Eloquence
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
TELLING YOU WHO I AM
i am the child you never knew
half made of all you mean to me
half made of selfishness
i am the little girl with the
pouting mouth and the sulky eyes
that grab at everything they see
i am so old in my young dress
wind taken bows archaic curls
i wonder who my mirror thinks i am
but i am not so old i cannot sign
your faded book with something clever
you can’t even read
i am the angry child at the edge of love
shut out from the playground of my play
hugging some doll till it dies of me
closing its eyes with my fingertips
as i mope away
(first pub. in Charas, 1972)
RIGHT BEHIND YOU
Mother, I am clambering right behind you
over perilous distance. We are competitors.
Loose stones fall behind us; I mutter and
follow, grabbing at anything.
You laugh and gain a better hold.
If I fall, you will be angry, scold my un-
skilled clumsiness. If you fall, I will have
to hear forever your impossible descent,
our echoes mingling.
___________________
WINTER GHAZAL
I confess my selfishness to you, offer you another
crumble-cooky, some weak but scented tea.
In this light, the room enlarges, grows vague with
thin shadows and that sound that shadows make.
You press me for details. I resist. I have taken down
the mirrors, your face still in them.
In this light, the room darkens, broods. Birds come
out of their cages, fit their own shadows, like belonging.
You talk in monotones, mention cruelties, do not notice
the way I change and no longer fit myself.
In this light, the room compresses and wears an old
disguise.
I go into one of the cages, balance there in the echoes.
You wallow in the last of the mirrors, fascinated by your
own eyes, which reflect tragedy. You stare and agree.
In this light, the windows hesitate, then spin with
openness;
the cold air clashes with the warm tearing of the
curtains.
You play with the words upon your plate, work them
into a final
cajolement, heavy with threat and innuendo, your own
confession.
In this light, the room fastens to the clock which has stopped.
The birds are the only memories left. I refuse to mourn them.
You become that photograph on the small table under
the window,
the rage emptied, the rare soft smile on your face, me beside
you.
TARIANCE AT A SMALL SIDEWALK CAFÉ
Eating a white dessert, all by myself,
with small red bites of strawberries in it
—rich as a sugar—disguised in many
ways. I savor
the treat, melting against my tongue.
Outside: the threat of rain—
not here yet—at this gray window
with its ominous gathering of clouds
and glassy blur of people. Sated, I linger
over my cup of lukewarm coffee.
Every day I try to diet. When I am thin
again, I may forgive the obesity of tears.
__________________
EFFORTS TO PLEASE
I gave you the yellow bowl
and the yellow cup
with the red design,
but still you were unhappy . . .
I put raisins in your oatmeal
with a dash of nutmeg on the milk,
but still you would not give up
your sadness.
I sang a song and made a speech,
but you were still quarrelsome
and your eyes would not
give up my face.
And I went breaking like a dish
slipped out of
failing hands
and I went crashing to a cry,
so angry now
that both of us,
of your dark moodiness,
could die.
All the sadness is here, in the innuendo,
the sudden gasp at a thought
that will not go away.
an innocence of some dread.
Nothing written out,
as in a script,
only a recognition of a recollection
—too late to avoid,
some complication
that bodes evil, bodes evil.
How can such a misleading thought
quiet such possibility?
Nothing safe now.
Look around.
Feel the surroundings.
Talk it away. You bring it
with you everywhere you go.
It threatens. What was that sound
that sounded like a yes-s......
After “Dolor” by Theodore Roethke
i am the child you never knew
half made of all you mean to me
half made of selfishness
i am the little girl with the
pouting mouth and the sulky eyes
that grab at everything they see
i am so old in my young dress
wind taken bows archaic curls
i wonder who my mirror thinks i am
but i am not so old i cannot sign
your faded book with something clever
you can’t even read
i am the angry child at the edge of love
shut out from the playground of my play
hugging some doll till it dies of me
closing its eyes with my fingertips
as i mope away
(first pub. in Charas, 1972)
Promise
RIGHT BEHIND YOU
Mother, I am clambering right behind you
over perilous distance. We are competitors.
Loose stones fall behind us; I mutter and
follow, grabbing at anything.
You laugh and gain a better hold.
If I fall, you will be angry, scold my un-
skilled clumsiness. If you fall, I will have
to hear forever your impossible descent,
our echoes mingling.
___________________
WINTER GHAZAL
I confess my selfishness to you, offer you another
crumble-cooky, some weak but scented tea.
In this light, the room enlarges, grows vague with
thin shadows and that sound that shadows make.
You press me for details. I resist. I have taken down
the mirrors, your face still in them.
In this light, the room darkens, broods. Birds come
out of their cages, fit their own shadows, like belonging.
You talk in monotones, mention cruelties, do not notice
the way I change and no longer fit myself.
In this light, the room compresses and wears an old
disguise.
I go into one of the cages, balance there in the echoes.
You wallow in the last of the mirrors, fascinated by your
own eyes, which reflect tragedy. You stare and agree.
In this light, the windows hesitate, then spin with
openness;
the cold air clashes with the warm tearing of the
curtains.
You play with the words upon your plate, work them
into a final
cajolement, heavy with threat and innuendo, your own
confession.
In this light, the room fastens to the clock which has stopped.
The birds are the only memories left. I refuse to mourn them.
You become that photograph on the small table under
the window,
the rage emptied, the rare soft smile on your face, me beside
you.
