Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Tears Are Easy; Moaning Is Harsh

Study in Purple and Blue
—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA



IN THE HOUSE ARE MANY SOULS

In the house are many souls
floating between rooms
lamenting through windows
balancing the rumors of their lives
with many versions

we hear them on stormy nights
and on dead-still days
how they regenerate and reminisce
as sure and safe with us
as if we knew them


(first pub. in Chaminade Literary Review, 1989)



 Tenuous



THE HOUSE

It was the house that never was loved for the love of it—
unbuilt beyond building—surviving past ruin, if houses
survive. Hers finally. He simply left it. She took down
his bed, and his old life, and went on filling the rooms
to over-filling, letting no one in, creating new shadows
and non-shadows for her own. It was not a quarrel. The
house was mute, except for eloquent howling-corners
where the wind grew strength again. She even held the
wind chimes still in honor of silence—that old inner
friend. She lived there silently, except for the burst of
swearing when life went raw to the bone with her—
some old surrender trying to give in. But she held back
as always, kept her memories level, like some power
she drew out of herself : endurance, her new word. No—
that was the old word, but she had earned it. She would
use it now, heavy as it was, to balance her. And she
balanced, all the fallings and tiltings, the way the house
swayed at times when she almost let go of it.



 Filling In The Blanks



AS IF

We took a house to be our own.
But it was old and made of ruin.
It would not fix, it would not mend,

although we'd patch
and spend and spend
and tell ourselves

'one effort more'
and fix another
broken door.

And summer came and summer went,
and still our house wore discontent,
the same as we—as if it wanted more.



 When It Rains The Blues



BLUE ALBA

Lord! it’s sad music that I know.
I sing it loud. I sing it slow,

underneath the ceiling fan;
I let the summer suffer in;

I let the window gape and stare,
tear its curtain, rend its air.

Oh! this music, writ for pain,
felt before—felt again,

every time the tune begins
in my lack of violins,

in my lack of saxophone,
I suffer music all alone,

in the waning voice I use
for my Misery Loves blues.

_____________________

HUNGRY—HUNGRY FOR WHAT

For what is hunger if not interpretive yearning—
not a reason, not the quest through madness,
that state through mind-rebellion,

the first birds singing in the trees.
Morning again.  The night sleepless.
The birds singing.  I would sing.

Tears are easy.  Moaning is harsh.
Night is full of useless pain.
Suffer.  Suffer.

The house goes silent,
the cat stares, looks at you,
you and the cat, suffering together.

This is new.
This is not.
It’s all shamble.

The house shudders.  A block of silence
waits to burst.  We are not through with this. 
There is no solution.    

Bear it.  Bear it.  Let it continue.
In and out of sleep. 
Mind is mirage.

In silence now, confusion caught
in mind’s trap.
Its door open.  No key.  How it is.



 Ribbons
 


THE PIECES

Comes to her arms
comes with his heart all weeping
having broken himself upon his life
and lost the pieces

How he cries to her
telling his long and pain-filled story
giving it sharp and deadly
edges

Making it deep  Carving it in
How can she listen


(first pub. in Urban Voices That Matter, 1996)

_____________________

THE LOST MOTHER,

found by the lost child who forever
needs love, craved by the mind.

Love fails, even though loved, but
needs separation—how lives are spent—

directed by circumstance, the answer
questioned, insufficient to the loss.

Maps drown where you travel—
drown and are unreadable.

So you stay where you are,
become regional.

The lost mother is still lost
in her childless life,

but something reaches between
like a howl in wind

through
corners of an empty house.



 Poems From Trees

                      

HOUSE-BOUND

Stay in—
stay in today; 

the sky is wild;
the world is broken;

the wind chimes
clash and scream;

the white birds
tangle and fall;

the old house
bulges and strains;

the shuddering door
pushes against you;

the shadows
tremble

look how your eyes
distort the windows—

how can you go out
on a day like this?

What is it in you
that needs such going?

If you won’t stay,
then take me with you.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

WEEKENDS
—Joyce Odam

It is August
and they are its birthday people.
In the heat of the day they drink,
but they should not drink;
and then they talk, which turns to quarrel;
but they are merciless,
intense as lawyers.

The house they try to save
lies ruined between them.
They kick at the pieces.
Two lions, pacing their life,
hating captivity,
but afraid to nudge against the bars
which are loose.

_______________________

Our thanks and good wishes to Joyce Odam (birthday-girl who celebrated her 95th last week!) for talking to us today about houses and all the memories they harbor above, inside and below. “Old houses that bulge and strain…”

Our new Seed of the Week is “Beauty in Devastation”, which was triggered by a recent Sacramento Bee photo of a new mural which has been painted up in the devastation of the California town of Paradise (see below). 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.

And a wee note: the Placerville Off-the-Shelves read-around happens tomorrow night (Wednesday), not tonight (Tuesday). I got ‘er a bit mixed up in yesterday’s post….

—Medusa, celebrating the poetry that hides in the walls of your house…



 Eleanor: Beauty in Devastation















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. 
 
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