Tiddlywinks
—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
BELL DITTY
pair a bell
pare a bell
parable
tell truth without truth
bell words
are a knell
knell , knell
is to tell
a parabelle
tell it to the sky
that trembles
for the bell
I can tell it
now , how it rings ,
how the bell rings
when the voice sings
tell it well ,
be the knell : parable
__________________
INFLICTIONS
Did what we could, but who knows what to say at times
like this. Poor Martha, sitting with her back to the wall
again, twisting tissue in her lap, and poor grim Arthur
dangling out there with his fingers gripping the window-
ledge—each needing more help than the other.
But he wouldn’t yell for help—not grim Arthur, not to
frozen Martha—deaf and without a shred of sympathy.
And this time it had gone on for weeks. They took turns
being silent and screaming at each other—that was their
way, their lives going on around them—as if all this were
usual, like a season—and it was. We brought out all the
old advice each time we came by, checking to see if they
were still okay.
It’s winter again, and the window stays open between
them, Arthur looking down, and looking in, and Martha
sitting helpless to the wall. But it’s no use—they don’t
know how—or maybe they could surrender all their tired,
and stubborn, love-fraught tragedy. Oh well.
Detour Flashback
THE LINGERING WOMEN
These women, of such secrets, lounge in luminous white
chairs in the twilight and speak softly among themselves
and gesture with quickened lyrical motions of their hands.
Their features grow dim and their voices continue under
the slanting and changing of the hours. Their houses are
waiting but their houses are only the shells of their lives.
The women shine softer as random flickerings find them
laughing and talking in the shivery dusk. How long they
will stay depends on how much more they have to say.
A Horde of Marbles
ON DREAMS
After Birds and Flowers
by Shen Chuan (ca. 1682-1760):
Two Butterflies on Lilies
At night, on the dream river,
where has sleep taken me?
What is meant by waking?
I have been of two lives—
bewildered in both.
At night—on the dream river,
I meet another self,
with passage between the two.
Then what is meant by waking?
If one becomes the stronger,
does one release the other,
created by night’s twisting river?
Should I not want to return,
would something still hold me?
What, then, is meant by waking?
If I had a choice,
would something relinquish me?
At night—on the disturbed river—
would there be a waking?
Birthday Cake
TUBULAR
I
Which side is which to which
of the perception?
Words float through lines
in audible silence.
The reader reads and is informed :
II
Let me follow the words that blur
as I read them—doubling for
difficulty.
I must not be too literal here,
I must honor the mystery.
III
Someone has discovered a truth
and would share it,
but it shifts as I listen.
Words like twisted, and broken,
are placed against
a simpler word for comparison.
Random lines scribble and scribble
in broken direction. The original
thought is twisted as a challenge.
IV
I am in this : the artist/author
has seen to that. He would
involve me as co-conspirator.
_________________
WRUNG
your cry
on the soft darkness
your tears
in a tight handkerchief
making the rain
such sorrow
(first pub. in Paisley Moon, 1991)
Morphology
WHY MELT
Why melt when sorrow loves you like that,
like blithering rain, or withering pain, like
that—trying to abstain—make sense, go
splat—all over again—life is like that,
a wheel, and a stain, on a wall, or a
floor—stutter no more, it doesn’t
become... you are no more than,
what a shame, glorious sorrow
fit for singing, something like
that... something like wrong...
finger-nail-scraping down a
wet window full of life’s
pitiless rain—oh you—
oh you—I know how
you feel, I—like you
a commiserate stain,
the bearer of pain...
Marbles vs. Checkers
TO MYSELF
Who is Joyce, who is she,
with her stumble of words,
her clumsy language?
Look, she is all un-
gathered again,
mended so temporarily
in one first mirror.
Stepping away, look how she
stutters apart,
sending little nervous glances
in all that glass.
Oh, she has something to say.
Oh, she is opening her mouth.
Oh, a moth flies in.
Tell us about gray, then;
tell us about soft suffocation
on the tongue.
Well, her eyes are sufficient,
I suppose;
they are rather like candles.
But the moth has died.
(first pub. in The California
Quarterly, 1974)
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
TONGUE-TWISTER
(Courtesy: Long Ago High School Days,
try at your own risk)
I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit,
Upon the slitted sheet I sit.
—Joyce Odam (with apologies)
___________________
Thank you to Joyce Odam for her fine poems and artwork today, fiddling around and teasing our tongues with sound and form, and even playing around with punctuation. Her “On Dreams” is an unrhymed Villanelle—a Villanelle (www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/villanelle), except that it is, well, unrhymed.
Our new Seed of the Week is The Perfect Gift. 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, quoting Joyce: “when the voice sings, tell it well…”
Tongue-tripping through a trio of tall trees
—Anonymous Photo
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.