Where Poems Are Born

Planet

—Poems and Original Art by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

TWILIGHT PERSPECTIVE
After a drawing by Wayne Hogan

Bird above boat. Boat above trees.
Diagonal light equating sunset.

Moon-shadow suffers explication.
Flowers burn in the moonlight.

Bird pecks at stars which are invisible.
Boat-shadow lures fish to the surface.

Trees bend in the same direction
as the breeze that caresses toward night.

                                                          
(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2010)

_________________

THE NOCTURNALISTS

Here is a black cat
walking thin
over its shadow

over the crack
of the sidewalk
into your

swerving path—
a thin black cat
with eye so yellow—

watching you
as you watch it—
stopped-dead in your

superstitious track—
a slow black cat
with fur so shiny

and walk so supple,
slow as a fact—
you dare not argue

the cold dark shiver
at your back as you
angle past

each other—
you and the
out-of-the-nowhere cat

 Blue Theme

A shudder of blue branches

woven together in all their directions
none hostile to another
nor greedy for space

letting the blue light through
from the lowering sky
the blue dark adding its tones

the trunks of the trees
standing
in old patience

and the little filtering sounds
that speak to the hidden creatures
or only to each other

and all night the brambles touch
and touch in a tender blindness
through the night hours

__________________

THE STREET LIGHT

The street light serves for the moon—so
low in the sky it glows through the window.
It is always full—a bright watch-light
for this shadowy corner of the night.

Sounds illuminate with recognition—
song or sigh? No sky is farther away than
any reach of mind in this proximity—
low enough to make an aura of wellbeing,
till dawn turns if off—just like the moon.

 Yellow Vibes

SNIPPETS 
After “Transfigured Night” by Brodsky Quartet

Moon-rise.    Open window.    Night.
Violence.

A chandelier,
glinting in the room light.

A little boy, listening.
His mother closes her eyes.

Through the night window,
another moon rises

—or is it only another
window—dressed in black.

A train stops on a track that is
a dead end.     It is late.     Late.

The violinist’s eyes are closed.
In the train, two people wait.

The violinists play in unison,
dressed in black.

The maestro barely leads.
The music leads itself.

Outside, a man sits on a rack of luggage
by a diminishing row of paintings . . . . . .

A woman dances to herself
under a white clock on a yellow wall.

This is all harmony.  A listener now
stares quietly.  A tear runs down his cheek.

 Midnight

NO MOON FOR FEAR

I tried to solve the night but the night was secret.
Nothing penetrates but restless dreaming.

Night without moon. 
Or moon behind clouds.

Iconic moon. 
Changeable moon.

Nocturne . . .
Nocturnal . . .

Like a cat.
Black.

Like black shadow of cat
brushing by.

No moon for fear.  Howl
at the moon, full and near.

An echo of that howling.
Electric with tension.

A bristling in the air. An apprehension.
White moon of morning in pale blue sky

hanging there—
benign and patient, fading with the morning.
                                         
                                                  
(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)

 Yesterday

DO NOT PERFECT ME
                                       
Safely I tell you
the rose is real
and the morning
and the night
and me in my sadness
and you in my joy
and I am not to be taken sensibly
I am to be held.

Do not make words upon me
they wound my mind.
I must reach out to touch
the shadows and
the form of light I
see against darkness.
Do not make danger for me.
I have a fear of what I do not know.
Do not explain me.

When I am the morning
I know many things,
most of them true,
these are the things I tell  you
when I am night.
I take flight in my stillness.
I go where it is easy for me to be.
Come with me and we will be together
and I will always return you.

                                               
(first pub. in Red Cedar Review andNocturnes, Frith Press, 1995)

 When the Flower Kissed the Sun

OLD NIGHT, NEW DAY

The sky, filling with blue, then a fragile cloud or
two, threading.  A sharpness of birdsong, penetrating

the silence—brief—and from no distance other than
where it was a startled moment back.  Then that slow,

soft tone of whiteness that takes the place of early
blue, the way you slowly surrender the owned moment

to the swift intrusion of sounds and urgencies—your
reluctance to rise from your bed—seductive with

comfort, warm around you.  The sky again, gone flat
outside your window measure—full of daylight now,

the clouds losing their pink direction, taking on the
heavy factory gray that smudges them.

You stretch and sigh.  Look at the clock.  Get up.
Old night. New day.

___________________

TWILIGHT NOCTURNE
                        
 In the mauve grove where twilight falls
 soft and fragile, where poems

 are born in the souls of birds;
 where old trees listen to the songs

 of shadows; where everything
 comes to rest and be safe—even

 the terrors—even the dreams
 in the minds of the oldest of children—

 even the blamed and wounded loves
 who have no reunion. There let us

 be—in the minds of all that sylvan
 bliss, and speak nothing but prayers.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

REND
—Joyce Odam

Now, balance out this night, oh, Lord,
with falling stars––to give reward

to tearful eyes and stricken heart––
to all from which we tear apart.

Flare out the moon to its full eye
to draw this prayer through such a sky.
                              
(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997/1998)

____________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s haunting nocturnal poems and pix, echoing our Seed of the Week, Night Sounds. The moon was the star of the show at last week’s eclipse, so it’s only right that poets sing its praises even more than usual.

Our new Seed of the Week is Things I Can’t Stand. Send your poems, photos and 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.

Here is Joyce’s formula for the Nocturnette (as in her example in Today’s LittleNip):

Nocturnette:
6 lines broken into 3 couplets 
Each couplet rhymed aa bb cc 
4 Iambic feet to a line.

—Medusa

 (Anonymous Photo)

Celebrate Poetry by flying out to Carmichael tonight, 

6-7:30pm, for Carmichael Library’s Open Mic Poetry Night 

(sign-ups at 5:30pm). Scroll down to the blue column 

(under the green column at the right) for info about this 

and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that 

more may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.