Do Not Starve The Mouth

Grab Bag

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

BREAD AND HONEY

I am the black honey for your soul
sticky and sweet
I have been brought
by old bees
that died long ago

I came from all sources
in tiny portions
until I was here

you taste me
crave me
smear me all over yourself
with starving words and motions

we are bread and honey
oozing over edges
uncontainable

___________________

HUNGRY

Taste.
This is sweet—
this is sour.

One is fine grape—
one is mysterious lemon.
Both are true to the mouth
which responds with different pleasure
which gets hungry so often
which needs…which needs.

Do not starve the mouth.
It has no kiss to protect it.
Do not starve the mouth.

 Lime Slush

THE NECESSITY OF BLACKBERRIES

(This has nothing to do with the sonnet of
blackberry eating—the old thrill of sunlight
on the passion of berries :
the taste,
like something forbidden,
the stain on the mouth,
the hands,
the clothing,
the child who will live
because of blackberries, wild and wonderful.)

When I lie, I lie deeply :

This is about blackberries—
where they grow,
and what they know,
though I question this.
We are here for each other,
rare as life,
with its seasons, and completions,
and beginnings—meaning what it means,
since we need meaning
and offer it when needed— 
and after blackberries, why we hunger so.

 Bellie-Jellies

TIME OF PLENTY

Banana skin flowers,
limp and brown as the wilt
of yesterday’s hunger,

lie in disarray,
a discarded bouquet
from yesterday’s feast.

That was a yellow time,
ripe in the over-indulgence
of our taste

and good . . .
and so good . . .
too bad we must waste

the bright petals too
that fold down
in such squander.
              

(first pub. in Atom Mind 7, 1970)

 Oreo Centers

THE LIGHT-FILLED FLOWERS   

Sweet cups of brimming light—and should we drink
from all the goblet-flowers of this place,
would we, like Alice,  grow in size—or shrink—
lose our senses—feel ourselves erase . . . ?
Oh, careful one, how pale you turn to think
I’d poison you by urging you to taste  
such heady light—intoxicate your soul—
risk some addiction you could not control.

 Snow Cones

One summer more
After Charles Demuth, Plums, 1925

and the plum tree
weights its heavy branches down.
the plums too tight together,

and too high. Each year
another branch breaks
and the plums fall to the ground

Much is remembered and expected
of the taste of plums :
one sweet bite,

before the sour taste within.
These are not plums for the finicky;
these plums are meant for jam,

or wine
and have no further use
except for the birds. 

 Marshmallow Melt

POEM FOR SPILLED WINE

The page, half-purpled with spilled wine,
assumes significant design
for the poem.

And the pale, non-color of each word
transcends the shallow meaning, blurred
by truer tone.

And you, my clumsy reader, flush
and jump the blot the noisy hush
of your chagrin.

But words must wear whatever taste
our living spills on them—we waste
no metric stain.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A BREAK IN THE MONOTONY
—Joyce Odam

Each night they share the chocolate—after dinner,
when they claim their separate chairs and prepare
for the boredom of comfort, when their differences
bring them together in the ritual truce of sharing
something rich and sweet.

____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her poems and artwork exploring the sweet-and-sour—just like The Candy Store, our Seed of the Week. Our new Seed of the Week is Heat Wave. 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, celebrating those sweet murmurations…

 Plums, 1925, by Charles Demuth
For more about Demuth and his work, see 

www.theartstory.org/artist-demuth-charles.htm/.

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