Three Miles Through October

  Drift Of Memory
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos and Original Art by Joyce Odam

 

 

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;
4/29/25)

 

 

 

Old Friends

THREE MILES THROUGH OCTOBER
—Joyce Odam
         For Ann

For lunch today we had tuna
with lots of mayonnaise, two
kinds of olives, cheese, and
oranges cut in wedges,

I drank milk, you drank wine.
Later we walked three miles
through October—at each fence
horses walked with us—we took
pictures of each other. This will be
the third day, I said, about drinking.

I’m proud of you, you said. When I got
home, I had a can of beer, three whiskeys,
and fell asleep beneath a blanket on
the floor, where I shivered.

                                                  
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/30/12; 7/5/22)

 

 

 

 Poet At The Podium

PAPER POEMS
  —Joyce Odam

once caught as stillness
it is still alive
the foam on the beer
the laugh in the camera

it was a taste of summer
the shivery trees saying
no, it’s winter

the fruit on the ground
and the yellow bees
and the fallen paper poems
have not moved

there is danger
in holding anything
things must grow old
and blow away

the day was a sad one
too much love to
never know
no one loves strangers

we do too love strangers
cry the strangers
from the smiling paper

but summer is over
it turned gray
and it tore for its life
at the overturned chairs

shiver by shiver the
summers returned
but nothing was ever
in the same order


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/1/22) 

 

 

 

 The Flock

OUT AT YOUR PLACE
—Joyce Odam

out at your place
where winds howl through the trees
and the river lies dark
underneath the cold glitters
of the moon
we have felt the winter rise

the deep shadows loom huge
from the trap-circle of the road
where the car waits
where once the river rose
that flood-time
your wilderness is widening to close us in
but you are not so aware of this
as of how safe we are within it

well, the hone-winds speak
and the river moves below us and
the trees above us bend
in the same direction
passing the moon between them
like an eye

it never is total summer here
at night those winds converse
and the water makes a growing sound
and the shadows change their size
but you are contented
your eyes not good, but seeing,
and your mind alive with future evidence

even in summer when we come to your place
for cold salad and beer
the winds are at work in the trees
and we joke by asking
if we are in some spooky movie
and you who always seem listening
to something else
pretend not to hear

 

 

 

 The Old Mirror

                                     

REITERATION
—Joyce Odam

Years later I found you in a bar
and sidled down beside you—
looked sideways and asked you why

you died. As usual, you didn’t answer
but just kept staring down
into the beer in which

you cried and cried and cried.
“Well, Hell !” I said.
“I’ve had it!” and rose to go.

And you raised your head
and asked me
not to go, so I stayed—
 
the same old scene
played out : though we
had much to say, we didn’t speak.

                                    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/1/22)

 

 

 

About Belonging

 

THOUGHTS FROM THAT TIME
—Joyce Odam

It is how I see
the eyes of things.
The eyes of the child
opposite the eyes of the bird.
The twig of the tree
and the caterpillar
and the singing leaves
and the soft brown wind
in the mind
telling them things.

       
It is how I know
where the vision lies
in the eyeless things.
In the dark word,
in the spoken and unspoken miracles
of the waiting animals.
(Tomorrow I have heard them
in the town
where the answers coil like snakes
in the pathways of the questions.)


What is the least word
you will recognize
when you cannot find
the target
or the wound.
What will you say
to cancel the smallest dying.

           
Poems that have come out of love
or out of the mouths of children
are not to be broken.
They are the only things
that can forgive us.

           
What have I heard
that I know in the quietest hour
when the in-between of me
is held like a floating petal
in the pool


of some decision.
You smell like roses
so I hold you nearer—
gifts in a lost place
that we have found together—
gifts that I take
and put in water
so they can live
a happy while longer.

       
All over the world
there are men with sad guitars
in their hands.
There is not enough love for them
so they sing its sorrows
in their eyes.
When they look at me
I can never tell them
how to more patiently measure.

