Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
PARIS, ETC.
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento
Places?
I’ve been to a few—flown by them,
too briefly to remember, or know,
where I had been.
Names later,
they would come back to me.
(Yes,
I’ve been there—through, really.)
Some places
with memories
swept out
by landladies.
No,
I would never go back to them.
___________________
THE LURID WALLS
—Joyce Odam
(After Journey Through Time by Arbé)
Pages
tacked to the walls
memories
old confessions
in plain view
for all to read
like art
while she,
in a languor,
reads:
diaries,
love letters—
sent
and unsent—
received.
She turns the pages
slowly
seductively posed
and becomes
each self again:
gullible—worldly—
content with each.
Tacked pages
flutter in a waft of time,
She reads further.
_________________
WATER MAN
—Joyce Odam
All day
he traces his findings into poetry,
his long and patient journeys
into what he knows and seeks to know.
This time he is a fisherman, standing
in patient loneliness while all around him
the sudden mouths of fish sing to his effort
and make him weep and fail.
How many mermaids
have offered him their souls . . . ?
He rewards their memory by saying
all their names on other shores.
What a soft shadow he makes
at twilight; small against the immensity;
small against the sky;
small against the swift night
which is never surprised
to find him there.
All day
he traces his findings into poetry,
his long and patient journeys
into what he knows and seeks to know.
This time he is a fisherman, standing
in patient loneliness while all around him
the sudden mouths of fish sing to his effort
and make him weep and fail.
How many mermaids
have offered him their souls . . . ?
He rewards their memory by saying
all their names on other shores.
What a soft shadow he makes
at twilight; small against the immensity;
small against the sky;
small against the swift night
which is never surprised
to find him there.
____________________
MISERERE
MISERERE
—Joyce Odam
(After Circus Trio: Dancers and Punch by George Rouault, 1924)
It is the year of my birth. Three weeping figures
stand together and mourn some great sadness
which they share as they distort themselves,
wringing their hands toward each other.
Their eyes never connect, but stay downcast.
Their faces are bloated with grief.
They are beyond the comfort of words,
as if they have just learned of some tragedy.
Soon they will be called into the spotlight,
their costumes those of fools and comedians.
The band is beginning their entrance music.
Soon they will cavort and out-perform each other.
It is the year of my birth. My mother is joyous.
She holds me out to my future, which gathers me
in its folds and hides me from my sorrows.
Three circus figures are here for my amusement,
but they stand there weeping, wringing their hands,
away from me, toward each other. My mother
takes me from the reluctant arms of the shadow.
My future has been decided. My mother names me.
___________________
THE SKELETON DANCES WITH THE NAKED LADY
—Joyce Odam
(After photo-album of historical “pornographic” portraits made
between 1850 and 1950, from the collection of French author,
essayist, and critic Serge Bramly)
This has nothing to do with death. This is
a dance of love—his costume of bones, her
naked flesh—danced before a black curtain.
They do not ask each other’s names. They are
anonymous; this is a masquerade and they are
mysterious, mesmerized by each other’s roles.
A spotlight watches them with its praise.
They arch and improvise in a single flow
across the wide oblivion of the stage.
The music has long since died,
but the night has consented to stay forever.
His bones are supple, and she glows.
He holds her against his cold intensity,
and they dissolve. This has nothing to do
with love. This is a dance of death.
__________________
NAMES
—Joyce Odam
My real name is Beauty, a name beloved by mirrors,
a name vanity favored, my first young name.
Cat says my name is Hunter, for she hunts vanity
and purrs to me her power.
I think of myself as Sunrise, for I am a Leo child—
a child of eternal summer.
Time calls me Lazy, and that is also my name,
for I love indolence and all things slow and effortless.
Priest calls me Purity, as do, husbands, lovers,
and all other saints and sinners who would define me.
Grief calls me Wisdom, for I have learned patience
and silence and other virtues of loss and deprival.
And silence calls me Sound, for I have returned
one to the other and named them synonymous.
Haven is my secret name, though I use it sparingly.
Only those who truly love me may shelter here.
My real name is Beauty, a name beloved by mirrors,
a name vanity favored, my first young name.
Cat says my name is Hunter, for she hunts vanity
and purrs to me her power.
I think of myself as Sunrise, for I am a Leo child—
a child of eternal summer.
Time calls me Lazy, and that is also my name,
for I love indolence and all things slow and effortless.
Priest calls me Purity, as do, husbands, lovers,
and all other saints and sinners who would define me.
Grief calls me Wisdom, for I have learned patience
and silence and other virtues of loss and deprival.
And silence calls me Sound, for I have returned
one to the other and named them synonymous.
Haven is my secret name, though I use it sparingly.
Only those who truly love me may shelter here.
_________________
Today's LittleNip:
POEM WRITTEN AT THE TYPEWRITER
—Joyce Odam
under the poem
a cockroach
dead on the
typewriter-roller
round he goes
lyrical and thin
a brown song upon black
a black song upon him
under the poem
a cockroach
dead on the
typewriter-roller
round he goes
lyrical and thin
a brown song upon black
a black song upon him
(first appeared in the chapbook, Lemon Center for
Hot Buttered Roll by Joyce Odam)
__________________
—Medusa
Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner