One Single Impression: Disguise

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "disguise." For some reason except for the last one, this week's poems are kind of dark. The first three come from the days of my youth. Don't think I have every published any of them before and I probably should have left it that way, but.... for better or worse, I'm going to share them. Guess that's it by way of apologies. Can't help myself.

One Single Impression: Folly

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "folly." Not a lot of inspiration today, just these three, the third one added late. None of them thrills me, I'm afraid.

One Single Impression: Faces

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "faces." A hodge-podge today. Eight haiku, two tankas (my first ever). . . and an old poem that I posted back in April. I tried to make a nice collage of faces - and I did - but then I was worried that I didn't have people's permission to show their wonderfulness and I couldn't figure out a way to disguise them without making it just ugly, so... no decoration today, just words... except for Memling, down at the bottom.

How did I not see
The ugliness in your face
When I still loved you

~~~

How did I not see
The sweet kindness of your face
Until I knew you

~~~

Faceless in the grave
I wonder what your life was
Centuries ago

~~~

Why won’t you face me
Why not say what it’s about
So I can have peace

~~~

Faceless demons taunt
Their hateful words spewed at me
From inside my mind

~~~

My sister’s children
In your faces I see hers
And know she lives on

~~~

It’s not the features
That make a face beautiful
It’s the soul inside

~~~

I want to make peace
With the face in my mirror
Why does she mock me?

