—Photo by Joyce Odam
THE OLD
WOUNDS
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento
I
hurry but find no proof of kill.
The
old wounds shift
and
the arrow is bouncing off a tree.
Is
that my skill, my thoughts arriving
before
I know them—
but
always missing my target heart?
I
am standing in a familiar shaft
of
cold red light—
the
sliced air shining and streaming.
I
touch my breast and watch the blood
pour
down my hand
and
am pleased at my calmness.
_______________
IT WAS THE BEES
that drew
the careful curiosity of
the boy
the old hive empty now
in the far back corner
of the lot
he still can hear
the golden buzzing
and note the way
the lazy shadows move
against the dreaming day
his mother stands there too
with him,
as if the bees
are still there
returned
and busy at their work
as in some olden time
before this trembling
moment
broke
and much was lost forever
—Joyce Odam
(based on J.
Alden Weir, "Watching the Bees", 1896)
_______________
THE ICE BOX
—Joyce Odam
Home late
again
to drain
pan over-
flowing
all across
green-sea
linoleum.
Damn!
She sloshed
the pan
from
under the ice box
poured it
down the sink
and
grabbed the mop.
* * *
oh, in
the day
the
hours melt
like
ice in wooden dark
intentions
lag behind
like
gray enamel hands
that
hold too much and
lately
the apartment
takes
the smell
of
cold and wet
not
enough heat
no
light
the
walls too close
to
other walls
must
get away
* * *
The ice man
climbs
the stairs
twice
every week.
Ice drips
its usefulness away.
The pan
grows full.
She
measures
out the duty and
the play
but never
gets home
soon
enough.
Hard to
time
these things.
—Photo by Joyce Odam
ANAPHORA
—Joyce Odam
In the
dream, the mirror holds
my mother. She pleads
to be
released. Her tears
run down
the outside of the
glass.
In the
dream, my mother holds a
glass of something
bitter; she
tastes and laughs.
She dances
to the breaking music
in the
mirror, her laugh in
shatter.
In the
dream, my mother is sitting
at a window. Night is
caught
in the dark
frame-light of the
mirror. She shuffles
an old deck
of cards, lays them
out again.
In the
dream, I knock on the glass
and it shatters. My
hand bleeds.
I try to run, but she
holds me
with a look. I try to
run, but
she holds me with a
look.
In the
dream, my mother is beside
me, smiling with me
into the
mirror. In the
mirror, she is
looking out at us—rage on
her face, pounding on
the glass,
weeping and shouting.
(first pub. in Caveat
Lector, 1999)
_______________
OUT OF BEING
OUT OF BEING
—Joyce Odam
Black stars
in a white sky—
that kind of night.
Lightning that vanishes
before it strikes
because you close your
eyes.
Only a mountain away—
whatever you want
and cannot reach in time.
Every wilderness has a
center
where calmness breeds
like an extinct animal.
That weeping you hear—a
pillow
that smothers what you
feel
till you cannot feel it
anymore.
Green clouds in windows
where tears blur glass and
a finger draws in the
moisture.
However you mean this is
beyond
explanation—you have counted
all
the stars and they are
gone.
The wild animal that lives
under your windowsill has
dreams
unimaginable to you.
_______________
LAST DANCE MARATHON
—Joyce Odam
They
dance as if they have another distance to go.
She would
dance fast. He dances slow.
Bogged
down in each other, cheek to cheek,
trite and
weary, they become as bleak
as
someone biddable to sophistication’s mode.
They dance
as if their very lives were owed
to
melancholy, and melancholy’s tragic mirror.
She pulls
away to look back over her bare shoulder;
his
sweaty hand flattens against her back;
she
softens and clasps her hands around his neck;
and he
looks past her to someone in the shadow—
someone
without a face before a window
who turns
away as though, on close inspection,
must once
again be only a reflection.
Something
about this haunts him like a dying;
she looks
at him and finds he has been crying,
and she
has taken on a glassy kind of texture
and is
receding from him, feature by feature;
the other
dancers, too, seem to be drifting—
something
of this night no longer shifting,
the same
old music playing its hollow song,
time and
its window teasing life along.
He finds
the joke almost a bit too clever
First
there was no time. Now there is forever.
_______________
Today's LittleNip:
THE INSCRUTABLE UNIVERSE
—Joyce Odam
The
distortions and the perfections entangle,
sharing
color and form
How much
of the ungraspable allows the eyes
of obverse
imagination
How much
of the mystery holds still for the
instant
of viewing
How much or
how little can the mind
know what
it seeks to know
How many
strange and lovely birds fly over
or rest in
stillness before harm finds them
How much
does the painterly world
become
real
What encroachments
yet wait to use and
despoil the
lost perfection
_______________
—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's gourmet fare. Our next Seed of the Week is Spells: ever had a spell cast on you? The lover you couldn't leave, the car you had to have, the daze of a hot summer's day? Send your spell-bound poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com—no deadlines on SOWs, though. After all, you're under a spell.....
—Photo by Joyce Odam