Illusive As Moon-Beams

 The Mischief-Maker

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE ENTERTAINMENT

We are sent to kill each other but we fall in love.
Whatever is wrong between us is confessed and
forgiven, though we have nothing to confess;
though there is nothing to be forgiven.

       I leave a trail for you to follow. It is an
ambush. You dare not trust me. I dare not warn
you. Nothing is changed between us. We are old-
fashioned, used to our old methods which others
love about us. We are always “The Entertainment”.
Tonight we are summoned again for our sadness.

 Busted

INFLUENCE

The children of the blind woman must run blind-
folded through the house. The children of the blind
woman must never pray to light. The children of
the blind woman must touch at Braille with covered
fingers. The children of the blind woman can only
see at night.

The children of the deaf woman must speak only in
a whisper. The children of the deaf woman must
wipe their mouth with tears. The children of the deaf
woman must not let music near them. The children
of the deaf woman must wear cotton in their ears.

The children of the mute woman must be eloquent
as silence. The children of the mute woman must
never use their voice. The children of the mute woman
must pantomime to please her. The children of the
mute woman must wear language on their face.

But the children of the woman who is mad and arm-
less must ever fear the lashing of her tongue, and the
children of the woman who is sane and perfect will
know who they can never quite become.

 She Did It !!  No, SHE Did It !!

THE UNCOMELY CHILD
After A Little Girl, 1920, 

a painting by Chaim Soutine


Oh, you who are yet a child, 

though dated by an old dead 

calendar, your future cruelty 

already forming on your face, 

your hands

clenched together as if to trap 

yourself
somewhere out of reach, your 

eyes are the eyes of the oldest 

anger. The shadows

behind you press forward in a 

churn of discontent. The hour 

is sickly green, it darkens 

down and wears the light out 

and grows too

heavy for you, for now you 

are grimly obedient, letting 

some brief eternity name you 

important. But Soutine has 

found you out…

he makes the paint thicker, 

denser, you are stuck there 

forever, your face in a pout, 

your orange dress wrinkled 

and soiled and your

hair a mess—your angry 

mouth looks like it was just 

washed out with soap—what 

ever did you say to make 

everyone so mad?

____________________

THE MUD CHILDREN
      After 1996 Datebook: A Collection of Images
                        —Photographs by Anne Geddes


The mud children hide inside the mud, close their
mouths and eyes, breathe without suffocation,
lean into each other, hands on each other’s
shoulders, heads touching, to please the camera. 

They enter the posed sleep of waiting and must not
waken until it rains. They are dates on a calendar,
filling their page, matched to opposite columns
of July, numbered 14 through 20. Three of them

are missing, escaped, or lost, or refusing to play.
The four who remain must stay at the age they
are, will never count themselves older. The pages
are stuck together now, coated with mud. Perhaps

a flood of emotion stops here. Perhaps a storm
came through the pages and sealed them shut—
No rain yet, only the swollen year, the mud-stuck
children still waiting for the rain to release them.

I Did Not !!!

NOT TO HOLD   

From what
do you run,
swift-silver boy,

elusive as sunbeams
on the floor.
We put our hands

right through you!
You are made of
light and air

and nothing more.
You laugh to see us
hold you in our minds

and you
materialize for one
bewildered question,

then your answer
scatters sun-dust
through the door.

Mommy... !!!

PRETENDINGS

the children float away
from the grasp of their mothers

they are
pretending

bluebirds fly beside them
singing blue lullabies

the mothers reach dreamlike arms
toward the children

the children find a circle
and slip through

the mothers’ blue and hollow
voices float after them

__________________

now the world
    Ice Splitting, Lake Baikal, Siberia

is split
it is tearing in half at the long seam of the ocean

and beneath the waterfall of the mountain.
I hear it crack in the silence of

inattention.
something like a soft cry

or a low
moan

somewhere between
hell and heaven

a width children could
still jump across

I see the shadow
widening

and how deep
it goes

deeper by the years
and decades

sunsets echo it—
strange clue—

formations cross the sky
sky song asking why

 Teddy's Sorry

NIGHT THOUGHTS

He throws his net out
over the cluttered air of night.

His body strains forward;
he gleams in the moonlight.

He catches dreams and worries,
he catches terrors and dyings.

His back is turned to us.
He does not know we are watching.

He does not know we fill his skies
so his net will never be empty.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

NOVELLA
—Joyce Odam

We who are made of twilight
taste and go
beyond the seasons
to the tide of fame and reasons

____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s poetry and photos as she explores the concept of “Little Monsters”, our latest Seed of the Week. Our new Seed of the Week is Lunacy. 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.

For subtler meanings of “lunacy”, see www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lunacy/.

____________________

—Medusa

 —Public Domain Photo

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.