The Color of Now

 

The Test Of The Setting Sun

—Poetry and Visuals by Joyce Odam, 

Sacramento, CA

THE CELL OF FORGIVENESS

I enter the pure white square. It is a room. It has
no patterned walls. Its windows are night
with a fluctuating brightness.

                     ========

I enter the pure white square. It is a repetition—
a confusion of memory—a puzzle of mirrors.
It contains many others like itself.

                     ========

I enter the pure white square—veils hang like
partitions—like curtains—like folds of enticement,
long white sleeves that flutter and cling.

                     ========

I enter the pure white square—the dying eye of the sun
still melting all around—sorrow upon haunted sorrow
locked in the ecstasy of surrendered bliss and pain.

 

 

 

And The Weatherman On Predictions

 

THE CLOCK OF NO TIME

The clock of no time
Roman Numerals in the circle
but no hands

A red rooster on a white arrow
pointing in the direction
the rooster crows

A black cloud
and a white cloud
kissing, then parting

Blue sky, black sky
taking turns, the handless
white clock floating on a shadow

___________________

COBWEB

You’ve hung there for years.
You have become my favorite design,
the way you drape across the corner,
like an awning,
the way your spider has abandoned you.

Too much elegance for this room,
this bedroom of stuffed closet
and insomnia,
this room with its piles of clothes
and a blanket that drags
one corner to the floor.

How often I have watched you
with concentration
at just the right angle  
when I lean my head back
against the wall.

You are like a shadow drawn
as an interesting detail in a painting,
I wonder why no moth has found you.

 

 

 

The Day Will Begin

 

CURIOSITY
(after a child’s drawing)

The red fish fly around the spinning sun
in the painted water :
blue… blue…

truest blue. The sun grows dizzy
and melts at the edges;
the water spins,

until it begins
to froth from the fishes’ mouths.
The red fish swim

—mouth to tail—
to mouth—in a blurry circle,
a red fish whirlpool—

whirl—the red fish are caught—
caught in their red momentum.
They don’t know how to stop.

All is blended—blended now.
Everything freezes
into a churning circle of blue thought.

 

 

 

The Flowers Will Grow

 

COLOR SWARM

It is always a surprise to find
a swarm of colors come alive—
become
butterflies
blendings
and separations—
become beings the old creation.

 

 

 

There Will Be Variations On The Same Day

 

COLORANT

to write in the color of now is to avoid the word
at the edge of confusion—calling attention to
itself because it is there

like the need of something vague
like the passing of this moment

select from the center—is it a swirl or a separa-
tion—there must be the realization of color—
an oh, and a where—to write in the color of now

________________________

THE CONSPIRACY OF ART
After Winifred, Duchess of Portland
—Paintings by John Singer Sargent, 1902,
and Philip de László, 1912 

Winifred is everywhere—image after image—in all
her views—on gallery walls—down the painter’s hall.  
His shadows love her. She is perfect, perfect as love.
Love is baffled by her smile. Her smile is inner.  

Frames would hold her. She refutes this—soft light
open to her guile—time receding as it does. Time
complies with every nuance of her breathing.  Her
gowns drape softly—timeless—ageless—know her
moves. Mirrors possess her, she allows this—beauti-
ful Winifred, Duchess of Portland, ah….

Philip is impermeable to this—constant admirer—  
faithful painter—capturing every essence of her 

mystery and allure. He dies without her—years away.
Fame will keep her as she was—never whilst—and
never when. She is now as she was then.

 

 

 

There Is A Gravity

 

THE CUSTOM OF PLACING STONES
UPON THE GRAVES

At first there was only one stone, and soon after,
another, and gradually the stones grew in number.
Mourners at nearby graves began to notice this
and wonder at the power of someone who de-
served so many stones—marveled that it must be
for somebody very famous or revered and they—
in token—began to place their stones with the
others, as if they too knew to whom they felt a
memory, and this, in turn, caused others to bring
the stones of their memory until a celebrated
shrine was there—stones and stones later—after
the first stones of the long-ago stone-bringer. 

 

 

 

The Species Remain

COUNTRY ROADS

These ruts, mud-driven, hard as crust in summer,
filled with dust that scatters up, then settles back.

The road goes on until it reaches somewhere
known—like home, or keeps on going—

a road that follows a-sort-of crow-path-way
between far places that connect.

It’s just such roads as this that I am lonely for,
rocky, uneven roads, through died-out trees,

where shadows sleep with sunlight undisturbed,
with long-brimmed silences between cars.

Oh, what to call this place—this nowhere place.
I’ve never been there, but I miss it so.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

CONTENTS
—Joyce Odam

A cameo brooch in its snap-tight velvet box;
a string of yellowing pearls; a folded chiffon
purple scarf; an envelope with hair inside; and
a still-fragrant, old sachet, of faintest lavender.

___________________

Joyce Odam’s poems are full of sun-colors today (our Seed of the Week was “Too Close to the Sun”), but unfulfilled wishes, too: the clock of no time (!), the country road she’s never seen but misses anyway, the artist’s model he dreams of…  Joyce reminds us that  “to write in the color of now is to avoid the word at the edge of confusion…”.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Choppy Waters”. 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 see every Form Fiddlers’ Friday for poetry form challenges, including those of the Ekphrastic type.

This coming Saturday, Gillian Wegener will facilitate a 2-hour workshop in Modesto from 1-3pm. Check it out at our UPCOMING link at the top of this column.

In the flurry of photos on yesterday/s post, I switched attributions for two of them: the wrestler is public domain, and the lovely garden photo is by Scott and Jill Kalter. It would be a shame to mis-label such a beautiful photo! (It's fixed now.)

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Winfred, Duchess of Portland

—Portrait by Philip de László, 1912 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



For upcoming poetry events in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

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.