Secrets of the Self

 

Only Fantasy

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,

Sacramento, CA

THE WOE-BIRD
After Man and Bird

by Henry Miller, 1963

The woe-bird sits on my shoulder at the mirror
to tell me its secrets, and I know I am privileged

to be of such trust. I love the bird for its candor and
feel it clutch deeper into my sleeve and become even

more earnest as it grows and grows, becoming heavy
with the burden of its secrets. I move to brush its feathers,

but the woe-bird shudders back as if to deny my
gesture. It tells me more . . . it tells me more . . .

until I know everything . . . makes me promise
not to tell a soul and fastens its claws even deeper,

shifting under its weight. I swear I will not tell and
put my hand to my aching shoulder and feel its claws

tighten there. The woe-bird gives me a mute, deep,
look and goes back to itself. And now I cannot

get rid of it. It stares back at me with an unresponsive
silence and preens and preens its feathers in the mirror.

_____________________

THE DANGER

The trees tell lies.
They are scribbling
terrible green secrets
before my eyes.

They are beckoning
and sending away
the green-songed birds;
they are frightening the skies—

they are making such a
violent agitation within
the carefully-held breath
of the still air—

what do they mean!
what do they mean!
what do they know of green
that I can’t remember?

                   
(prev. pub. in Driftwood, 1969)

 

 

 

Now is Myth

 

 

THE EMPTY CORRIDOR
After Les derniers secrets by Claude Lazar

How the light follows the line of the hallway in a 

long perspective; how it widens past the three open 

doors, each room with no occupant; how time is 

not the meaning here, or the consideration.

It is the green tone of silence, the meticulous gold 

shine on the floor and walls, the darkness that 

blends. It is the curiosity. If the three doors close, 

where will the light go?

The photograph on the left wall is the only clue, but 

it is hidden, seen only at an angle. The open rooms 

swallow the pale defining light from the hall. The 

immaculate floor swallows the dust. The ceilings 

press and expand, as if breathing.

The photograph tries to remember—tries to re-

gather : this is a new place, and it is of the old. 

What does it know of now? Now is myth.

The dim hallway is content with its soft ambience. 

The green tone of silence deepens as it turns the 

hour from one tenor to another.

___________________

THE LINGERING WOMEN

These women, of such secrets, lounge in luminous

white chairs in the twilight and speak softly among 

themselves and gesture with quickened lyrical mo-

tions of their hands.

Their features grow dim and their voices continue 

under the slanting and changing of the hours. Their 

houses are waiting but their houses are only the 

shells of their lives.

The women shine softer as random flickerings find 

them laughing and talking in the shivery dusk. How 

long they will stay depends on how much more 

they have to say.

 

 

 

 As If Breathing

IN HIDING

You swore you would stay mysterious,
let the rooms hide you, train the windows
not to see when you looked out of them.

You would retreat into one of the shadows.
You would not answer the disguised voice
with the edge in it.

You would use light for deflection;
silence for absorption,
you would drift out of yourself.

You would adapt to everything,
shed and layer yourself with each evasion.
Your scream would stay in your throat.

Your breath would become shallow
with listening. You would perfect your
surface, practice normalcy for its disguise.

Who would know you like this,
who would want to find you, even now,
for all your antiquated secrets.

 

 

 

 What This Poem Is About

 

 

 

ECHOING PARIS
(with apologies to Robert K. Johnson)

A man walking by a man shutting a door,
the man thinks of Paris…for this poem…

The man shutting the door does not
know the first man is a poet,
that he will gather this.

The two men’s eyes meet,
or they don’t.

The man shuts the door just as they
pass each other. The first man will
never know what the courtyard holds.
But that is not what this poem is about.

After “Ah Paris: A Lesson about Secrets”


by Robert K Johnson

__________________

MY MOTHER OF SECRETS

Danger followed us, I am sure.
Why else would I fear all secrets,
all telling, all revision of facts :

the where, the who, the when,
the what of questions?

Why else would I trust the
peripheral, the off-key,
the slant of words—
trust instinct over anything?

 

 

 

 The Dark Afraid of the Light

 

THE VINES

I could say of these vines that they are tangled,
cannot be solved, that one should not enter them;
they are fastened to the earth in knots, choking
their own spaces. They are complicated—like
puzzles—looking for straightness and upward-
ness, or how to avoid those directions.

And they are strong, growing thick with their
struggle—as muscular as cats. They possess the
place they are at with the tenacity of secrets, or
changeability. You cannot step through them, un-
less you be as small as insects are, or moisture
made of gray drizzle, or are as bodiless as breezes.

And vines are very slow and dark; they are forever
changing their mind, or trying out new decisions—
such are the thoughts of vines, coiling as slow as
centuries, curving all over themselves in a sort of
sensuality—like a slow writhe of serpents in some
rare goldness—not knowing which of them is the
one they are.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/29/17)

 

 

 

Incident of Reason

 

MOON-TRANCE

Whatever is dark here is dark for itself.
The freed form merges and will sleep.

The dream
will be released—ensweep

the mind
and send its secrets deep.

The moon of power
will retreat—

allowing the mind distortion
of what surrounding dream-clouds keep.

 

 

 

Shaping the Moon

 

 

 

Drawing the moon to me,

for its strength,
drawing the night around me,
for a cape with pockets of stars.

I have heard that the moon is lonely.
Lovers have told me this.
The moon has not so conspired.

It is not for loneliness that I am devoid
of light and texture—of light and
dark meanings—secrets of the self.

The moon in my hands
has closed its eyes and become two.
I hold it from breaking.

The sky waits for me
to let it go—
to let it just drift back into place.

The wall behind me is window now.
My hands are still shaping the moon.
It is still asleep. The sky pulls.

I can feel my hands letting go.
The globe I use for a model is perfectly round
and balanced in this room of world and ambition.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

YOUR PRESENCE
—Joyce Odam

You are the one in room after shining room; every-
where, objects you touch; I want you to know how
delicate the things of this place, blessed with the
dust of waiting, quiet as stones in their patience.
The hours wait for your sanction. The air turns the
colors of your movement. The way you turn to lis-
ten to the walls as a reminder of your secrets.


(prev. pub. in Lilliput, 2002)

_________________________

Tuesday again, and that brings us Joyce Odam and the rarified air of her poetry and photos! Our thanks to her for those, and for today’s whisper-talk of Secrets, our recent Seed of the Week. Watch our Form Fiddlers' Friday for more poetry from Joyce.

 

Our new Seed of the Week is “Impossible” (although nothing is impossible for YOU!). 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.

 

Correction: Yesterday I posted that this weekend's Poetry of the Sierra Foothills reading would be Saturday, but that's incorrect. It will be this Sunday, Aug. 28, in their new venue in Camino. Check it out on the UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS link at the top of this column.

For more about painter Claude Lazar, go to www.claudelazar.com/.

_________________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Man and Bird 
—Henry Miller, 1963

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry happenings 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.

 

 

 Shaping the Moon