Motivation
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
GOALS
I have been looking for the castle.
It was on this polished landscape.
It shone on the sky for days
while I traveled toward it.
Then I came to this forest that was
deeper than it started out to be,
made of lost directions, moans,
and tangles, but I came through it.
Then this blue desert—a night-scape
upon which pale figures mingled—
real as dreams, pointing
and fluttering their cold dresses.
And now I come to the
castle landmarks, and the signs,
though I can tell by now, up close,
that they are very old.
And some have fallen,
and here and there
a weeping person passes by
in the opposite direction.
But never mind—I think I see a turret
up ahead—and a tall white wall—
and a flag of some kind,
and a gate to enter.
(first pub. in Poetry Depth Quarterly, 2003)
Hypothesis
DAY-DREAMING CHILD AND NON-EXISTENT DOLL
Is she the doll, this far-off, dreaming,
indoor child whose face is porcelain-white
in the sickly light from the window—
her red hair crushed
against a yielding pillow.
Is she ill, a model for the glass doll
that sits looking out the window,
rigid with listening to the sea
that sounds and sounds just out of view.
Does the child, too, listen—there is such
a disconnected dreaminess about her,
eyes without joy, no air of mischief,
her white dress catches window light
that tries to warm her, but her wild hair
draws all the light from the room.
She could be caught
in an ancient year of belonging,
left without energy enough to return.
The doll ignores the child—as does the child
the doll. If they are one and the same, how does
death happen to one and not the other?
________________
THE MOODY HISTORY
Natural History Museum, London,
Photo by Tony Ginger
Everywhere there are stairways
and halls, curved walls and windows,
ornate shadows and random
echoes that burrow through the
old places that seem to be
inhabited, though they are
empty now—all the olden
palaces and castles and
cathedrals—some in forests,
some on moors. Even the seas
remember them—nearby or
distant—all the old tourists
with their fables and tales. I’ve
read of them and lived a few.
I know how they feel, and smell,
and moan, ever-so-slightly
at every departure. Their
musty draperies still hold
together and their cellars
still guard the wine. Their stories
are buried in forgetting—
their stairways still climb, and their
walls still curve together in
searchings and followings. Damp
halls disappear into rooms
that watch the windows fill with
captured views that never change
Rarity
NOW IN THE FUN HOUSE
(after Paul Klee’s Death and Fire)
Now in the fun-house of the dream,
white ghost
of symbolic death—
shadow-texture
of scream—
silent grasp of light,
side-show of the mind,
and at the receding edge of sleep—
sleep-child,
hands raised
against the looming bugaboos
which are real, which are always there,
and always will be—in the dream.
(first pub. in Blind Man’s Rainbow, 1997)
Rationale
THE CONFRONTATION
I came upon a statue that had
two blank eyes, no pupils,
and no lids. It looked out upon me
and asked what I saw.
The statue had one wing
and one heavy shoulder.
I hugged my two arms together
and wondered how it felt to fly.
The statue was young and sexless
and wearing a long, white garment,
fastened at the neck, its very stillness
a mixture of envy and sympathy.
My garments were rain-heavy and torn
from the miles of living. My countenance
was scarred—we were communal now
in the singular blindness of our fate.
________________
TONIGHT THE SILENCES
(a Pentaquad)
Tonight the silences converge and blend.
What is left of summer now? The days
are long and gold. The colors hum all night.
I want to tread the musics that I hear,
just like a weary dancer made of snow…
it’s funny that I just now think of snow;
the way it falls as nothing I can hear,
although I listened to it once all night
the way it folded down around the days…
but this is how things separate and blend—
how one thing is another—how I blend
the farthest with the nearest of my days—
all shifted and unsorted—how this night
disturbs me with the ghosts that gather here,
the ones of shadow and the ones of snow.
Inside the night there is a dream of snow
as perfect as the silence that I hear,
and in that dream another dreaming night
helps gather all the old and newest days
and melt them down together till they blend.
(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1999)
The Whole Idea
THE DIVIDING SELF
My two ladies of difference
are in separate mirrors.
One is lost in a pool of water. One
is on a long path going into darkness.
I cannot follow them both
or save their future dying.
They are innocent of me.
I am unreal to them.
They do not even know
they are one
and that I am all three.
(first pub. in The Dividing Self mini-book
Oct. 1989, Piper’s Collections, Sand & Silk Pub.)
Theory
SONG THREE
What can you know
of music and wind
and the vital sea.
I am all three.
Come to my places
and suffer where
the loneliest sound
you have ever heard
keeps filling the air.
When I am wild
you will be frightened
but will not go.
Then you will know.
(first pub. in Oregonian Verse, 1969; also inBlues 1991, Piper’s House/Sandcastle Collection)
___________________
FROM UNLIVED COUNTRY
gone up the beach
to read the word in the sand
left an arrow for you to follow
in the cloud formation in the sky
if you hurry and I go slow
we’ll come together
where the miracle awaits
it’s all a matter of timing
(first pub. in Small Pond, 1977)
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
RETURNING
—Joyce Odam
This is the last arch.
We go under slow.
We have been away all night
listening to poets in the dream.
Is it sleep here
or is it sleep there?
Let us sleep.
(first pub. in The Arms Around Winter mini-book, 1990)
______________________
Thank you, thank you to Joyce Odam today for her mysterious poems about sandcastles and dreams and ghosts and sickly children. Each line of her "The Moody History" is composed of seven syllables, and the form of her Pentaquad is: 20-line poem in iambic pentameter with same set of end words used throughout: 12345 / 54321 / 12345 / 54321 (can use rhyme words a b c a b).
Our new Seed of the Week is The Last Ghost of Summer. 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.
—Medusa, celebrating the poetry of transition
Death and Fire by Paul Klee, 1940
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.
