do.
At fifty-one we begin to rule.

And after we've built and we've ruled, we rest
And decide that the days long gone by were the best
When our parents were building, and their parents ruled.
This we determine at seventy-two.

Now which perspective is actually true?
I think it's the one that we own while we do.
While we grapple with present necessities,
And our children store up memories.

Random musings:

#1
A flower from the nursery,
Meant to thrive in fertile soil,
Will sometimes bloom in rambling wood
If someone puts forth toil.

#2
Is the essence of a thought
With no meter and no rhyme
A poem in its infancy,
Or just a piece of time?

#3
At seventy-four, my mother-in-law
Remembers fondly and says it,
That people in old times would walk where they went,
Thinking nothing of it.

"The world's gotten wider ... and smaller," I told her,
And she agreed, then she said,
"The stores would close early at night and on Sunday."

"The world's gotten different," I said.

 

When we wait safely in the grave,
And our own sons are old and gray,
What will they think of longingly
About this unremarkable day?

---- Poems by Rani Kaye ---- All rights reserved.

Repost - Writers Block Challenge # 27

I wish I had a camera that could show the view from me:

Peripheral and everything I do and do not see.

And it would have to focus without zooming, and should stay

Attentive to the details and wide angles of each day.

Photographic memories!  I’ve heard some people have them.

Not me, though, only words are stored, retrievable at random.

I cannot tell you what I saw unless I first told me!

Word pictures I’ll remember.  That’s why I write poetry.

 

 

Poem by Rani Kaye, All rights reserved.

C'est le soule chose que je peux faire

The woman in the white Ford van
Is aching for a song ...
She turns on a country station,
But the ones they play are wrong.
She flips to a gospel station --
A commercial is on the air.
She parks the van,
Walks to the back,
And kneels herself in prayer.

She wants pain set to music,

Deliverance set to rhyme,

The questions, without answers, rolling 'round time after time.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Je Revien Tristesse

Another language perhaps,
But one that isn't mine,
Could with joy express the grief
Of the lands I leave behind;
Could with peace express the pain
Of the days and prayers and tears
That within this shell of clay
Laugh and boldly face the years;
Of Tomorrow when it comes
Oh, it has no power on me!
I am beaten, I am worn,
I am ended, I am free.
I'm created,
I create,
I live on eternally;
I am dying, I will die,
It's a bitter birth indeed!
As in labour for a child
As in gasping in a dream
Like a drowning man needs water do I need this year I've seen!
Twirl around and face tomorrow
Take away what wasn't mine
Am I healed and understanding?
If you ask, I'll say I'm fine
Oh, this language cannot tell you
(There's a word, I'm sure, Some Where)
... Might be "man" It might be "woman"
But for God's sake! It's a prayer.
Pack my boxes. I am moving.
Will not cry. I cannot stay.
Won't wear pain upon my shoulder,
I will leave it packed away.
When you see that I am hopeful
It won't be a lie you see --
For both sides of death and living are compatible in me.
And the love that I can give you
Won't begrudge your error or pain;
For a sword has pierced my own heart,
Yet I live, to breed again.

 

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

23 Years in Six Lines

The First Marriage (Dec. 1972 to Feb. 1996)

There was a young woman who lived in a house;
And she wanted children more than did her spouse.

Her spouse had repented of vows he had made,
To God, and to her, and to bills marked "unpaid."

He did give her children, because she demanded,
And they and she both left his home empty-handed.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye 12/4/2008
All Rights Reserved

Writer's Forum Find Your Muse #8 'Secret Rendezvous'

A Shared Secret

My literary career began before I could read or write, and I suppose that Mother Goose may be partly to blame since I learned of rhyme and rhythm from the sing-song-y verses Mama read to me at bedtime.

It's the wanting to REMEMBER, though, that birthed the writer in my soul.  More specifically, it's the COMPENSATING for FORGETTING.

And it is as simple as this:  I often heard songs, I often heard poems, I often heard stories that I loved.  I loved to hear a well-told tale.  I loved to hear a lovely song.  I loved to repeat a well-turned phrase.

The stories my Mama read to me, she read over and over again; and I could remember every word.

The songs my grandpa taught me, he sang with me over and over again; and I could remember every word.

But there were OTHER songs.  There were OTHER stories.  I would hear them once.  I would want to tell them.  I could not remember the words.

I would try to sing a song I had heard.  (This was generally for my own amusement.  At that point I was a toddler, and for the time being, an "only" child.)  I would recall a phrase or two, but not the whole.  So I would think.  I would try to remember. I would wonder what comes next. "Now what word sounds like sky?" I would say to myself. 

