Dreamscapes For Sleepers

 

 Resolve

—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Original Artwork by Joyce Odam

 

 

HURRYING THROUGH THE RAIN IN
HIGH HEELS ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING
—Joyce Odam

It was Christmas morning.
I wore high heels,
walking fast
over the wet sidewalks
between our houses.

It was raining.
I wanted to get there
but the day was slow-motioned,
the distance between us
lengthening.
I was wet through.
My shoes were ruined.

Soon I was old,
walking down a long street
in the rain.

I passed Christmas windows
full of yesterdays.
You were in each of them
opening the small present
I was bringing.

 

 

 

 Even The Dreams

 

                 
MOLECULAR
—Joyce Odam

I am the dreamer you dreamed  
for a daughter.

I am yet unnamed and unaffected
by any horoscope.

I am at the point of my existence
and I have no memory of it.

I am a confusion of molecules
and inner desires.

I am in a tunnel
swift time flowing at each opening.

I am daydreaming this.
My eyes are too sad for tears.

I think time has slipped past me,
taking your dream with it.

My parents have died and left me
less than an orphan.

The tunnel fills with music and
water, and I swim—I swim into the music

and begin
to remember, to remember who I am.

                                           
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/10/17) 

 

 

 

Ethos

 

MIND TUNNEL
—Joyce Odam

Back through reams of memory—or time—that
abstract, back through all that was, to never was

—that far. How can you resist such burrowing
through the labyrinthine mind: whatever it wants

is never there, only some handprint on the spiral air,
only its closing eye, taking in the light: you are in

the corridor, but weightless—bodiless as a shadow
—only a thought now, sent by a question mark.

What are you seeking here where you have never
been, for it has changed after you, and everything

ahead waits to change behind you.

 

 

 

Echo

IF I COULD WRITE A POEM,
I WOULD WRITE ABOUT DIRT
—Robin Gale Odam

. . . passion, solace, tribulation, wonder, stones,
and dirt—adamah, holy dirt—oh God, you gave me
form you gave me breath you gave me Eden you
gave me law you gave me will you gave me a path
you gave me your heart you gave me a cloak you
gave me a saber you gave me burden—I would
write about dirt . . . 

 

 

 

On The Waters

 

ROCK FORMATION
—Joyce Odam

After The Cliffs at Étretat by Claude Monet, 1885

Somewhere I have written words to go with this :
the hole in the rock—jagged and huge,
and through it—the boat ghosting by—

and another such rock beyond—
and another—
jutting out into the calm sea.

But why calm?
A dream-scape for a sleeper
caught in levels of benign imagination?

But, no.  The dream and the sea—
the gaping tunnel in the rock—
as well as the drifting boat—all the dreamer

—all painted to bring everything to a stop :
the boat never reaches beyond the passage—
the sea stays at ebb—the dream dreams.

Only the rock-shadows quiver with surface light,
almost breathing—revealing detail;
almost making a sound—like dream music.

Somewhere I have written words, left with the sea,
lost in the seventh wave, answering everything,
even this later quarrel with recognition.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/2/15; 1/9/24)

 

 

 

A Beautiful Day

 

 
IF TIME WOULD HOLD ME
—Robin Gale Odam

After "Isaiah Beethoven" by Edgar Lee Masters,
from Spoon River Anthology

The river seemed to stop—the surface  
shone in quiet reflection—the deep was
sinuous and living.

At the place for the shaping of dust
where breath is held within the heartbeat,

as long as needed and until the wind stirs,
and the dust swirls and the waters blend,
and light is shown and regarded,

the musical score is arranged and given
as in a dream pouring out in a song—

the whole note, and the long rest,
and the night. 

 

 

 

Winter Blue

ON HER DEATHBED: SHE SPEAKS TO US
FROM HER ELOQUENT SILENCE
—Joyce Odam

After Christmas Morning by Andrew Wyeth

I woke to the trembling of gray light, which seemed 

to not quite hold together.  It broke open here and 

there, as if I blinked my eyes to make it real.  I 

was lying on a transported bed that was part of an

old landscape.  I was anticipatory and alone, 

though shapes and voices of others seemed to re-

cede, just out of sound and vision.  I felt myself 

evolve, if that is the word.  I knew how the light 

would hold me if it did not entirely disintegrate in 

the disturbing howl that was beginning to change

the structure of something like memory, though 

that was becoming vague.  I kept my eyes on the 

molecules of dreamed heaven, though that was 

within me now, for my eyes were closed.  I felt

the gray light bristle with transformation.  I was in 

two worlds of myself, weightless and structureless, 

as if light poured through me and found the source 

of my being.  I did not cry out, for that was not 

needed of me.  I did not think back to anyone, for 

they were not there.  Where I was was where I had 

ever been, but I did not know it.  I felt the entire 

blending and flowing of thought in its realization.  

I leaned on my elbow and tried to speak, but lang-

uage was not what I remembered.  My body was 

one with the sensation of nothingness.  I felt grief 

pour through me, but it was no longer my own; I 

had no need of it.  I could give it no sympathy, but 

could let it go back to the heaviness I had just sur-

rendered for this exquisite and effortless beginning.

 

 

 

Design

 

MORTAL
—Robin Gale Odam

After To the Forest by Edvard Munch, 1887

I hold gently to death. He leads me
towards the tree shadows near the unfolding.
I wear my best transparency. He bears my name.
                                             

(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2016; and Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/20/23)

 

 

 

Fathom

 

THE REUNITING SELF
—Joyce Odam

I have slept where there are no dreams, and I have crept
down formless hallways of night toward a beckoning
door where I, myself, was standing,

and I have taken so long to do this—all night, through
the dark—all night, through the sleep, which never
protected me, which only opened its tunnel,

and I always thought I could get through, for I was
standing at the other end, small as a glimmer of
escape from such an old country as I come from,

Sleep Country, where I imagine I am real.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/17/19) 

 

 

 

Ambrosia

 

TWILIGHT NOCTURNE
—Joyce Odam
                         
In the mauve grove where twilight falls
soft and fragile, where poems

are born in the souls of birds;
where old trees listen to the songs

of shadows; where everything
comes to rest and be safe—even

the terrors—even the dreams
in the minds of the oldest of children—

even the blamed and wounded loves
who have no reunion. There let us

be—in the minds of all that sylvan
bliss, and speak nothing but prayers.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/29/17)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ALL THE CARDS
—Robin Gale Odam

After Daniel 7:25

someone had dealt them
the seasons had turned them
they had shuffled in the winds

someone had summoned    cautioned
vowed     someone had lingered for a time
and times    there in the deep    holding
all the cards


Daniel 7:25:
“And he shall speak great words against the Most 

High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most 

High, and think that he can change times and 

laws: and they shall be given into his hand until 

a time and times and half a time.”

___________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam for today’s fine poetry on our Seed of the Week, “Light / tunnel / and all that…” during this season of light.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Out of Control”. What is?—the weather? the government? that visiting toddler? Or just my holiday eating…? 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.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Christmas Morning
—Painting by Andrew Wyeth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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