—Photo by Joyce Odam
CIRCULAR
—Joyce
Odam, Sacramento
I go to the moon
for the
first dream—
how far
and round.
I fit.
I lie
down and sleep.
A round
dream enters my mind,
like a
moon. I fall,
then fly.
After I
have flown/fallen
a great
distance, I enter your sleep
as a dream.
How curious—
to know
you like this.
(first
pub. in Chrysanthemum,
2001)
_________________
DO YOU KNOW ME
After SNAIL—Federico
Garcia Lorca
—Joyce Odam
Love brings me this
puzzle:
It says, solve me,
I am a one and only—
yours if you want me.
I will take forever or
never.
I am made of loss and
longing.
I am the first and the
last.
I am made of memory and
forgetting—I will change
you.
Do you know me?
Love brings me this
puzzle.
(first pub. in DAD’S DESK, 2011)
FIRST LIGHT
—Joyce
Odam
dawn
the
rooster
wakened
birds
first
gray
light
refrigerator
hum
the cat
batting
its toy across the floor
in my
neighbor’s sleep
his all night
porch-
-light is
hung
like a
star
in his
dark green tree
in a
farther tree
the first
crow-
shape
on a
yonder street
the first
car
(first pub. in One (Dog) Press, 1998)
—Photo by Joyce Odam
The
hurt of this…
the way
it is ordinary,
as if it
had no realization
of what
was, and never is again,
layers
and layers
of what
takes the place
of life
and its first drift of
sunlight
over a gray day,
opening
again
into
another tomorrow—
a flash of
yellow,
as if
that bore
some
importance here—
maybe
only a shift of leaves
outside
the window
as if a
memory just happened.
—Joyce Odam
A MOMENT TOO SOON
like a vibration of music,
or a flicker of rain
light caught but unheard
outside the window
like a token of shadow
when a face turns
the first vibration of the
air
toward the rain-light
—Joyce Odam
_________________
OPPOSITIONAL
—Joyce Odam
What is first in the light
OPPOSITIONAL
—Joyce Odam
What is first in the light
that over-dims?
What is the dimness
What is the dimness
that the light betrays?
What force against what force
What force against what force
redeems what it repels—
this against that, and not for?
this against that, and not for?
Oh, the quarrel—mind and
thought
in torment that desires itself.
in torment that desires itself.
Why mirror this?
Light and dark at melting points
Light and dark at melting points
pour through each other.
_________________
SECOND DRAFT OF A FIRST DRAFT POEM
(from Mixed
Voices:
Contemporary
Poems About Music)
—Joyce
Odam
It was a
thin music
on a
white page—
it was
hidden inside
a book
cover—
it was
just waiting
for my
green pencil,
the one I
happened
to have
in my hand,
the one
with the blue eraser—
and it
was silent until now,
waiting
for a random word
to begin
it—
I never
heard it before;
it was
stolen—
I was its
thief,
but I was
jealous—
I had
been reading
poem
after poem about music—
I wanted
my own:
flute,
piano, voice, harmonica,
tambourine,
and my
old guitar
that I
sold,
and the
way I must be
my own
sad audience—
reduced
to radio,
cassette,
CD—
then this
little thin
strip of
paper
that just
happened
to be
there
when I
thought of this.
__________________
Thanks to Joyce Odam for today's tasty fare, including photos from her birthday bouquet. Our new Seed of the Week is On a planet like ours…
This one is wide open: you can talk about strife and hatred and people
who want to leave so badly that they go walk on the moon. You can talk about
love and human kindness, or basketball or crocodiles. It’s up to you. What
happens on a planet like ours? Speak to me.
Mo Hurley writes: Only FOUR days left to reserve your space for an AMAZING California Poets in the Schools poetry fest, "Passing the Gift Forward," a full weekend of readings and workshops with something for poets, writers, and teachers—as well as Poetry Out Loud poets and Youth Poets Laureate. The annual CPITS Symposium will be held at IONS Institute high on a bucolic ridgeline near Mt. Burdell, on the Novato-Petaluma (Sono Marin) border on Sept. 14-16. Super economical Saturday Day Passes (including a fabulous lunch): 32 spots left. Join us Saturday for a full day of writing workshops—from creative writing to arts grantwriting/publicity workshops. Or drop by for a reading. Or become the reading. The panorama alone is breathtaking. Walk the labyrinth. Listen to the hawks cry. See cpits.org/events.htm; contac Tina@CPITS.org to reserve a spot. CEU units available.
Mo Hurley writes: Only FOUR days left to reserve your space for an AMAZING California Poets in the Schools poetry fest, "Passing the Gift Forward," a full weekend of readings and workshops with something for poets, writers, and teachers—as well as Poetry Out Loud poets and Youth Poets Laureate. The annual CPITS Symposium will be held at IONS Institute high on a bucolic ridgeline near Mt. Burdell, on the Novato-Petaluma (Sono Marin) border on Sept. 14-16. Super economical Saturday Day Passes (including a fabulous lunch): 32 spots left. Join us Saturday for a full day of writing workshops—from creative writing to arts grantwriting/publicity workshops. Or drop by for a reading. Or become the reading. The panorama alone is breathtaking. Walk the labyrinth. Listen to the hawks cry. See cpits.org/events.htm; contac Tina@CPITS.org to reserve a spot. CEU units available.
_____________________
Today's LittleNip:
THAT OLD LOVE
—Joyce Odam
What, indeed, has become
of that old love—existent
for all time
in the nurtured heart—that
pit of memory.
What power it pretends—
pressing you to it
like a heartbeat shared.
Forget it. Or remember it.
I don’t care.
But quit assigning it the
first position.
It has forgotten you.
_______________
—Medusa
—Photo by Joyce Odam