Sorrow And All Her Secrets

  Wherever Time Finds You
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos and Original Art by Joyce Odam

 

 

CALANDO
—Robin Gale Odam

When the credits roll, when happily
ever after is embraced and the story
cleaves to a strand of illusion, the music
becomes slower and softer, dying away.
                             

(prev. pub. in Brevities, October 2016;
Sacramento Poetry Anthology 2017;
Song of the San Joaquin, Winter 2017;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/29/24)

 

 

 

 The Ruse

COMMISERATION
—Joyce Odam

Sorrow came to sit with me again,
as many times before,
claiming to be my mother—

again with her old sad story,
her soft tears burning in the light
reflecting every word upon her face.

                                    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/22/24)

 

 

 

 The Mystery Of The Self

GHOSTS
—Joyce Odam

…something that lingers
not quite gone
diffusements in memory
hanging on
to the spent realities
like a tune that teases
of a half-remembered song

ghosts stay on
where they are wanted
they belong
to your disturbance
to your relinquishment…
as long
as you want them
ghosts stay on…


(prev. pub. in Aquarian Dream, October 1996;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/1/11; 11/1/22)

 

 

 

 Aquarium

MIRAGE OR NIGHTFALL
—Robin Gale Odam

I
The one-subject notebook, the frozen
poem, the one metonym for yesterday.

II
Just something about this night.

III
At the underside of the water tiny fishes
sip at the veneer of another world.
                             

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/4/23) 

 

 

 

 Nothing Left To Give

HAUNTED  
—Joyce Odam

I wrestle with your obstinate ghost,
ever-angry and unforgiving,

what a wild loving and hating—
never resolved,

the push and pull of difference—
ever-faithful to the war.

Even now, you assail me in dreams,
still wanting my surrender.
                                

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/31/24)

 

 

 

 The Politics of Love

STALEMATE
—Joyce Odam

we are not friends
we are not
lovers now

we are
a cage

we lock each other
we threaten
freedom

                 
(prev. pub. in Prophetic Voices, 1992;
Lovebites Chapbook by Joyce Odam, 199l;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/16/10; 7/7/20)

 

 

 

 Listening

MOMAZIA
Band 10, Lifescapes by Emanuel Kirakou
(Relaxing Guitar and Cello)
—Joyce Odam

Oh player of sad music that hurts
my heart—I need to feel what you
make me feel—music that holds me

so still, so haunted—oh player
of sad music, too beautiful to
bear—this is what I want to hear.
                                 

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/10/10; 1/16/18) 

 

 

 

 The Silence

WE WHO ABANDON, WE WHO SEEK
—Joyce Odam

Oh, father, who left me, who
I equate with god—what do I mean

by refusal to love, to let return?
Why keep the question alive—
 
that cry without answer—
seek nothing where nothing is?

Oh, father, who became a forge,
I am incomplete.
                                  

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 6/19/12) 

 

 

 

 The Twilight

SHADE
—Robin Gale Odam

counterpoint of light
no one knows that she is gone
into dark of day
searching for a memory
searching for a memory
               

(prev. pub. in Brevities, December 2017)

 

 

 

 You Tell Me Your Dream

HEALING
—Joyce Odam

I shall not look again to sorrow
with its bruised wing that I
have pushed away. I am not

its love. I will not let it
stay with me, though it calls me
winter and starves when I

look at it. I am going to be in
love with happiness—with
its safe heart and hands

that flutter
ever-so-softly
about my habit of weeping.  
                           

(prev. pub. in Sorrows Mini-Chap by Joyce Odam,
2002; and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/22/24) 

 

 

 

 No Compromise

Today’s LittleNip:

MIND-POWER
—Joyce Odam

You are that maze
I never get through.

How did you
make yourself so clever,
without an exit?

How did I
get in?


(prev. pub. in Parting Gifts, 1996;
and in Brevities Mini-Chap)

___________________

Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam have shown us some of their poetic secrets today for our Seed of the Week, Dark Secrets, and we thank them for that.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Beyond Absurd”. 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. And be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Words on a Page

—Photo by Joyce Odam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that 

Sherre Vernon and Paula Sheil

read tonight in Modesto, 7pm.

For future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
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Are the ghosts gone yet?