State of Mind
TARIANCE AT A SMALL SIDEWALK CAFÉ
Eating a white dessert, all by myself,
with small red bites of strawberries in it
—rich as a sugar—disguised in many
ways. I savor
the treat, melting against my tongue.
Outside: the threat of rain—
not here yet—at this gray window
with its ominous gathering of clouds
and glassy blur of people. Sated, I linger
over my cup of lukewarm coffee.
Every day I try to diet. When I am thin
again, I may forgive the obesity of tears.
__________________
EFFORTS TO PLEASE
I gave you the yellow bowl
and the yellow cup
with the red design,
but still you were unhappy . . .
I put raisins in your oatmeal
with a dash of nutmeg on the milk,
but still you would not give up
your sadness.
I sang a song and made a speech,
but you were still quarrelsome
and your eyes would not
give up my face.
And I went breaking like a dish
slipped out of
failing hands
and I went crashing to a cry,
so angry now
that both of us,
of your dark moodiness,
could die.
Yesterday
All the sadness is here, in the innuendo,
the sudden gasp at a thought
that will not go away.
an innocence of some dread.
Nothing written out,
as in a script,
only a recognition of a recollection
—too late to avoid,
some complication
that bodes evil, bodes evil.
How can such a misleading thought
quiet such possibility?
Nothing safe now.
Look around.
Feel the surroundings.
Talk it away. You bring it
with you everywhere you go.
It threatens. What was that sound
that sounded like a yes-s......
After “Dolor” by Theodore Roethke
CD Cover: This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston
DANGEROUS TRAVEL
CD Cover: This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston
They told us to stay where we were.
They took our identifications—
our money.
They threatened us with exposure.
They made up lies for this.
They said we were not tourists, we were spies.
They took a photo of us for proof.
They said we must wait until sundown
before leaving the bench—
then walk separate ways
and not look back.
They said we must forget each other.
When we got back to the hotel
there were warnings everywhere…
in the notes…
on the mirror…
No one remembered us.
We had no credentials.
We left separately. We never wrote…
we never mentioned…
we forgot each other.
___________________
THE OLD WARS
Do we forget
how cruel words can be,
our old war has begun again,
with our old threat—
and each becomes the enemy,
the one that war can never mend.
How could we let
love lead us into trickery:
You lose. I lose. Love will not bend.
Boutonniere
GLOBE OF SUMMER SAVED FOR WINTER
It was summer, and there was no cause
to fear the rumor of ice—that old threat—still
used by dire-predictors, weather-people,
people with charts and ways to know such things.
How could we believe such misconception;
the high sun glittered on our bright horizon
in this, our longest summer ever—but,
the ice was quick with sealing. One morning, waking,
we found that we were locked in a time-lost globe,
turned in a winter hand for a staring eye,
shaken until small flakes of white went swirling,
and we lost our connection to each other.
But we control the memory of flowers.
Six frozen birds still fly in our ice sky.
_________________
FROM A FOOL’S MEANDER
A Glosa: Broken is as broken doesn’t
missing’s where the would be wasn’t.
I know broken, I know missing
better than the doves know kissing.
—Scott Michael Taylor
Broken is as broken doesn’t,
oh, yes
mad eyes
bodies
crowding
wanting out of themselves . . .
missing’s where the would be wasn’t.
oh, they
who are
from dreams
from dreams and nightmares . . .
I know broken, I know missing,
the sorting out
of who they are
serious with waiting
they pick me to assemble them
for pity and instruction.
better than the doves know kissing.
they will fade
they will not threaten
they will stay where they are
back in their own
disharmonious existence.
Retrospect
REUNIONS
they danced
upon narrowing lawns
years pulled them back
old lives corrected themselves
the falling music threatened to die
the old musicians stayed in tune
old lovers loved again
strangers who came remained strangers
nothing is ever the same
some wept at this
some carried
old reasons within them
“old old”
was the name of the next song
the dancers danced again
their shoes lost under chairs and tables
the drifting dancers hung onto the
sloping shoulders of each other
time came back too soon
they went home
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
DOLOR
—Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
___________________
A soon-to-be-springtime thank-you to Joyce Odam for her poems dealing with our recent Seed of the Week, "So mad I could..." and her beautiful flowers today! I’m glad she mentioned the Theodore Roethke poem, which I’ve posted as Today's LittleNip. Three forms Joyce mentioned:
Lisana: 3 stanzas of 2/8/8 syllables each
Glosa: see poetscollective.org/poetryforms/glosa-glose-or-gloss
Ghazal: see www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ghazal
Can't get enough of poetry forms? Check out Robert Lee Brewer's "10 Short Poetic Forms" on Writer's Digest at www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/10-short-poetic-forms/.
Our new Seed of the Week is Blue Sky, White Clouds. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.
Yesterday I mentioned WakamatsuFest150, saying that they were needing poets to help during their four-day sesquicentennial festival from June 6-9 (especially June 7 and 9). There will be a table within sight of a "reflective stage" for quiet stuff like haiku; we hope to have 2 poets/2-hour shift to man the table, get the public involved in writing and performing poetry, writing short poems and “wishes” to hang on the great blue oak "wishing tree", etc. Taylor Graham writes that poets may contact her at poetspiper@gmail.com/. Here’s a link to the event, which will be held at Wakamatsu Farm, 941 Cold Springs, Rd., Placerville: www.arconservancy.org/wakafest150/.
—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
