A Life Symbolic
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
SHADOWS THAT GROW TOO LOUD
Though you repeated what you said, I made
no sense of it. I heard only your voice, the
tone of it, going on and on in some reverie
or question; the way it did not matter if I
listened. You left me finally. Or I left you.
The silence hung thickly in an after-echo.
I wonder what life means to you now?
Surely you tell of your love affair with
rain, with haunted light, with your deploring.
And now I answer you from a glassy room
of words that break like figurines; like shadows
that grow too loud; like flailing moths in mirrors.
Though you repeated what you said, I made
no sense of it. I heard only your voice, the
tone of it, going on and on in some reverie
or question; the way it did not matter if I
listened. You left me finally. Or I left you.
The silence hung thickly in an after-echo.
I wonder what life means to you now?
Surely you tell of your love affair with
rain, with haunted light, with your deploring.
And now I answer you from a glassy room
of words that break like figurines; like shadows
that grow too loud; like flailing moths in mirrors.
Revenance
AND A TAMBOURINE
two voices haunting against each other
sing all night,
one voice follows the other,
line by echoed line,
their white guitars
shine between them
in the bright moonlight,
their shirt sleeves gleam,
they don’t quite harmonize—
then—
they pluck the strings
in an elaborate duet—
we leave them,
finally—late, late,
many anguishes
late—they may be there yet
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2014)
Thinking Back
I saw in his eyes
what I never remembered—
a haunting that I
never knew
for I was one with myself
and both were lonely
—this is not a revelation
this is a poem about love
that falters where it loves—
all this I saw in his eyes
what I never remembered—
a haunting that I
never knew
for I was one with myself
and both were lonely
—this is not a revelation
this is a poem about love
that falters where it loves—
all this I saw in his eyes
The Breath of Night Air
THE FOG-SWIRL
Everything disappears as in a gray dream.
We become particles of light broken by
dark, a jealousy of forces, and though
we are whole within it, we become
part of a texture that is both
form and formlessness.
Sounds get lost within sounds.
We grope and cannot feel. There
is no color, no time, no sense of desti-
nation. We move as though suspended,
as though on a distant moor—as though
transported to a place of old tales told
by survivors, but only their voices.
We cannot see them.
After centuries of effort we find our way
by second-sense and perseverance—the
fog-swirl lifted and dispersed. We are
on the other side, and through the
thinning mist, haunting voices
wail behind us—begging our return.
___________________
FOREST BIRD
Soft chirping on dark morning, barely listened,
only once, oh, sweet loss, barely owned by ear
and heart—and where is the lonely center,
entered and left, intrusive with exquisite
recognition, and why only once?
Was it a dreaming? Is it extinct, gift of nostalgia,
all else that is gone, gone like all else, a treasured
moment? I probe silence, hurt with haunting.
Once more the bird speaks, sweet return—safe
in the late summer tree—a dark green voice—
calling to itself, since there is no other.
Can it know where it reaches
only to me, beyond its need—
it speaks and speaks through the under-
listening of other sounds. I isolate this one,
find the unknown language of its singing.
Night Opens
UNDER THE PIER
Cool here.
Musty smelling.
Irregular sloshing sounds.
Shadows move against each other.
Sounds swill, and muffle, and recede.
Flashings of color glint and then disappear.
There is an eerie oneness that owns this place.
The dark pilings seem to move, yet do not move.
The air narrows, confuses, gets locked under
the pier. The slow, gray churning seems
to make ready for the sea, which
bides—until it swells and
reaches—backs off,
and all begins
again.
(prev. pub. in Senior Magazine, 2009,
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)
The Simplest of Meanings
SIMPLE HAUNTINGS
Could it be the art of this silence
this oblique discovery
off-guard
this ravel of light in a thin doorway
this sound in the shadows on a violet evening?
Could it be some errant ghost of sorrows
lingering—reminiscing—reluctant to go,
the last entreaty of some dead love
lifting its hand and turning toward another
who is lifting a hand and turning—
wing-soft with yearning?
But is this only a simple haunting
gone astray on a rainy evening
causing its unrest
and altering everything by its old refusals
altering the simplest of meanings?
You do not wish to intrude.
You bid them go, fragrant with weeping,
the soft rain penetrating all disguises,
and shadow by shadow
they fold their simple wings
and walk into the emptiness of each other.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen)
A Glass of Wine
A THEME OF RED
After Four Darks in Red by Mark Rothko
A figure of a man
dragging red behind him all his life :
His blood? His love?
All his rage and effort?
.
Now he stands
at a blank frame of ending;
everything behind him
is a hum of memory.
.
He does not turn to look.
He puts his hand against a wall
that was always there,
waiting for his handprint.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2017)
After Four Darks in Red by Mark Rothko
A figure of a man
dragging red behind him all his life :
His blood? His love?
All his rage and effort?
.
Now he stands
at a blank frame of ending;
everything behind him
is a hum of memory.
.
He does not turn to look.
He puts his hand against a wall
that was always there,
waiting for his handprint.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2017)
Ghost of Shadows
THAT SOUND
Last night, the rain.
The weatherman
was right,
and
wrong.
I said tomorrow,
you said Thursday
it would rain—perhaps
both right.
Particularity becomes
a place to start.
And end.
Let’s quarrel this through,
rain as subject—
that sound—
day that ends without its plan.
Tomorrow we will do
what this day did not manage,
unless it rains.
Look out the window,
verify, wetness all around,
everything shining—
the air—the trees,
the unfinished flight of crows.
How black they are, hidden.
How black
your eyes
with haunting—
let it go—
it rains.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
FIRE DREAM
—Joyce Odam
Do you thirst,
said the spectre—swimming before me—
my dream stretched out like a blanket afire,
the sky foreboding at the edge of the question.
I tried to answer, but the cup I held
kept spilling, and I could only watch the pouring.
_____________________
Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her haunting poems and photos about our recent Seed of the Week: Haunted. Our new Seed of the Week is (stolen from Joyce) “Last Night, the Rain”. 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
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of
Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
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.
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
