Waste Nothing This Time

 

Once Upon a Time

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE STUDIO BOAT
After The Studio Boat, 1876 by Claude Monet

oh, to float
in a green boat
above green reflection

on a green day among
green trees in the soft green
warmth of the filtered sun

though time is gone
to be the one
who can capture this

from the echoless calm
of the glade’s green sound
that murmurs in and around

the lazy drift of the small green boat
on the rippled calm
as if time is meant to be spent this way

 

 

 

Holier Than Now

 

A LAST FLOCK OF BIRDS

Behold this sunset—how your eyes love it—
the lowering of light—the lengthening
of shadow—the softening of color,

notice the feel of the air and the sounds
that renew into it, like beginnings
instead of endings,

this was a day you spent without knowing its
cost—but now it has come down to this hour—
and you watch the light go at the horizon,

and you feel the sadness again for each day’s
dying—where are the birds,
you start to ask . . .

and a last dark flock of them flurries up
in silhouette and crosses the sky in the last light
and startles you and you don’t see where they settle . . .

 

 

 

In the Dark of Mind

 

SPACE AVAILABLE
After Thursday by John Moore

What is so empty as
a day
after the day that is spent?

An empty room implies as much.
Old light gone.
New light slanting in.

The view is the same—the chairs
askew—vague emptiness
that waits for the new occupant.

The high windows keep the view
to themselves—the city—huge
outside the bird-height windows.

Thursday—another day between
two others—few clues—except for
the well-kept memories of the walls.

 

 

 

The Old P's and Q's

 

ANNA’S SONG
(After Anna Akhmatova)

So what that I write about grief
—grief and melancholy,

when this is what I live with,
those old foes that know me

intimately
—love me even.

How we carouse and commiserate
late into the year,

or night,
feeling sorry for ourselves,

and each other.
How else get through the life

on balance,
on cue, our timing perfect

—perfectly guarded to whatever
assails us

—every ship that sinks
and fills the sea with mourners.

___________________

husbands knew me,

—one, two, three—
none would own me, I was me.

Happiness rests through all its tests.
Signs of love are not for sale.

Damage born, and damage spent.
Too much scorn, and nothing meant.

Hearts are broken. Hearts repaired.
What is spoken, duly snared.

Love was never what it was.
Love was always what it was.

Oh, my sorrow—oh, my curse,
love just goes from bad to worse.

How to measure? Never try.
Love-balloons take to the sky.

Not for me, the marriage role,
one love given, one love stole,

I will not widow once again—
sad of sorrow—tired of men.


After Anna Akhmatova

 

 

 

Looking Back

 

THE USE OF THESE SORROWS

What is the use of these sorrows if not to spend them on
you, my poor dear love—gone crazy at last, your life spent
on tawdry performances?

Oh, I have accompanied you on the best of these. The
length of love is not long enough to tell of it. We broke the
mirrors more than once with our eyes.

Now you stare beyond me and I look away from you. How
sad we are, finally—two derelicts devoid of any true emo-
tion, this we tell each other in our dry voices.

But I have brought you a poem made of the old words we
used to say. See how I have fixed it into a particular elo-
quence of ruined light and the shadow it casts for innuendo.

 

 

 

Coming To Terms

 

ASPECTS OF THE TRIVIAL    

This is how the world consents, with little sleeps
and long awakenings of dreams that conspire—
dreams that conspire—beating at the heart of
death, which is congenial and wary of your
trickeries. It will amuse you with your
anxious bargainings—Crony of God
in strange connivery—all manner
of coincidence that makes you
paranoid and careless. Time is
present as it always is in the
moment of the now, nothing
vital to you—you who
cannot find the endings
to your lost beginnings—
they are all trivial and spent,
valueless, except for torment
and despair that have remained
to wear you down in a slow flounder.
And here is a new moment, come upon
you like a small reprieve. Feel it, watch it
come and go, priceless and measureless,
as any drop of life that is your own.

___________________

when winds of time converge,

and time is spent in some old saw of nothing new,
only the peeve of shadow-memories that collect
in negative confusion, contrary to desire—how

else seek explanation for so many sadnesses—
sink back into memory and lose yourself again,
no need to return—it’s all still there :

the old perfections, dimly memorized—
waste nothing this time, unraveling as slow
as you want, to why and when it changed—

no matter how you pulled the strings
or see it all in retrospect, clear of eye and mind,
and let this not be postscript to your sad reality

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

GHOSTS
—Joyce Odam

…something that lingers
not quite gone
diffusements in memory
hanging on
to the spent realities
like a tune that teases
of a half-remembered song

ghosts stay on
where they are wanted
they belong
to your disturbance
to your relinquishment…
as long
as you want them
ghosts stay on…


(prev. pub. in Aquarian Dream, 1996)

_____________________

Today Joyce Odam speaks to us about our recent Seed of the Week, “Time Misspent”, and she has much to say about it. Thank you, Joyce! Medusa readers shouldn’t forget that there is no deadline on Seeds of the Week; if Joyce’s writing spurs the muse in you, send in SOWs whenever they are finished.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Hot Coffee”. 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

 

 

 

Thursday

—Painting by John Moore

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.