    
Oh man with sad guitar,
one part of world,
come sit beside me
and play me the song I love.
I will be silent
so you can know I thank you.
Let your eyes forget the tears
that burn in your haggard singing.


In the dissonance of hands
love is held,
singing and crying
and moving over seven strings.
Only six of them
are made of music.
And the unborn child
who is looking into the eyes
of the bird
will hear
and learn his first dark lesson.


Even after the handless people
have forgotten how to hold,
the touch will remember.
It will come to them
when they are seriously lonely,
listening for the sound
their fingers made
in angry strings—
just when they vowed
never to weep again.
       

After the silence
comes whatever is beyond silence—
it is how I see
the eyes of things.
The people who look through at each other
ok through each other.
The strangers
who lie in each other’s arms.
The broken wings
in the hand of the child,
and the dreadful innocence of his power.

    
In the mouth of the blond man
are marvelous words.
He puts them in a book,
and in the middle of our lives
who hear him tell us what he knows.
He is young.
And we are young, though we are old.

           
The perfect listeners
become so wise
they nod and smile in the room of friends.
Tomorrow we will be gone
and the room will find
its new people are not as reverent
as we who have told
our many stories to the dawn.
Oh, poor poor room,
so coldly rented,
we have left you
our warmest gift of being.

       
We are as old as everyone.
We are late and hungry
as any longing.
When we quarrel it is with laughter.
We need to envelop each other.
We have a certain destruction of words
that we use
like love’s last weapon.

           
Oh where have you all gone!
The bird and the child.
The hour of the hands.
The guitar who suffered the man.
Where have you gone,
oh bathtub full of flowers,
oh empty bottles,
and wrinkled paper on the floor.
Where have you gone,
oh me and you,
and the rest of us,
and the sleep we did not sleep
because there was love to know.
Oh where have you gone!

       
We have learned nothing, then
except
the sadder we are
the better we sing.
It is a day for hymns,
but we have hung our other crosses
to the walls.
We have not come for any
usual religion.
We have seen a place that had
sharded glass that twisted upward
into a halo of thorn design.
(That
is how we knew
it was Sunday.)


The lady with the lovely legs
is learning to drink as well as we.
She is laughing and holding
her salted glass over the poem.
She is going to read to us.
She is going to offer herself
if we will ever listen.
 
       *            *            *       
    
Nellie.  We remember.
And Harold and Stella,
and Vince and Bob,
and everyone else who came to us.
We have taken you home with us.
Open your eyes.
Do you wonder where you are?
You are here with us,
and it is only Monday.

                                
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/4/15)

 

 

 

 Just One More

Today’s LittleNip:

I WILL SEE YOU AT MIDNIGHT
—Robin Gale Odam

labyrinth of frail design
writing tales from childhood

word-by-word in whisperings
pen to salvaged paper

you sift through your memory
we open a cold one
 
you prepare an incense
this will take the breath of time 

 

 

 

 The Empty Flask

A memorial celebration of the life and poetry of Joyce Odam, who passed away in late September, will take place next Sunday, Oct. 12, 2pm, at

First Church of the Nazarene
1820 28th Street
(Corner of 28th & S Streets)
Sacramento CA 95816

Extra parking allowed in alley lot at back of church.

Robin reminds us that this is a memorial service, not a funeral. Come celebrate Joyce’s life and work!

And thanks to Robin Gale for today’s poems and Joyce’s visuals; our Seed of the Week was the irreverent “Empty Beer Cans”, and the Odams had something to say about that. . .  Robin continues to curate posts from the Odam Poets, despite Joyce’s passing.

Our new Seed of the Week is “The Owl Who Waits”. 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. 

 

"Snow time ain't no time to . . ." What? (no fair looking it up!) If you can finish the line, you'll know what I saw last night.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 I Call Him Horse
—Photo by Joyce Odam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For future poetry happenings in
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