Touching What is Lonely

—Photo by Joyce Odam

ENDING/BEGINNING

—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

watching

the hailstones

through the screen door

         ~

we hug at the doorway, hello,

we hug at the doorway

goodbye

         ~

we never reach

the rainbow     oh loss

oh loss

         ~

wanting what I want

extent of yearning

humility of acceptance

         ~

watching the train

rumble by

reading the graffiti

         ~

in abeyance

the time between our last visit

and the next

         ~

travel this way

travel that way

way is everywhere

         ~

all night

the shadows speak to one another

the dark listens

_______________

NIGHT MURMURS

—Joyce Odam

Something bends, the night is lonely:

the shivering moon

in the cold water—

the spread of dark—

a lone walker turns a corner,

is gone forever: how do I know this?

—Photo by Joyce Odam

 

WE RELEASE EACH OTHER

—Joyce Odam         

The ghost gives me up.  It can no longer

bear my love for it.  I have given it

more loneliness.  It cannot forgive me.

                  .

We may never return to each other now.

Glass is fading between us—

Death’s pale mirror—its receding face.

Published: Lilliput Review, 1998

_______________

A GLITCH OF TIME

—Joyce Odam

 

Mother, I approach you on the road;

you are looking down,

picking your way carefully,

looking at the stones and flowers.

I am wearing a yellow dress.

I wave to you and begin to run.

But you, somehow, are receding—

keeping the same distance

between us—never looking up

to help me reach you.

 

_______________

Thanks, Joyce Odam (and Pat Pashby), for today's contributions to the Kitchen!

I remember ice-cold rainbow popsicles sold along 
Highway 99...

I remember going to sleep out on the sunporch, 
the sound of crickets...

I remember the drone of the rotary fan going back and forth, back and forth, 
back and forth...

This poetic fragment uses both our new Seed of the Week: Before we had air conditioning, and the rhetorical device called the anaphora, which is to begin each line or sentence with the same word or phrase. I listed the anaphora as our new Form to Fiddle With, but it's not really a form, just a technique. Still, it's hugely popular in poetry and I'm sure you can think of several examples. (For a boost, see www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5770)

Your SOW doesn't need to be in this shape, though; just see what your muse comes up with when you think back to the days of no air conditioning—or to areas of the country/world where it isn't common. (And if you're too young to remember such things, then whip out your poetic license and imagine!) Or maybe you'd rather root around in the past: see Calliope's Closet in the FUCHSIA LINKS above for all our previous SOWs and FFW. Send the fruits of your sweat to kathykieth@hotmail.com. There are no deadlines, of course, on any good writing...

_______________

Today's LittleNip(s):

CONTAGIONS

—Joyce Odam

Never touch what is lonely. It will not

heal—it is a vessel to fill, but only to

the brim. Do not let it spill, or the

touch will mean nothing—

and nothing will be

forgiven.

(first pub. in Brevities, 2012)

            ~~~

OCTOGENARIAN PUNDIT

—Patricia Pashby, Sacramento

Sage Joyce Odam says,

"Do not give up your power."

Wise poet, wise words.

 

_______________

—Medusa

—Photo by Joyce Odam