We're Talking About Weeds Here
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
THE SPIRAL
Once more we enter the spiral
that whirls us inward
and down
into the coil
of invisible dark
that we expect, through the
heart, bitter with love,
and the eyes that pool—
and there we are
in another whirlpool
winding
downward
through the resisting center.
So many depths to pass through,
each one a condition of time
that stays unaccountable—
we can never recall
the return of all such promise—
erased
it seems by our
need to test once more
the spiral with its sweet vertigo
which now has become
an addiction needing us as well.
THEIR HISTORY
They were lovers, though they had never met.
One was cruel, the other had a heart as soft as
need; their paths would never cross; their
children would be born to others, theirs was
a tragedy that would never happen. Once, they
met in mirrors—a glance that would let itself
be distracted—that would enter other mirrors
and allow them to miss each other. They would
always regret this, would tell it as a sad part of
their lives. They even had a song for it that kept
their love alive—they would look off into the
distance—they even betrayed each other
—and never forgave.
________________________
THE KEPT MIRROR
This is the mirror my husband shot
when he was careless, or angry, or thought
perhaps I had betrayed him and caught
my image in his sights and wrought
symbolic vengeance there. I don’t know what
to say of it—why we keep it—surely not
my obsession with this torn glass. It’s got
so I love to look in it; I ought
to pull my face away. We never fought
after that—just bore the silent, hot,
look of his stare, and my stare back, an old plot :
what he delivered—what I never bought.
He likes to stand behind me. There’s a lot
more to this than this small, round dot
in the center of this mirror that my husband shot.
A LOVE POEM
A woman made of snow cannot love a man of fire,
with all the difference that will torture them
with harsh desire.
A man of snow with all his melting ways,
his summer moods, will always blame
a woman without praise, who also broods.
Alas again, for all inequities by which
imbalances betray. Take music, or take silence;
expect of this what words can never say.
The hollow heart will echo till it fails. What has
abandoned it? Why can’t it listen? It gave and gave
and gave, and gave again, and nothing back will give.
How selfish are the sufferers who have no right to woe.
How helpless, too, the inability of sympathy
to ease a single throe.
Words are useless—fire and snow—
a window placed between a love that streams and ends
at last as rain—the tears love comes to know.
______________________
WANTING TRUTH
You see these scars, the way they dramatize
my beauty and my age, the way they shine
against the softest light when I implore
toward all those who stare—who will believe
what they believe of scars? I can’t explain.
I simply woke one year and they were there,
all healed, but sensitive to certain touch,
the way they ache when I am cold, or scared,
as if some memory still works its way
toward the obvious—or better yet—
the lurid-gossip of some history
that some suppose. I simply own these scars.
Whatever life inflicts is what they mean—
whatever I have suffered or suppressed—
or given up as sacrifice—or turned
away from some destruction that I sought
when I betrayed myself—oh, long ago
before my mirror pulled against my life—
though not with vanity, but with some truth
of having learned what one can never learn
except for scars. I’m not ashamed—or proud—
I simply own them. How they mesmerize
my staring when I study them and wonder
why I never noticed them before. What scars?
What scars? You ask. What scars? Why these,
these long white marks that crisscross everywhere,
that raise and pucker—that never will lie smooth
beneath my eyes that see—my hands that touch—
these scars. And you—now that you see them too,
you turn away. Your hand recoils, your eyes
avert, and you have nothing more to say.
You wanted love. You wanted truth. And, yes,
you even wanted me—but not with scars.
PAISLEY
They had ordinary names, the kind you never remem-
ber; and their lives were ordinary, uneventful lives—
not the stuff of novels—just small stories, with little
morals in conclusion, like childhood at its dearest.
And they could be counted on for sameness. Careful
was their direction, and Moderation was their theme.
Their ambitions were domestic; their undertakings not
beyond their means. They never coveted or blamed.
They barely loved, but it was comfortable.
Life was not Feast or Famine, and in their secret hearts,
it was the same—no great betrayal or despair to try to
fathom. Their illnesses were mild and common. Nothing
chronic. They liked classical music and they liked to
stare out windows at the weather.
They killed each other with kindness, finally; and I guess
that broke the pattern of their lives : They could not be-
lieve their grief—their great relief.
