—Photo and Poem by Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento
It’s me, ha ha...ready to dream. I always save them,
dreams and words, like copper pennies in the stone
cauldron, simmering words from dark and light...the
one dodging your wants is dreaming again...hide.
___________________________
DREAM BAG
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis
troubled girl of 14,
I turned to Mother:
she pulled out a knife,
stabbed my shadow
I packed up my dream bag
departed for unknown destinations
heard strange voices
listened to strange music
talked to strange people
loved strange men
wrote strange stories
nothing but strange would do
it was you, Mother,
who sent me soaring
thru the twilight sky of girlhood
into the midnight blue of strange
_________________________
Birds Watching
—Photo and Poem by Robin Gale Odam
Songs stuck in their throats from dead of
night...five thousand blackbirds fell from the sky.
Silvery streaks glistened in the mud...one hundred
thousand drum fish littered the terrain.
Ominous numbers, no connection...no connection,
the experts say...no connection to the birds and the
fish, dead from coincidence on New Year’s Day...from
fiery celebration of the newest year...a bolt of lightning
or a burst of hail...a turn of fate or a strike of blame,
dead on New Year’s Day.
One hundred thousand drum fish choked on their
water...dead on New Year’s Day.
Five thousand blackbirds fell from the sky...dead on
New Year’s Day.
____________________________
BAD DREAM
—Patricia Hickerson
the afterlife of a tornado:
street flooded
bridge out
house crushed
the residue of an ice storm:
branch down
power line crackling
road blocked
in the wake of your suicide threat:
hands shaking
heart racing
nightmare…
_________________________
UNTIL JANUARY
—Photo and Poem by Robin Gale Odam
—Photo and Poem by Robin Gale Odam
I picked you in December, yellow rose
unfolding in the winter sun. I placed you
in my only vase. You drank the sweet water.
I gave you poems. You aged and gave me
petals. You lasted until January.
________________________
—Patricia Hickerson
as in a dream
a second of time
then it’s done
sun swollen
a wanton wave
peels off sand glitter
under salt blistered sky
while in our ears
the roar of incessant coupling
sea with shore
inky kilometer of silence breaks the surf
slough off skin
recover new mantles of gristle and bone
startled by the opening eye of a clamshell
we wait for the foam
whatever it brings from the rim of the future
cargo of jelly sting or tailspin of semen
in a rage to create ‘mid starfish and swordfish
our own dreaming kind
_________________________
MYSTERY OF ART
(after seeing the movie, The Black Swan)
—Patricia Hickerson
some reach for the visceral
with bloody stumps
and peeling cuticles
caught to the quick
others attempt the sentimental
with welling eyes
and baby sized coffins
myself, I prefer the hard-nosed genre
with battered lips
and ripped-up nighties
where nothing much is said
what’s felt is squelched
closing shot:
burning butt smokes its own ash
_______________________
Today's LittleNip:
MANNA
—Robin Gale Odam
We’re tired of
blessings.
We dream of
fire.
________________________
—Medusa
RAILROAD CROSSING
—Photo and Poem by Ronald Edwin Lane, Weimar
A whistle squeals, down goes the gate, wheels clatter the ground shakes, faces I’ll never know, stare through windows in a metal carriage, as if I am an alien in a world where they’ve never breathed the air.