What Can You Know

 

Holding Time Like That

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,

Sacramento, CA

SONG THREE

What can you know
of music and wind
and the vital sea.
I am all three.

Come to my places
and suffer where
the loneliest sound
you have ever heard
keeps filling the air.

When I am wild
you will be frightened
but will not go.
Then you will know.

              
(prev. pub. in Oregonian Verse, 1969 and
Blues 1991, Piper’s House/Sandcastle Collection)

 

 

 

In Dream Trance

 

DREAM-TRANCE

we float in water
     in dreams
           buoyant as air-fish

embryonic
     sleepers
          empty of decisions

we hang in darkness
     suspend in
          humming energies

we float in
     dream-trance
          we wrap in auras

 

 

 

 In Auras

 

SABBATH

Today I spent with you, God,
on your quiet Sunday.

I slept in
and woke refreshed.

I did not go to church.
It rained.

___________________

BLUE SONG COLLAGE
After Man in Blue by Francis Bacon

When he sings, he sings blue,
sings to the black piano,

sings to the hushed audience
of his memory.

Soft smoky light swirls through him
and away—

diffuses into
the surrounding darkness.

Beyond the aura of his tragic face
the stale dark listens—

leaning forward with admiration
he braces for the applause.

                                
(prev. pub. in Red Owl, 2006)

 

 

 

 One Small Note

 

Dear little songbird,

this morning you
gave me one small note
to capture my attention

I stopped
and the day stopped
and I listened—

imagine
holding time like that
in a tiny burst of singing


(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 9-9-2014)

 

 

 

 Of Your Song

 

WINDOW, OPEN TO SONG

Oh, little bird,
outside my open window,

I hear your burst of song
and love you—

I hold my breath
to experience your jubilation—

you have opened my heart
and you didn’t even know it.

_____________________

THE DANCE CLOTH

You had just found the fabric—
the airy cloth for your dance :

you described how it would rise in the air
and stay—it was that light—

how it would flutter down,
and rise again, in the hands that held it—

how the hands would sway it up and down
in the sea-waves it would be.

Later I saw the dance,
and yes,

the cloth was that light,
and it held in the air like you said.

 

 

 

For Blue Silence

 

VIOLENT GESTURES

I would bring stones through your hands
to praise arrows.

I would send long avalanches down your arms
and turn them into blue prayers.

You would be silent for this.
You would lower your arms.


(prev. pub. in Poet News, 1989 and
Song for a New Beginning chapbook, 1993
by Red Cedar Press of Colorado)

______________________

THE SAD WINDOW

Turning to my small window, I see the view :
a boring wall for me—a scrap of sky for you.
From what bleak difference now do we stare—
 
I, at shadow creeping over brick—
you at night that comes down thick.
What do we care, Love, what do we care?

Wall is for safety—sky is for roam;
you at your distance—I at home
with brick and shadow.  I don’t cry.

In this division, why compare :
you in your nowhere—everywhere—
only one of us now, tending this goodbye.

 

 

 

 And I Listened

 

DIG AND DELVE

Thus, I seek—and seeking takes me
in all directions,

I burrow
              inward
                          and find,

in all this difference,
what was lost there is my groping.

 

 

 

Sound and Texture

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

THE ANATOMY OF SONG
—Joyce Odam

The song is in the throat,
pulsations ~~~ see it warble ~~~

sound and texture.
The artist captures this.

___________________

Joyce Odam has sent us wind and music today in response to our Seed of the Week, Windsong. Joyce’s co-editor (daughter Robin Gale Odam) reminds us that Joyce’s birthday is next Sunday, Aug 7—fabulous 98!!! Happy birthday in advance, Joyce, and many thanks for these poems and photos and for your many years of hanging around with Medusa and with Rattlesnake Press!

Our new Seed of the Week is “Before Sunrise”. 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.

On Mon. (8/8), 6pm, Arts and Culture El Dorado is proud to host Poet Laureate Lara Gularte for another of The Firehouse Sessions—a series of workshops and poetry readings centered on ekphrasis, the practice of describing visual art in a literary mode. The next one will work with the painting, Dark Mountain, Deep Valley. Please email Lara at laralg@aol.com if you wish to attend the next Firehouse Session. They only have room for approximately two more participants, so don’t hesitate! See also artsandcultureeldorado.org/the-firehouse-sessions or email jordan@artsandcultureeldorado.org/. (If you have already signed up, you don’t need to respond to this announcement. )

For more about Francis Bacon and his Man in Blue, go to francis-bacon.com/.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Happy Birthday, Joyce!
May it all be just a
day at the beach!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!