~~~

Face it, he intoned
You'll never amount to much
Like he'd cast a spell
I believed that lie for years
Until one day I woke up

~~~

Just seeing your face
Tells me miracles are real
I'm not your mother
But I love you like I was
Deep inside my cells and bones


I'm going to add one more. I've posted this before - back in April - but it is truly about a face, so I thought I'd share it again here, with the accompanying art that inspired it. If you are interested in the story behind it, you can check back here.


MEMLING'S PORTRAIT OF A MAN

I see your face
Staring across centuries of canvas
And I am drawn through time by your magnetism
I know I loved you once, or would have,
You look so much a part of me
With that quiet fanaticism
Maybe we were lovers in another incarnation
And it was so fine that neither of us has forgotten
In the five hundred years since you were you
And I, whoever I was then.

One Single Impression: Rest

Please scroll down for Project Black...


This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "rest." I've posted three haiku and one VERY long poem that needs polishing. I decided to post it anyway. Eeek.

Listen carefully
The rests between the notes
Add their own music

Resting my body
Is easier than my mind
Which shuns the stillness

Wrested from my arms
Most beloved companion
At rest in the arms of God

This one is very long and I just wrote it. It needs polishing, but I've decided to post it anyway, for better or worse. I don't have a scanner so the photo is pictures of pictures. The black and white is with me in about 1952 or so, the top left is holding her third (I think) grand child, and the last was on her 50th wedding anniversary. She was already quite ill at that time.

POEM FOR MY MOTHER AND MYSELF

Ah, mother
I hope you are at rest now
Shed of the dark cloak of shame and sadness
That you wore like armor against my love
I don’t know why you couldn’t see
The radiance I saw when I looked at you
But then I can’t see my own either
I learned from the best
To be unsure, ashamed, afraid
Though I know that wasn’t your intention
I realize writing this
That though I know/believe
Death has restored
The light of who you are
What I remember, what I cling to
Is the hurt and the rejection
How sad is that?
Especially since I saw beyond
I swear you radiated light some days
Even as you shunned me
Even as you judged me
Even as you pushed my love away
The first time I timidly offered the words “I love you, Mom,”
You replied – I laugh about it, though it hurts –
“I don’t mind you so much either,”
It was the best you could do.
I understand that
Your wounds were too deep for anything more
Later, when you too could say the words to others
To me you responded still
“You say it too much; I don’t believe you,”
And maybe I did
I just wanted you to know
I wanted you to see yourself
And I wanted - oh so desperately, agonizingly wanted –
You to see me also
But maybe we were too much the same
Maybe even though I wanted you to see more
(So I could see it too)
Maybe all I was able to let you see
Was the shame you heaped on me
From almost the minute I was born
So afraid you were that I’d be hurt
So afraid that I’d embarrass you
So afraid of what others thought
So afraid
So afraid
So afraid
So ashamed
So ashamed
So ashamed
I know it’s past time to put all that to rest
You are in God’s light now
Where Love is all there is
And I’m here
Clinging to your judgment
Because that’s how you gave your mortal Earth-bound love
Maybe it’s time to put that past to rest
And open my heart
To know my fat, my dusty house
Are not deal breakers In God’s eyes – or even your new Heaven’s eyes
Maybe it’s time I put that wounded you to rest
Forgave her for not loving me
Not seeing me
I still don’t know quite how
This old way of thinking and feeling
Runs deep in my bones
But here and now –
I kiss that tired old woman
Gently on the forehead
I loved that you too
Wanted to comfort and mother you
As you couldn’t mother me
But maybe it is time to let her rest
To forgive us both
For being human and afraid

Katherine E. Rabenau

One Single Impression: Myth

Please scroll down for Project Black...


This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "myth." I've been busy with project black and my birthday and lots of company and apparently my brain has decided to take a vacation. All I have been able to come up with as of 6:30 pm Sunday is the following:

Alas and alack
Inspiration comes not
I am myth-defied

I'm hoping that my brain will kick back in and if it does I'll add something more later or tomorrow. For the moment. This is all that will come out of my head. I'll bop around and visit others but think I won't add myself to Mr. Linky yet.

Monday addition: Although inspiration continues to elude me - despite reading some of the wonderful posts of others - I'll share my little pun in hopes that it amuses.

Poem of the Week: Sixty One!!!!!!

(Please scroll down for Take One of Project Black.)

Well, another year has passed and I am now sixty-one. I wanted to write a poem about it - and I did, but I got unexpected company and they stayed quite a while. My wonderful new friend Shannon - I'm not sure of her exact age - between 10 and 12, though - signed me on at Supermodel.com.... Oh my... It was a nice visit, but I didn't get to finish the poem I started this morning. I hated it anyway, so I wrote a new one. Kind of sucky, but it is a poem and it is my birthday, so you have to cut me some slack, right?

Not to toot my own horn - but look what my wonderful, mangificent, niece did for me over at her blog. Am I not the luckiest aunt in the world?

SIXTY ONE! AGGGGGHHHH!

I wanted to write a poem about being sixty-one

But I didn’t know what to write

I don’t like the number sixty one

The birthday’s fine with me

But I much prefer sixty or even sixty-two

No idea why I feel this way

I didn’t like being 33 either.

Silly, I know

But here it is.

Another year passed

I don’t feel any older

Or worse, yet

Any wiser

But the clock has spoken

I’m a year more senior

Hopefully this will win me some respect at least

I’m hoping I can persuade my achy knees

To lighten up on me

“I’m old,” I tell them.

Be kind.

I know it doesn’t work that way

But it can’t hurt to ask

And meanwhile

I’m doing what I can to milk the event

And get me some attention

My inner child seems to like the older me

She’s stepping out a bit more

I’m happy for her

It’s about time she had some fun

So that’s my birthday poem

Sometimes the best things in life

Start out unwanted

I’m hoping sixty one will be that way

A great year… even if it is a creepy number

Hope you'll pull up a chair and have some cake, ice cream and coffee.
Wish I could make it magically real for you.

One Single Impression: Through the Window

(Please scroll down for Camera Critters)