Then I would sing, and just PRETEND my new verses were how the true song went. 

I needed to memorize my made-up verses as I went along, though.  So I would do two lines, and get them to rhyme, and then repeat them again and again before making up the next two.  Repetition like that is how my grandpa always taught new songs to me.

Sometimes I would remember almost nothing of the "real" song, and I mustneeds make up MANY verses, in order to go with all the notes.  It seems I could naturally remember the tune and how long the song should be, even if I heard it only once, but I couldn't memorize the words fast enough to keep them forever.  And I mustneeds keep them forever.  That I cannot tell you why, because I do not know.  I have simply always wanted words to be kept forever.

When I got older and went to school, I loved to share songs; but at first I continued to pretend these all were songs I'd learned somewhere.  I ashamedly hid the truth that I had "written" them myself.  At that young age, I somehow felt it was wrong of me to selfishly make up words just so I could teach myself to sing the pretty songs.

Eventually, however, when I was nine, a teacher found me out.  I had escalated my criminal behavior to include teaching my songs to a girlfriend whose daddy played guitar, and this little girl had a charming voice.  Her daddy had her sing for people, and she liked to do that. 

Our teacher played piano, and our whole class sang at the beginning of every school day.  My little entertainer girl friend volunteered to sing my songs in front of the class and dragged me up front with her to sing along.  I could carry a tune, and she could sing like an angel.  Our teacher loved music, and she encouraged us to perform this way every time my girlfriend said that she and Rani had a new song.

Without my knowledge, that teacher started writing down some of my words, and she gave typed-up copies of my "poems" (as she called them) to my mama at parent-teacher conferences. 

When my mama showed those "poems" to me, I was stunned to discover that it pleased my parent and my teacher that I was doing this dishonest thing of making up my own little stories and rhymes.

Well needless to say, my temperament being such as it was, I was all about pleasing the parent and the teacher; and heck, by that time I could make a rhyme out of anything, any time it struck my fancy to do so.

So that's my story
Each word is true
And I have remembered it here for you.

My girlfriend's name was Mary Lewis.  Her voice sounded just like Mary of "Peter, Paul and..."  I just this moment remembered her name.  The school was Malcolm, the town was Sault Ste. Marie.  Mary, if you're out there, write to me.  You moved away before I did, and I never knew what became of you.  I wonder if you knew that I was "making up" the songs.  I do not think I told you.

Writers Block Challege # 51

Solace:

I am holding up a mirror
It is holding back the tide
All the monsters that could harm you
Are here on the other side

You are safe within the vessel
Safe is what you'll always be
Though the demons think they see you
All they really see is me

Poem by Rani Kaye
All rights reserved

Writers Block Challenge # 27

I wish I had a camera that could show the view from me:

Peripheral and everything I do and do not see.

And it would have to focus without zooming, and should stay

Attentive to the details and wide angles of each day.

 

Photographic memories!  I’ve heard some people have them.

Not me, though, only words are stored, retrievable at random.

I cannot tell you what I saw unless I first told me!

Word pictures I’ll remember.  That’s why I write poetry.

 

 

Poem by Rani Kaye, All rights reserved.

Writers Block Challenge # 26

Ladybug, Ladybug

Fly away home

Your house is on fire

Your children will burn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d fly home if I could, 

But I’m lost in this weed. 

The flower I’d chosen

Has all gone to seed.

The seeds have made wings

Of their own, and I fear

The wind will blow them and me

So far from here

My children will burn

‘Fore my wings touch the sky

Why did I choose this damn flower?

Oh why?

-- Poem by Rani Kaye
All rights reserved

Cold Turkey !!!

We're going to be making some changes in our internet service, and beginning Monday, November 5th, until Tuesday, November 13th, we will be WITHOUT an internet connection at our home!  (This is a household of 3 people & 3 computers, mind you.)

MAYBE I'll get a chance to flitter about online at the office, before & after work ... depends what else will be going on from day to day.

But IF you don't hear from me for a week, I HAVE NOT fallen off the face of the earth.

I have fallen off the edge of the world
I have landed in another time
I carry the memories of a former life
Uncharted waters: There be dragons here!

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Writers Block Challenge # 23

Stuff and Nonsense by Rani Kaye

(formerly known as “Mystic Poet”):

 

This should be a cozy haunt:

Up and down the stairs I jaunt.

If I try to walk away,

I’ll find I’m asleep, and stay.

If I try to reach "awake"

I’ll discover my mistake:

(Flying through here in the rain ...