SCORE
the way we play
against Death
with all our charms
our arms held out
for holding
how empty they become
the way life moves through us
like a harm
beginning slowly
then all those years
gaining their soft momentum
crying into mirrors
taking pieces of laughter down
time after time
like finished pictures
of precious calendars
oh, we are not to blame
life is blameless
we are all composed of error
used clay reformed
of thought and air
cold in the winter
because winter is so
synonymous with death
we know that
we fit together
in separate misery
betrayed
abandoned
unforgiving
our own error-choices
put away
in little memory boxes
our bones vibrating with effort
shall we dance
oh, what a complicated harmony
we have become
shall we dance
another music has begun
(prev. pub. in Coffee and Chicory, 1997)
LOVE STORY :
After Green Landscape by Marc Chagall, 1949
Call it green, like youth,
like love before it betrays itself,
like any place together or apart—
like any sentiment
before it turns to cynicism,
or the bitter taste that will be next.
Erase this from your heart—you have
a chance—impossible at best—despite all
love’s disclaimers who will preach and preach.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
SILENCE
—Joyce Odam
I talk again to old blue stones
that don’t respond, but shift and stare
from their blue depth, deflecting light
as secretive as what I write—
with all the meanings hidden where
nothing betrays… nothing atones…
(prev. pub. on Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/16)
_____________________
Joyce Odam is talking to us today about love and our Current Seed of the Week: Betrayal, with its ups and downs and “crying into mirrors”. Thank you, Joyce, and thanks for the flowers masquerading as weeds—or is it the other way around?
Our new Seed of the Week is Clowns. What do you think? Creepy? Cuddly? (Check out this article from 3 years ago in Santa Clara: signalscv.com/2016/10/hart-district-bans-clown-costumes-following-nationwide-creepy-clowns-scare/)… then ponder your stance on clowns, or tell about clowns you’ve known, for better or worse, or whatever about clowns, and 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.
And don’t forget to put on your poet’s cap and think in metaphors! Not all clowns wear clown suits, you know…
For upcoming poetry readings and workshops available online while we stay at home, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
____________________
—Medusa
Once more we enter the spiral
that whirls us inward
and down
into the coil
of invisible dark
that we expect, through the
heart, bitter with love,
and the eyes that pool—
and there we are
in another whirlpool
winding
downward
through the resisting center.
So many depths to pass through,
each one a condition of time
that stays unaccountable—
we can never recall
the return of all such promise—
erased
it seems by our
need to test once more
the spiral with its sweet vertigo
which now has become
an addiction needing us as well.
Weed Bouquet
THEIR HISTORY
They were lovers, though they had never met.
One was cruel, the other had a heart as soft as
need; their paths would never cross; their
children would be born to others, theirs was
a tragedy that would never happen. Once, they
met in mirrors—a glance that would let itself
be distracted—that would enter other mirrors
and allow them to miss each other. They would
always regret this, would tell it as a sad part of
their lives. They even had a song for it that kept
their love alive—they would look off into the
distance—they even betrayed each other
—and never forgave.
________________________
THE KEPT MIRROR
This is the mirror my husband shot
when he was careless, or angry, or thought
perhaps I had betrayed him and caught
my image in his sights and wrought
symbolic vengeance there. I don’t know what
to say of it—why we keep it—surely not
my obsession with this torn glass. It’s got
so I love to look in it; I ought
to pull my face away. We never fought
after that—just bore the silent, hot,
look of his stare, and my stare back, an old plot :
what he delivered—what I never bought.
He likes to stand behind me. There’s a lot
more to this than this small, round dot
in the center of this mirror that my husband shot.
Species
A LOVE POEM
A woman made of snow cannot love a man of fire,
with all the difference that will torture them
with harsh desire.
A man of snow with all his melting ways,
his summer moods, will always blame
a woman without praise, who also broods.
Alas again, for all inequities by which
imbalances betray. Take music, or take silence;
expect of this what words can never say.
The hollow heart will echo till it fails. What has
abandoned it? Why can’t it listen? It gave and gave
and gave, and gave again, and nothing back will give.
How selfish are the sufferers who have no right to woe.