This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "through the window." I did most of these late last night, probably not a good idea as there was a much better version of the first one which simply vanished into cyber ethers never to be seen again. I'm not as happy with my recreation as I was with the original, but that's life, I guess. Sometimes you just have to go with what you've got... something like that. I try to make the text as readable as possible, but if you have difficulty they can all be expanded by clicking on them.
















Have a lovely week. May all your windows offer pretty skies and welcome views.

Poem of the Week

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this poem. It was written in 1969 when I was twenty-one or 22. I hadn't looked at it in a long time. I guess maybe I'm sharing it because I still feel most of these things 40 years later. Little did I know in 1969 that things would just get worse and worse and worse and the days when I wrote these words would seem like the good old days. Boy. Now, I'm depressed. But I'm sharing it anyway. The little picture at the left is how I looked in my naive optimistic days in 1969.

I AM TOO YOUNG TO WRITE A LONG POEM (1969)

I am young and do not know enough to write a long poem
I do not understand the evils that men do
That they see each other only cruelly
And thereby justify their own injustices
I do not understand why cages are so necessary
To protect us from each other
Or why, locked in those cages
We put on masks to keep back even those we trust
At the same time pleading to be loved
I do not understand what I can do in so big a world
Where we are all crowded so far apart
And where we talk, not to each other,
But to audiences, and majorities, and minorities
Where awareness and humanity are catch-phrased out for us
By mass media and men with charisma
I do not know what I can do
And I do not understand why even though I don't believe in fear
I sometimes feel it surging up inside me
So that I want to run and hide, to get away
I do not understand that I am useless
In a world that has so many problems left to solve
Yet I have no solutions
Easy answers, yes,
But I am just old enough not to believe them
And just young enough to still have hope
But still in all, I do not understand why fear can conquer trust
Or greed abolish dreams
And so I am too young to write a long poem
Which ought to have answers.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

One Single Impression: Doorways

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "doorway." I'm not feeling well and I did these too quickly and impatiently. If I had better sense, I'd just wait and post them another day but I have my rules and I do OSI on Sunday so for better or worse, these are sort of badly framed and I don't like the colors and I think I had another one in my head that I have misplaced. If I remember it, I may add it later. So...

Doorway to dark side
OSI is now posted
Even though it sucks

Poem of the Week: The Dream

You can click on the image for a larger version.

One Single Impression: Melody

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "melody." Only managed to do 5-7-5 once. Just couldn't get away from six syllables for the last line for some reason... not that it matters that much in the end, but I do love the game of trying to keep to the count and still have some music/meaning to the words.

When I used to sing
Voice lifted by melody
That was joy indeed

The comfort of song
Wrapped in arms of melody
My heart takes solace

Melody is mine
I love to let my voice rise
Invoking harmony

It’s like touching God
To sing full voice – melody
But harmony is love

Much as I love the melody of song
I love too the music of words
Rhythm and cadence
Flowing sound
Telling as much as
The words themselves
Words have energy,
Power
The same sentence
Spoken with a different heart
Vibrates with a different feel
Written or spoken
Words carry the spirit of the speaker
Truth has its own music
Resonant and clear
Melodic to the soul

One Single Impression: Transience or Permanence

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "transience or permanence." This is sort of a hodge-podge of thoughts and ideas, plus two poems for my tree that got struck by lightning yesterday afternoon. Half of it was struck away and I'm hoping that the other half will survive. Everything is haiku except this first one.

Because we do not fear it,
We let laughter flow through us
Transient, healing, pure
But shame holds anger permanent
Intransigent as stone
Weighing us down like lead
Maybe we should find a way
To move the anger through
And hang on to the laughter

Transient as days
Time befriends eternity
Vast as an instant

Moment by moment
Eternity finds itself
Fluid and constant

What was God thinking
My flaws are steady as rocks
My virtues fleeting

Poem of the Week: Waiting for the Unicorn

WAITING FOR THE UNICORN

Always in my mind
Rides the dream
Silver light and darkness
Diana in the moonlight
Stalking shadows
Bow and arrow poised
Waiting for Apollo
To drop burning from the sky
Revealing unseen beasts
And beauties
Waiting
Eternally waiting
For the arrow to fly
And waiting too
For the unicorn.

Katherine E. Rabenau

One Single Impression: Pets

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "pets" Any excuse to share pictures of Angel and Tara Grace works for me. The haikus may be so-so, but aren't they just the most beautiful kitties ever?

Not sure why the top haiku for Angel isn't readable. You can click on the picture for a larger, easily readable version, but if you don't want to do that, it reads:

Paradoxical
Angel Joy is all sweetness
And a dozen imps

Poem(s) of the Week: Love Poems

I'm kind of especially insecure about these, but I'm posting them anyway. Fortunately, nobody much reads the poems of the week. That makes me sad and also relieved most weeks.

Your back looked so lonely facing me
But still, I thought I might offend it
If I moved (ever so softly) close
And so I lay there
Stopped
Because your back
Looked as lonely as my arms . . .
Which just didn't seem possible

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Moving through the uncharted jungle
Of your moods
Your mouth, arms, and chest
The close, fierce embrace
Which threatens to erase all sign
That I have been here beside you
I am afraid, so afraid
That like some evil snake
You will swallow me and go your way
Forgetting that I ever was

I lie here
Still
Beside you in the thickening grass
Which seems to grow between our resting bodies
Camouflage my thoughts in silence
While instincts too strong for mind's control
Prepare, defend, attack
I will not die so easy in this love as you may think
King of the jungle though you be.

We neither of us want, I think,
This secret war we wage
We do not mean to stalk ourselves like beasts of prey
Or hide within the thorny deeps of our own fears
Alas we do not die within out loves, they die in us
And we are left to chart our jungles alone.

- Katherine E. Rabenau