Ennui

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

NOW IN THE DEAR DEAD MORNING

Now in the dear dead morning the body is coming
to life, sitting in thrill-song like a hidden bird. “Ah,
you again,” it says. And I say, “Yes, me again.”

And we trace together the dark reaches of should
and must not, until we come to the hole in the air.
Here is where we must enter,” body says.

“Tomorrow surely,” I demur, and wait just a little
behind the fear until the hole closes. Overhead, on
humdrum wires, dark birds perch close together—

keeping balances. I admire. “Ah, you again,” I say
to them, because body is becoming bored and lying
down in fading shadow. This of course

sends birds into birds in a flurry of hallucination.
“Yes, we again,” they answer, rising from wires
in deadly unison to claw the morning air.

 Nothing Happening

MOODY AFTERNOON WITH PIANO AND CAT

I was bored with the light falling on the piano. I wanted
the music sheet to simply open—to be lazy—dwindled
out and long, and play the stared-at song.

And I wanted a door to close softly—like the perfect
ending to a song. But the light stayed—thick and dusty
in the heavy afternoon.

I was stuck in time’s slow meaning, staring at the dust
on the piano. And the cat jumped up onto the keys and
walked a tune across them.

I listened intently and the cat jumped down again,
and I loved the cat for its disturbance on my reverie.
And the light shifted,

and something moved across the room like a wet
shadow, and I knew I was weeping to myself again.
And the cat purred against my leg and meowed for my

attention, and the piano sank back into the wall as the
hour lengthened. And I guess I could have held the
mood a while longer—but it was over, and the cat won.


(prev. pub. in The Gathering #8, Ina Coolbrith Anthology, 2005)

 Blah Blah Blah

ENNUI

I think of times between other times,
between luck and despair, hope and its enemy.

I think of times like that when time is wrong
and I can’t get out of my chair

to become relevant—when now is past—or about
to begin.  I am that tightly crushed within

time’s measurements that I cannot measure.
I am out of the math of cleverness.

I am caught in dream’s mud.  If I run, I drown;
I’m in a stillness caught within a whirl.

Perplexed.  Unwound.  Where do I
pick up the beat of it all—get back on track—

wipe the dreaming mirror and find myself again
in the faceless glass.

 Staring Patterns

THE HAUNTED MOONLIGHT
After “Abandoned Farmhouse” by Ted Kooser

It was so long ago, the house barely remembers them
now, how they tolerated each other—the house and the
family—temporary to each—

or were they all a dream ? , the house wonders—there
were so many—years of them, as long as the house
could remember.  But they were the last, their vestiges
still here, scattered sullen things, breathing darkly.

The house twitches in the sunlight and aches in the
rain. The ROAD CLOSED sign is broken, lying carelessly
about, somewhere in the weeds, like the road.

It’s a wonder that the old gnarly tree still lives, though
some of its limbs are broken from the summer weight
of its unfallen leaves, an old swing hanging by one rope.
Stubborn old tree.

The house can still feel the walls shudder from its
histories—none of them happy. It’s a wonder the visiting
winds haven’t blown it away—though the weight of
worry still holds it here—a little tired of something—
pondering and lamenting through its boredom.

Funny how no one ever wonders at the attic faces that
distort when the shadows shift; and how no one answers
when the voices speak—alone or at each other, and how
the broken window glass seems to like the exchange.

And the house wonders, too, why they used to call it
The Old Haunted House, though it rather likes the name
and helps it along by staying spooky and mysterious in
the gregarious moonlight….

_________________________

CARYATID

Supplicatory—as if vital to archaic walls and ceilings that
would grow bored without the design of her presence
that equally depends on the position of her arms,
the great strength of her back, her shoulders,
her bent head, to equally
balance the weight
her hands uphold
how she does not
complain or deign
any resistance for
regret in what she
proves to builders
and designers who
utilize for sacrifice,
for admiration's sake
—she knows her worth—
all this time standing braced
against the blurring centuries, disdaining the occasional
passing glances, the lingering, far stares, gazing up at her.

(After Caryatid, 1912 by Modigliani)

_________________________ 

SINUOSITY

She waits through the day’s boredom,
her long dress billowing to the floor, making
a hiding place for the cat that thinks itself invisible.

