The Night is Moot
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
TRUTH POEM
There’s a monster in the
bedroom!
No, David. There are no
monsters.
David all golden
and beautiful and three
stands and looks at me
with patience and truth
after pulling his wagon of toys
from the feared room
and as sure as a man
and as if I did not understand
explains :
There’s a
Monster in the bedroom.
There’s a monster in the
bedroom!
No, David. There are no
monsters.
David all golden
and beautiful and three
stands and looks at me
with patience and truth
after pulling his wagon of toys
from the feared room
and as sure as a man
and as if I did not understand
explains :
There’s a
Monster in the bedroom.
For a Poem
THE BETTER PART OF LOVE
Muse with me while we gather light
for a poem, we will read it later,
tell each other what it means,
then reminisce—
compare amazements :
how much our lives are parallel—
how many years—while we
confess, or commiserate,
let down the burden of our cares,
hold each other’s dark,
find new, old-words
to fill our silences with explication—
then laugh or cry,
whichever is needed, old love,
old friend—
as close and separate as we are.
I muse these thoughts for you from this old,
well-worn, and reliable, loving heart.
Audible Silence
THE DREAM WAITS IN THE MIND
The dream waits in the mind, like an offering.
Or a premonition.
More like a desire,
fulfilled only in words.
Words are enough to say what you mean.
But they escape you.
Off on their own—words you love—
have never heard of.
Nonce words that grope through the maze
of language for what you say.
It is truth.
You have spoken the truth. Weep for it.
____________________
THE DARKER SELF
I am a wall with no pictures. Mirrors
enter me and weep for their lost identities.
All my edges are worn thin as water.
I slip through into depths of drowning.
I paint screams upon my silence,
utter myself from all directions.
Great rooms of complexity
surround me,
Nothing hears.
Day by day more of me disappears.
I am the cruel center of myself.
I forgive no one—
beggars come by with golden fingers
and stroke my arm.
The dream waits in the mind, like an offering.
Or a premonition.
More like a desire,
fulfilled only in words.
Words are enough to say what you mean.
But they escape you.
Off on their own—words you love—
have never heard of.
Nonce words that grope through the maze
of language for what you say.
It is truth.
You have spoken the truth. Weep for it.
____________________
THE DARKER SELF
I am a wall with no pictures. Mirrors
enter me and weep for their lost identities.
All my edges are worn thin as water.
I slip through into depths of drowning.
I paint screams upon my silence,
utter myself from all directions.
Great rooms of complexity
surround me,
Nothing hears.
Day by day more of me disappears.
I am the cruel center of myself.
I forgive no one—
beggars come by with golden fingers
and stroke my arm.
A Premonition
THE DREAMING GIRL
After Sasho’s Journey, 1990 by Wonsook Kim Linton
Where does the brown bear lead? They are
in a cave. The walls of the cave are missing.
Night is showing through
with its sky and hidden moon—
its green rain and the lost distance.
She carries a handful of red flowers . . .
~
They are on an ice floe in a desert night.
The land is shrinking around them.
The bear is pulling her through the melting.
The ice is the color of sand.
The sea is a deepening mirror.
A white bird rides on her shoulder . . .
~
They are in a crude tapestry. Part of it
is missing. The ravels slowly work
around them—mending the fraying world.
Still, they seem resolute
in their calmness—the bear and the girl
going somewhere dreamily together . . .
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1929)
After Sasho’s Journey, 1990 by Wonsook Kim Linton
Where does the brown bear lead? They are
in a cave. The walls of the cave are missing.
Night is showing through
with its sky and hidden moon—
its green rain and the lost distance.
She carries a handful of red flowers . . .
~
They are on an ice floe in a desert night.
The land is shrinking around them.
The bear is pulling her through the melting.
The ice is the color of sand.
The sea is a deepening mirror.
A white bird rides on her shoulder . . .
~
They are in a crude tapestry. Part of it
is missing. The ravels slowly work
around them—mending the fraying world.
Still, they seem resolute
in their calmness—the bear and the girl
going somewhere dreamily together . . .
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1929)
Transition
PATHWAY
The Architect
of madness and confusion
fathers the embittered mind,
still following some well-worn
trail as stale as the crumbs
it left behind . . .
The Architect
of madness and confusion
fathers the embittered mind,
still following some well-worn
trail as stale as the crumbs
it left behind . . .
