Champagne
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
SKELETONS
Look in my closet:
the bones are disguised as
shapelessness in dresses.
Their legs dangle into shoes.
They have no eyes.
They do not rattle,
except
those times
you ask about them.
Oh?
No.
Their names are gone, too.
They do not answer to anything like names.
They are discreet,
hanging to old failures and acclaims,
murmuring there together like old biddies,
keeping the dark together
with their archaic news.
Look in my closet:
the bones are disguised as
shapelessness in dresses.
Their legs dangle into shoes.
They have no eyes.
They do not rattle,
except
those times
you ask about them.
Oh?
No.
Their names are gone, too.
They do not answer to anything like names.
They are discreet,
hanging to old failures and acclaims,
murmuring there together like old biddies,
keeping the dark together
with their archaic news.
Renaissance
And in the clouds,
the image-heavy clouds,
taking me
from here to there—
too far—each time too far.
I long for flightless shoes
for walking in the fields
and climbing low hills
in tempo with me.
I long for stillness
to hold me from
the whirling
that I live from year to year.
And here . . . here . . . I am again
in clouds, in brimming clouds,
that know me as a weary bird
afraid of flight.
__________________
BUTTON HOOK
Bending to her shoe.
Priest. My mother told me of.
Priest. Bending to her shoe.
One shoe then two.
Buttoning her shoes.
Her crippled shoes.
Bent to his mother.
His dark symbolic mother
with whom he lived.
For and with.
Priest with mother
dark above him on her chair
her long gray swallowing skirt
touching the floor at his knees.
Shoe. Shoe. Priest and shoe.
Her grim presence.
Ill… Ill… Old and old.
Sitting there expressionless.
Sad duty: Son. Mother.
Priest my mother told me of.
Kneeling there
with ivory button hook
before her.
Priest. Shoe. Priest. Mother.
Prim shoe… High shoe…
of polished leather
with so many buttons
my mother told me of…
(first pub. in Etcetera, 1998)
Cinderella's Other Shoe
IN LOVE
in doubles we see them:
images in two’s—
duplicate connections,
shadows attached to shoes
—admiring themselves
in the glad surprise of mirrors
—face to mirrored face,
each to each grown dearer
wearing the same rapt expression
saying the same thought
as if one still might
disaffirm the other—meaning death,
their eyes becoming tragic windows
opening together
enchanted now—their dazzled love
dependent on one another
Never Worn
THESE BLUE WAVES BREAKING
These blue waves lift forever to the shore
as if practicing time in suspension.
They pull in from the eternal horizon;
the dark rocks wait for their fall.
The sound of their breaking is just about
to be released.
The turbulence of blue churns with impatience;
the layers of wet light glow upon the sand.
The smell of the sea air comes through the
tang of memory.
The gulls have just lifted away with their
harrowing cries.
The sky’s last light is slipping and slipping
into time’s darkness.
And in that darkness, the waves finally
and silently break across the picture frame,
right up the tangible edge of my wet shoes.
_________________
SOMETHING GONE WRONG
Mourning her ruined hat, she comes from the sea’s loud
edge to stand dripping before the unforgiving mirror that
always appears. With her mother’s eyes, she watches
herself measure from girl to woman—feels her death
leave her.
Her shoes are heavy with sand. Her wilted dress hangs
from her like seaweed.
Still, she watches herself—costumed for someone
worthy of her grief. She wishes the hat had floated off—
with the dress—and the shoes—with all the gesture
she is guilty of.
Now she must explain herself to the stupid mirror—
so accusing—so mocking.
Rhinestone Days
TODAY IS NOT THE DAY
Today is not the day for luck.
For rage, perhaps;
for staring at the rain.
But today has come too swiftly,
on borrowed news, with static
and wet shoes.
And with today comes
those two proper sisters,
Grim and Lonely,
who sit
on my two chairs. I feed them
whiskey and dirty blues.
They blur and whisper.
The man I am holding
is half unholy—
the half I’m telling—
the other half
is heavy with mute clues.
Today is not
the day I choose
for dim remember.
The sisters are sleeping now:
I follow
the secret smile and meaning.
_________________
A SACRAMENTO MOMENT
Passing by the church steps, I see a man, bent—
washing his feet from a water bottle, and a cloth
—intent, intent—his shoes placed neatly side
by side. It is twilight and still warm for October.
He does not seem to see, or care, that I see him
do this. It is his need, and this is his only means
and place. He will have his bare feet clean, then
lean back, maybe, and watch the people pass.
(first pub. under a different title in Poetry Now)
Puttin' on the Ritz
WALKING YOUNG
After Mother and Daughter,
Barcelona 1900 by Pablo Picasso
Prissy and Missy go for a dance-
walk down the strutting avenue
in their pretty shoes and daring
skirts—a bit too tight—and a bit
too short—for the old decorum.
Boldly they flounce themselves
along through the golden mirrors
of the air; blithely they mince, and
glance and smile and flutter their
their lips. And the day is so long,
and so bright, and so rare, that it
lets them go to the end of it before
they know what the next will know,
that there is only one, as brief, and
free, and glad, and young, as this.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
WORRY STONE
—Joyce Odam
I am the worry stone,
sent to worry you,
to fit your hand
and pocket—
not your shoe;
I would not have you limp
or toss me free—
I would have you
remember… remember…
ever remember me.
(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine)
__________________
Many thanks to Joyce Odam for sending us all sorts of wonderful shoes, shoes and more shoes (our recent Seed of the Week)! Our new Seed of the Week is Buttons, which is somewhat related. What kind of buttons? Clothes, of course, or maybe campaign buttons? Button mushrooms? Computer keys, like the ones that send a message you wish you hadn’t…? Or the red button that would set off WWIII, and the hand that hovers above it? 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.
Bethanie Humphreys writes that Fri. (12/1), 12-2pm or Sat. (12/2), 10am-2pm are the days to drop off artwork at Sac. Poetry Center for upcoming Going Wild, an invitational art show at SPC to be held on Sat., Dec. 9, with sales to benefit Sacramento’s Wildlife Care Association (artist to choose percentage donated) and curated by Bethanie Humphreys, Heather Judy, Jennifer O’Neill Pickering. See sacramento.carpediem.cd/events/5089803-animal-art-submission-at-spc-at-sacramento-poetry-center for details, or go to www.wildlifecareassociation.com and scroll down. The Gone Wild Art Show will run December 3, 2017 thru January 2, 2018, with a Second Saturday reception on December 9. Artwork with completed entry form can be dropped off at SPC either this Friday (12/1) from 12-2pm, or this Saturday (12/2), 10am-12pm.
—Medusa
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