She pretends not to sense the cat blending into her skirt
in its game of wait-and-pounce
upon some unsuspecting sound or shadow.

She is handing a china cup and saucer across a table.
Wallpaper birds fly behind her in the room’s orange
light, falling like fluttering ribbons toward the cat.

Orange, she thinks, I will do this all in orange,
and points her foot down as though to consider
this thought—or change position—or hold a pose

of new consideration. The cat is holding its ears back,
and flicking its tail, and bristling with patient energy.
The birds continue their disturbance on the wall.

I will pose here—in this light—on this day
for these birds and this cat, she thinks.
Still, she says nothing, except to herself.

The cat is harder to see now, as if it has become
part of her dress. She continues holding the cup out
though no one seems to be there to take it.

I am nobody’s mistress, she vows,
and offers this prayer to herself. And the birds fly still,
and the orange cat closes its eyes and purrs,

and someone takes the cup at this point in the poem,
and she closes her face again, leaving
her hand extended.


(After MAURICE DENIS (1870-1943): Symbolist in Art, Devout
in Temperament.  Denis’s early masterpiece, Madam Ranson
and her cat, 1892, was inspired by Japanese prints.)

 Temper Tangle

WHAT KEEPS ME AWAKE

From one moment to another, change :
Rain
Wind
Numbers clicking on the clock
The air in the room
Chill

The dog dreams on the foot of my bed
making dream-sounds and movements
and does not know of the
rain
wind
clock

Why can’t I sleep—is it the moon ?
Boredom
Hunger
Some old anxiety, some new concern
Is it the moon

Rain—I was not mistaken
The air opens
The world moves
Night is wet with shining puddles
(Does the weatherman know ?)

Were I not a page of silence
I might not know of this
I might not know what the clock knows
I might not listen as hard as I do

Where in the night
does it say I must sleep
where in the night
does my meaning change
from one moment to another ?

 Pacing Patterns

THE QUIET LOBBY
After Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music by Robert Bringhurst

In the lobby, a few old men sit around and stare out the
sidewalk window, or read old newspapers, or doze and
dream their unsolved dreams. Time is a carpet between
them and the worn distance to the outside world.

The clerk at the desk is a manikin of boredom and surly
patience, barely noticing what passes by the window or
who wanders in and slips up the stairs.

The hour is unimportant. It stays the same. No one asks
the time. Rain comes and patterns the unwashed lobby
window with streaks of intricate design.

The old men watch the rain for diversion as the desk-clerk
answers the harsh ring of the telephone that breaks the
boredom of the place.

He listens a long time with no expression, then motions
one of the men to the phone who asks who it is and gives
a long shudder of tears, as if he can’t believe what he hears. 

 Button Study

SATURATION

How often do you need this to be true? You are such a
tragedy—sitting alone—in the rain—at the little sidewalk
table since you love moody atmosphere.

You sip your drink of rainwater and ask for the bill, and
the waiter comes indifferently toward you, but you keep
receding into the old pathetic story.

You love the ancient way you feel. You love the misery
of your own eyes in the distortion of the window. Inside,
patrons are looking out at you, but they don’t hold

together any more. You have been here too long, wearing
yourself thin with repetition—boring everybody—even
the long-dead artist you conjure for effect.

And now we leave you there in your private reverie, the
waiter never arriving, the rain falling into your glass—you,
shining so deeply, like a wet tree.


(prev. pub. in Parting Gifts, 2004)

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TEDIUMS               
—Joyce Odam

It is harsh for a word
to be so brutal.

Honesty is best, says
the word.

_______________________

Welcome back to our fine poet, Joyce Odam, gracing us as she does every Tuesday with her poems and visuals. Today she has tackled our Seed of the Week: Bored, and has given us a variety of facets of it to chew on. As to her references: to see Ted Kooser’s poem, “Abandoned Farmhouse", go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52935/abandoned-farmhouse/. For more about Robert Bringhurst’s book, see www.amazon.com/Pieces-Map-Music-Robert-Bringhurst/dp/1556590032/. For more about Maurice Denis, see www.artsy.net/artist/maurice-denis/.

What—me worry? That’s our new Seed of the Week: Worry. 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

 Portrait of Madame Ranson 

and Her Cat

—Painting by Maurice Denis

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.