In the Calmness
PICTURE A GRAY GIRL SITTING QUIETLY
Well, all is neat now in the tidied room, fringe
of a shawl hangs down in silky perfectness, she
is sitting upon it so carefully so as not to muss
it; she is reading a magazine with her eyes. She
is dressed in dark—she has not smiled today.
She does not know what to do with herself. An
old-fashioned radio on a small end table does not
seem to be playing. Everything is orderly. She is
pretending to be comfortable. It is 1937. Small
edges are squeezing in. She draws her feet up.
Her hand is resting on the edge of a page. Her eyes
are not noticing the subtle changing of her time-
lessness. She is in profile to all that is altering the
room. Her mood is untouched by this. She has
created it.
______________________
THE SUNDAY ROOM
I go to the Sunday room where
ruin has scattered itself
all over the broken sunlight patterns
on the rug which is worn thin
with footprints and faded colors.
A whole lifetime rehearses
its sorrow which is yet to be;
the walls are consoling
the space they enclose and hymns
are coming from the radio.
Voices have left the dream and
cannot be remembered. The window
releases its sunlight every morning
when I raise the old dark window shade
and turn to face the day.
How come the memory keeps changing,
like a life that has been rewritten?
Some voice from a shadow scolds,
and I weep. A doorway threatens
to let me leave. I no longer belong here.
Well, all is neat now in the tidied room, fringe
of a shawl hangs down in silky perfectness, she
is sitting upon it so carefully so as not to muss
it; she is reading a magazine with her eyes. She
is dressed in dark—she has not smiled today.
She does not know what to do with herself. An
old-fashioned radio on a small end table does not
seem to be playing. Everything is orderly. She is
pretending to be comfortable. It is 1937. Small
edges are squeezing in. She draws her feet up.
Her hand is resting on the edge of a page. Her eyes
are not noticing the subtle changing of her time-
lessness. She is in profile to all that is altering the
room. Her mood is untouched by this. She has
created it.
______________________
THE SUNDAY ROOM
I go to the Sunday room where
ruin has scattered itself
all over the broken sunlight patterns
on the rug which is worn thin
with footprints and faded colors.
A whole lifetime rehearses
its sorrow which is yet to be;
the walls are consoling
the space they enclose and hymns
are coming from the radio.
Voices have left the dream and
cannot be remembered. The window
releases its sunlight every morning
when I raise the old dark window shade
and turn to face the day.
How come the memory keeps changing,
like a life that has been rewritten?
Some voice from a shadow scolds,
and I weep. A doorway threatens
to let me leave. I no longer belong here.
Night is Showing Through
THE EBB OF TIME
After Oleg Trofimov, On the Beach
here is where we get to know :
we stop because the sea is there
all calm and blue and furnished with
two canvas chairs and a beach umbrella
frayed by the winds at water’s edge—our
shadows lengthen into the ebb of time that
glitches for a moment and lets belief sink in
and we imagine a boat, and wonder : it’s so far
to the horizon—we might lose our bearings—
the sea keeps washing up to the abandoned chairs
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
After Oleg Trofimov, On the Beach
here is where we get to know :
we stop because the sea is there
all calm and blue and furnished with
two canvas chairs and a beach umbrella
frayed by the winds at water’s edge—our
shadows lengthen into the ebb of time that
glitches for a moment and lets belief sink in
and we imagine a boat, and wonder : it’s so far
to the horizon—we might lose our bearings—
the sea keeps washing up to the abandoned chairs
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
HIS INSPIRATION
—Joyce Odam
He plays the blues
for her. She is the blues he plays.
He plays the blues.
She dances in her dancing shoes
in her old dress that frays and frays.
And while she waits to hear his praise,
he plays the blues.
_____________________
Frayed, fringy, frazzled—“Frazzled” is our recent Seed of the Week, and in modern parlance, it means stressed, nervous, crazy. It’s a matter of poet’s choice: either nervous in the modern sense, or else having the fringe on your shawl fall apart. Joyce has sent us a fine passel of poems and photos—frazzled for the season, in whatever sense it means unraveling.
To see Oleg Trofimov’s On the Beach, go to www.pinterest.fr/pin/640988959435857152 and shawgallery.com/artist/oleg-trofimov/.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Darkest Days”—either Solstice-dark, or dark days of our lives, or... 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.
And may we stay unfrazzled—cool as cucumbers as we hurdle the cold and crazy season!
_______________________
—Medusa
Diamond Springs had about an inch of snow overnight—
first snow in two years!
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.
