Endings

Rumors

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE FATALISTS AT LAND’S END

Here we are with all that we deplore—this low-tide
shore, a small impatient boat creaks in the moonlight
like a metaphor—could we steal it—could we simply
float away from lives that Fate so badly wrote—change
an ending, could we still resist—just sail away—just
sail away from this?

____________________

WITH LONGING

And the heart beats with longing, even as
the blood flows. What does love know
of this—or hate—or any passion? 

It is all slow completion, even as it begins.
Take fear, which is delicious—
surface and depth—like a terrible wish.

Is it death we know—
cat and toy—
the prize on the end of a question?

And the blood goes round and round
the body’s universe,
bearing the life along like a tireless swimmer.

 Evidence of Rain

THE ENDLESS SORROW

somewhere the
endless sorrow
like a long blue pain

moans my name
for it thinks
it knows me

and that I am
its reason to remain
a sorrow


(first pub. in Oblong Press, 1992)  

___________________

ENDURANCE

Do not ask them anything—the women of silences wrap
their tongues in cotton syllables. The women of silences
phrase their eyes with secret blindfolds. The women of
silences mask their faces with feigned expressions. The
women of silences shape their love into heavy wings.
The women of silences cannot fly through walls. The
women of silences cannot break their own strings.

 Contrast

ON VALIDATION

I …, alone …, walk among others
and am alone

I walk with my shadow
which forgives me my singularity

which has no wish to become part of
any other shadow

thus, we are never
estranged from one another

and are ever faithful
to our singular existence.

 A Calling

THE DIFFERENT ENDING

A child
going into a fairy tale,
that woods
of deep light,
the playground
full of childhood rules
and riddles…

what waits in the center?
                    a way out?
a way never to return?

the child goes in
and becomes a part
of what is there,
becomes the hushed sound,
the figment of light,
the different ending
to the story.


(first pub. in Red Cedar Review, 1993)

 Homage

AN ENDING

She rose from herself on a true day of being—healed and
forlorn for all days done—for all loves loved—for all
false seeing, and opened herself like a door and went
through to her own freeing, where, for a moment, she
held fast, and was not harmed, and was not sent back to
any rending.

 Early Evening

POEM WITHOUT AN ENDING

Let us begin a poem and never finish 

it—just let it dwindle off the page as if 

there is more to be said, but when you 

turn the page another one begins. And 

let us title it “Poem Without an Ending” 

and give it only that one page to struggle 

on, ending there, maybe with the word 

and, or at least no punctuation-mark in 

a punctuated poem. And let it enjamb—

and have too big a gap of meaning—built 

up to, but not quite conveyed. And it will 

be intense rough draft—the way first 

thought comes, so quick and obscure we 

can only follow to see where it leads.  

And it will lead us away from itself, as if 

it resented our awakening—though it is 

the one that came to us—tossing like 

stones at our window, our faces frozen 

there against the darkness, looking out to 

see—as if this is the way life is— on its 

single page the long quick scribbling—the—


(first pub. in Poetry Now, 1999)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HAPPY ENDINGS
—Joyce Odam

How frail we were
falling like petals
into each other’s tearing love,

we only wanted
our miracles to happen,
our dreams to come true,

our fairy tales
to have
happy endings.

_____________________

A big thank-you to Joyce Odam for today’s fine poems and photos, as she explores endings, happy or otherwise, for our Seed of the Week: Dead End. Our new Seed of the Week is the poetry form, the Haibun; for an explanation and example, go to www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haibun.htm/. Send your poems, photos & 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.

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)

 —Anonymous

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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