Lightening out my window pane ...

Pelting teardrops o’er my head;

I am really still in bed!)

Have you ever dreamed you waked?

Took a walk, and couldn’t shake

Some fool notion you’re not there

But asleep in bed, somewhere?

If you do, just say a prayer!

And your spirit will recover;

Leaving dreamland, find the other

Place that is your true abode

(While the shades of death withhold

Your existence from the sky ...

In determined steps to try

To remember on which day

You assumed a shell of clay,

And were bound by time and space

To exist in but one place

Until time and space shall end --

Then you get to fly again!)

 

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

S'More of my OLD poems

#1 "Too Many Poets"

There are too many poets
With nothing to say:
We look into ourselves,
We look out at the day.

There are too many poems
That get tossed aside:
They speak of the seasons,
They speak of the tide.

There are too many errors
In epochs of men:
What we've done in the past,
We keep doing again.

#2 "Eleven-fifteen"

It's tense, and tight,
And all we are is waiting;
With painful glances:
I at you, and you at me.

We would touch,
But fear is single,
And time ticks on.

STOP! STOP!

Oh, no, the end will come;

And our memories

Are only gray visions

Blurred with the rain.

--The above poem was written at 11:15 a.m., just before the bell was to ring, ending the last day of my favorite class in my last year of high school.

-- Poems by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Unfinished song from a long time ago -- I can't remember when

The woman in the white Ford van
Is aching for a song ...
She turns on a country station,
But the ones they play are wrong.
She flips to a gospel station --
A commercial is on the air.
She parks the van,
Walks to the back,
And kneels herself in prayer.

She wants pain set to music,

Deliverance set to rhyme,

The questions, without answers, rolling 'round time after time.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Concerning 1985 (We lost our home that year):

 

Another language perhaps,
But one that isn't mine,
Could with joy express the grief
Of the lands I leave behind;
Could with peace express the pain
Of the days and prayers and tears
That within this shell of clay
Laugh and boldly face the years;
Of Tomorrow when it comes
Oh, it has no power on me!
I am beaten, I am worn,
I am ended, I am free.
I'm created,
I create,
I live on eternally;
I am dying, I will die,
It's a bitter birth indeed!
As in labour for a child
As in gasping in a dream
Like a drowning man needs water do I need this year I've seen!
Twirl around and face tomorrow
Take away what wasn't mine
Am I healed and understanding?
If you ask, I'll say I'm fine
Oh, this language cannot tell you
(There's a word, I'm sure, Some Where)
... Might be "man" It might be "woman"
But for God's sake! It's a prayer.
Pack my boxes. I am moving.
Will not cry. I cannot stay.
Won't wear pain upon my shoulder,
I will leave it packed away.
When you see that I am hopeful
It won't be a lie you see --
For both sides of death and living are compatible in me.
And the love that I can give you
Won't begrudge your error or pain;
For a sword has pierced my own heart,
Yet I live, to breed again.

 

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Poem I wrote in 1979 (When I was 26 years old)

I recently heard that what we post online is automatically copywrited. Please, don't anybody steal my words. But I think I'm going to start posting some of my own poetry. Because maybe things I've struggled with and figured out, will be helpful to someone else along the way. Peace, Rani

1979

I need a savior
Who is stronger
Than the troubles of this life

I need an anchor
That pulls tighter
Than the tumult and the strife

I need a master
Who is bolder
Than the ones who hold me slave

And when someone comes up to me
And says "gimme"
He says

"I already gave"

 

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Five or Six People

Written by Rani Kaye on June 17, 1989:

Five or six people in each age of men
Express something true with the brush or the pen
And others repeat it again and again.

And falsehood, if clothed in a nice-enough rhyme
Is also inscribed in the marble of time.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

A Year Without a Poem

Written by Rani Kaye on February 22, 1988:

More than a year without a poem
... and they used to come every day!
Oh, they still do, but I don't write them down
I just sing them, then they drift away.

(Somebody's Journal records all the rhymes
... and notes all the harmonies playing behind.
And He loves an old song
... and He loves a new song
... and He loves diversity, comedy, and hue!)

And I love to sing them
... and I love to bring them
On altars of frailty,
Transformed by His holiness,
Made fit for His view.

And He hears my every prayer!
Those spoken ... those breathed unaware.
Before and behind my life:
Yhwh ever there!

Reigning, although unseen
The comedy of God has been
A servant on horseback
And a king on his feet!

A maid who's her mistress' heir
(Whom Mary and Sarah bare)
And Oh! How the earth will move!
When the Servant is King!

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved