Buggy

  You Brought Me Flowers

* * *

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

 

 

COUNTER-CLOCKWISE
—Robin Gale Odam

Today I will write
from yesterday—I will
simply turn the hours
counter-clockwise,

watching for what has
come to pass through my
fury—a vexing search for
temperance. Or the one
flailing character flaw.

Or one tick of space held
in the transition of the hour
hand. Or the one grain of sand
fixed in the hourglass.

                 
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 2/21/23) 

 

 

 

Thinking

TO MYSELF
—Joyce Odam

Who is Joyce, who is she,
with her stumble of words,
her clumsy language?

Look, she is all un-
gathered again,
mended so temporarily
in one first mirror.

Stepping away, look how she
stutters apart,
sending little nervous glances
in all that glass.

Oh, she has something to say.
Oh, she is opening her mouth.
Oh, a moth flies in.

Tell us about gray, then;
tell us about soft suffocation
on the tongue.

Well, her eyes are sufficient,
I suppose;
they are rather like candles.
But the moth has died.
                        

(prev. pub. in The California Quarterly, Summer 1974)

 

 

 

Tidal

 

TRUTH POEM
—Joyce Odam

There’s a monster in the
bedroom!

No, David. There are no
monsters.

David all golden
and beautiful and three
stands and looks at me
with patience and truth
after pulling his wagon of toys
from the feared room
and as sure as a man
and as if I did not understand
explains :

There’s a
Monster in the bedroom. 

 

 

 

Maybe Tomorrow

 

TESTY
—Robin Gale Odam

I had no time to write
the script, verbs hissing
around me like flying bugs . . .

And tasking, tasking, felt
so normal but now the day is
winding down and I can't seem to
remember deeper than the first line . . .

Every day is the same day
sewn together by billions of
minutes with their languages and
dialects and harbingers ever the same . . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 1/31/23)

 

 

 Separated

 

FIRE DREAM
 —Joyce Odam

Do you thirst,
said the spectre—swimming before me—

my dream stretched out like a blanket afire,
the sky foreboding at the edge of the question.

I tried to answer, but the cup I held
kept spilling, and I could only watch the pouring.
                                                   

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/7/18; 6/22/21)

 

 

 

Silent

WE HEAR THE FALLING
                
Like discord
under lovely sound
we listen . . .
bird and man
     share all such
     metaphor
     as soul
     migration
     wind in throat
     phoenix-song
and deep within ourselves
as through the lift of wings
we hear the falling.

—Joyce Odam
                       

(prev. pub. in Small Pond, 1957;


also Frog Perspective, Mini-Chap, 2002;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/20/16)

 

 

 

Meditative

COG
—Joyce Odam

You start your life
With all the fire
Of optimism
And desire.

You live your life
And painfully
Find all not what it
Seemed to be.

You near the end—
What did you learn?
Perhaps you only
Had your turn.

            
(prev. pub. in My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/7/23) 

 

 

 

Bridled

MARRIED
—Joyce Odam

thought i was
nice tho plain and not quite smart
agreeable enough
and docile
like a dog
or a cow
or a length of rope
gave me favors for goodness
abuses for my slow
to obey or agree or understand
said i was bought and paid for
with a laugh to show you were kidding—
didn’t wonder why i smiled
why i looked away

i’ve grown plainer
and disagreeable
and cunning in the heart
i’ve become unruly
like a cat when it’s hungry
or a horse with the
first rope around its neck
or a new deck of cards
i make up riddles to scare you
i read our identical fortunes every day
in the democratic newspaper
you’re just about ready to love me I think
even tho you can’t afford me—
just about ready to know me
even tho i keep on changing

                                           
(prev. pub. in Squeezebox, Summer, 1975)

 

 

 

Should Have Danced All Night

THE LAST SWALLOW
—Joyce Odam
(“One swallow does not make a spring.”—Aristotle)

What is this absence? This loss
we feel? This timing gone wrong?
This cold season?

What is the meaning of a species
almost vanished? Should we mourn?
Should we learn to save ourselves?

What is after us?
We are pressed together in a vast
disharmony. We lose the rhythm.

                          . . .

The last poet in the world
sits writing in a quiet yard.
He looks around for inspiration.

The sunlight is warm upon him.
He is disconnected from his own memory.
He sees a shadow cross his page

and he looks up in joy . . .
it is the last swallow . . .
his is the last poem to speak of it.

                                          
(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazinr, June 1997;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/27/18) 

 

 

 

All My Love

HOORAY FOR EVERYTHING
—Joyce Odam

The water in the toilet is barely blue.
The light bulb in the bedroom burns out
and we’ve only had it twenty years.
The paper did not come.
No mail today either.
Yes, it’s Sunday
and the silence is too long.
Soon it will all be true,
everything that was sworn to and denied.
Hangovers do not cure drunkenness.
Why did you not hold me this morning?
We share our house with the spiders.

                                                 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/4/18)

 

 

 

 Harmony

 

JOYOUS
—Robin Gale Odam

Yes I have no shame
today—I am buoyant and lofty
again . . . there is more to be said—
blah blah blah.

                       
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/31/23; 1/9/24)

 

 

 

One Melody

Today’s LittleNip:

Wishes are empty little things—
they learn to cry.

                            —Joyce Odam


(prev. pub. in Brevities, November 2019;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/18/23)

___________________

Our current Seed of the Week is “Bugs.” Robin Gale Odam writes: “One of our children told us that ‘not all bugs are insects, but all insects are bugs’. . .  and then there are worrisome things or matters that simply bug us. . .  or troublesome flaws, or self-doubt, or even little metaphor, to cast over fears... and what we imagine is present or nearby, watching us, or merely looking around, or perhaps unaware that we even exist (that would be one of the fables). . .  hmmmm. . . 

“p.s. along this journey we learned that plural for metaphor is metaphor. . .” I did not know that. . .

The only thing I would say is that nobody wrote about the spy apparatus, as in listening devices, as in “this room is bugged”. Oh well. . .  next time. Maybe they were afraid the email was bugged. . .

Our thanks to the Odam poets, Joyce and Robin,  for today’s fine poetry and Joyce’s lovely visuals.

Our new Seed of the Week is “So Extravagant”. 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

 

 

 

May is on the way!

 

 

 

 

 

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