The Fraying Hours

 Night Opens 

* * *

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

 

 

MY MOTHER’S GARNETS
—Joyce Odam

My mother’s garnets adorn somebody’s neck
now, perhaps unknowing of their theft,

(coming home
to front door open—drawer pulled out
and dumped on the floor…)

I think she stole them herself once when she was
a hotel maid, I seem to remember such a story,

(perhaps not—she just came in one
breathless time—something stuffed
between the towels…)

Perhaps some woman wears them now on proud
occasions when unaccustomed elegance is desired,

(I always wanted them—I loved their
soft archaic word—their quaint
design—their quiet color…)

Whoever wears them now must wear my own
forgiveness of covet, and lose my right
to relinquishment.

(She gave them to me before she died—
I loved them with guilt and such sad
tenderness. I never deserved them.)


(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1998/99)

 

 

 

Before Tomorrow

 

at the mansion gate
in the scribing of my death
I will turn and weep

riven by the ghost of shade
light cascading to my feet

    —Robin Gale Odam


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/4/24)

 

 

 

Sanctity

 

  

“I’ll just let the angels take me.”
(...for my mother, who said this…)
—Joyce Odam

Mother, the angels are here.
Shall I let them in?

Mother, they say your name
and they watch you sleeping.

Mother, shall we let go together—
though I am miles and miles away?

Mother, the angels are singing
and you are smiling.

Mother, I see them take you
in their many arms.

Shall I let go my holding?

                       
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011;
11/20/12; 7/22/14) 

 

 

 

Dream Dreaming Back

 

MISSING PERSON   
(Sacramento, circa 1972)
-- Joyce Odam

where is that old lady
with the

heavy shopping bags
scraping the sidewalk

up and down the curbs
all over town

i meant
to speak to her

i used to see her
everywhere

in my neighborhood
downtown

in all the
shopping centers

not looking in
store windows

walking fast
for someone so old

her arms pulled
long as an ape’s

wearing that long dark dress
and the coat in summer

and the hat that hid
her face

 
(prev. pub. in Poem, Huntsville Literary Association,
1972; and Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/22/15)

 

 

 

As Late As Time

 

In the certain vanity of oblique time,

sent forth to claim you from your
errant mind on its false journeys—
back and forth from real

to conjured acts of your reality—
how do you count the fraying hours
that are night—

or wasted ones
of days that pull you forward
into repetitious, common grays?

Monotonies. Oh, you are right
to not stay in the pull of moments
that persuade you deeper into

their design—which is to take you
deeper into that abyss
of disappearance.

Picture them as servants of despair
whose only work is that
of guiding you

into the dreaded emptiness you know
is there. They were as you :
timeless, ageless,

immortal to the core.
Now look at them—transparent
and bereaved—with but one mission more.
            
 
—Joyce Odam
                                           

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/16/18; 3/31/20)

 

 

 

Idiom

 

  

exhale at the looking glass
resolution of gravity

            —Robin Gale Odam


(prev. pub. in Brevities, November 2019;
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/23/24)

 

 

 

Strange Night

 

 

 PAUL
—Joyce Odam

You lay on the couch.
Asleep.
I drew you.

I traveled each line,
filled in each contour,
and you never knew.

I will be
an artist, I said
to my beginning self.

Your name was Paul.
Once you
watched me sleep.

I awoke and found you
looking at me.
Strange that I remember

your name—
that much of you.
You were helpless,

asleep.
I drew you:
asleep, helpless, vulnerable;

I stole you,
never gave you back,
never kept the drawing—

no proof
for the poem
I would later write.

 

 

 

About Love

 

 

THIS POEM ABOUT LOSS
—Joyce Odam

Now I feel distance settle between us.
I have won the drift.  Birds enumerate,

their dark gold eyes struck by light.
Wires hold their shadows and extensions

of shadows that loom into evening.
The day’s length is over and night begins.

We have taken another path from each other.
The word I am after

still eludes me.
I cannot put it in this poem about loss.

Perhaps you are saying it to yourself.
Somehow we still receive light

from a flurry of birds
that take to the gray air from the high trees

and thrum over the house to dot the field
with their complexities—

enough diversion for us to leave our quarrel
and exclaim our marveling at this. 

 

 

 

Will There Be Tears?

 

 

SPELLS
 —Joyce Odam


Take my reluctant hand 


with its seven slow lines 


that go outward from the palm.



 

Trace my sad histories


with your discerning fingers;


hum a soft song. 

 



Pull my eyes to your face


and there erase the seven sorrows


that I hide from myself.

 



Mention the tomorrows;


mention the seven lies that fit. 

 
I will love you. I will leave 

 



my hand in your hand while you 


hypnotize my oldest terror.


I will follow you through



 

your language made of praise


while you gaze me deeper.


Soon I will float through your eyes



 

and there disguise myself with 


seven veils. You will get lost 


in them.
                                

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/13/12) 

 

 

 

At The Shadow

 

  

PAPER FLOWERS
—Robin Gale Odam

Small table, empty room,
rouge of sunset beyond the sea.

Contour of petals, thin as tissue,
twist of grief at the stems.

 

 

 

Spectrum

 

POEM WITHOUT AN ENDING 

—Joyce Odam

Let us begin a poem and never finish it—

just let it dwindle off the page as if there 

is more to be said, but when you turn the 

page another one begins. And let us title

it “Poem Without an Ending” and give it 

only that one page to struggle on, ending 

there, maybe with the word and, or at least 

no punctuation-mark in a punctuated poem. 

And let it enjamb—and have too big a gap 

of meaning—built up to, but not quite con-

veyed. And it will be intense rough draft—

the way first thought comes, so quick and 

obscure we can only follow to see where it 

leads.  And it will lead us away from itself, 

as if it resented our awakening—though it is 

the one that came to us—tossing like stones 

at our window, our faces frozen there against 

the darkness, looking out to see—as if this is 

the way life is—on its single page the long 

quick scribbling—the—

 
(prev. pub. in Poetry Now, 1999; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/29/19; 7/23/24)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

But for this moment
    
                I am vain
            to find
       the measure
of all time
       taken in trust
           and thus attain
relief of conscience, sin, and pride—
Oh Mercy, let me now relinquish this.

                                        —Joyce Odam

___________________

A thousand thanks to Joyce and Robin Gale Odam for today’s fine poetry and visuals! This was an ironic Seed of the Week, “Highway Robbery”, since I always feel like the beginning of Daylight Savings Time is Highway Robbery—an hour stolen—and some of that is woven into today’s poetry, about time stolen from our lives.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Overflowing”. Are we talking about the creek or your heart? 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.

Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Where did the hours go?

—Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that
Bob Stanley and Dane Cervine
will read in Modesto tonight, 7pm.
For info about this and other
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UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
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