How helpless, too, the inability of sympathy
to ease a single throe.
Words are useless—fire and snow—
a window placed between a love that streams and ends
at last as rain—the tears love comes to know.
______________________
WANTING TRUTH
You see these scars, the way they dramatize
my beauty and my age, the way they shine
against the softest light when I implore
toward all those who stare—who will believe
what they believe of scars? I can’t explain.
I simply woke one year and they were there,
all healed, but sensitive to certain touch,
the way they ache when I am cold, or scared,
as if some memory still works its way
toward the obvious—or better yet—
the lurid-gossip of some history
that some suppose. I simply own these scars.
Whatever life inflicts is what they mean—
whatever I have suffered or suppressed—
or given up as sacrifice—or turned
away from some destruction that I sought
when I betrayed myself—oh, long ago
before my mirror pulled against my life—
though not with vanity, but with some truth
of having learned what one can never learn
except for scars. I’m not ashamed—or proud—
I simply own them. How they mesmerize
my staring when I study them and wonder
why I never noticed them before. What scars?
What scars? You ask. What scars? Why these,
these long white marks that crisscross everywhere,
that raise and pucker—that never will lie smooth
beneath my eyes that see—my hands that touch—
these scars. And you—now that you see them too,
you turn away. Your hand recoils, your eyes
avert, and you have nothing more to say.
You wanted love. You wanted truth. And, yes,
you even wanted me—but not with scars.
Honestly
PAISLEY
They had ordinary names, the kind you never remem-
ber; and their lives were ordinary, uneventful lives—
not the stuff of novels—just small stories, with little
morals in conclusion, like childhood at its dearest.
And they could be counted on for sameness. Careful
was their direction, and Moderation was their theme.
Their ambitions were domestic; their undertakings not
beyond their means. They never coveted or blamed.
They barely loved, but it was comfortable.
Life was not Feast or Famine, and in their secret hearts,
it was the same—no great betrayal or despair to try to
fathom. Their illnesses were mild and common. Nothing
chronic. They liked classical music and they liked to
stare out windows at the weather.
They killed each other with kindness, finally; and I guess
that broke the pattern of their lives : They could not be-
lieve their grief—their great relief.
Fragile
SCORE
the way we play
against Death
with all our charms
our arms held out
for holding
how empty they become
the way life moves through us
like a harm
beginning slowly
then all those years
gaining their soft momentum
crying into mirrors
taking pieces of laughter down
time after time
like finished pictures
of precious calendars
oh, we are not to blame
life is blameless
we are all composed of error
used clay reformed
of thought and air
cold in the winter
because winter is so
synonymous with death
we know that
we fit together
in separate misery
betrayed
abandoned
unforgiving
our own error-choices
put away
in little memory boxes
our bones vibrating with effort
shall we dance
oh, what a complicated harmony
we have become
shall we dance
another music has begun
(prev. pub. in Coffee and Chicory, 1997)
What It Is
LOVE STORY :
After Green Landscape by Marc Chagall, 1949
Call it green, like youth,
like love before it betrays itself,
like any place together or apart—
like any sentiment
before it turns to cynicism,
or the bitter taste that will be next.
Erase this from your heart—you have
a chance—impossible at best—despite all
love’s disclaimers who will preach and preach.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
SILENCE
—Joyce Odam
I talk again to old blue stones
that don’t respond, but shift and stare
from their blue depth, deflecting light
as secretive as what I write—
with all the meanings hidden where
nothing betrays… nothing atones…
(prev. pub. on Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/16)
_____________________
Joyce Odam is talking to us today about love and our Current Seed of the Week: Betrayal, with its ups and downs and “crying into mirrors”. Thank you, Joyce, and thanks for the flowers masquerading as weeds—or is it the other way around?
Our new Seed of the Week is Clowns. What do you think? Creepy? Cuddly? (Check out this article from 3 years ago in Santa Clara: signalscv.com/2016/10/hart-district-bans-clown-costumes-following-nationwide-creepy-clowns-scare/)… then ponder your stance on clowns, or tell about clowns you’ve known, for better or worse, or whatever about clowns, and 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.
And don’t forget to put on your poet’s cap and think in metaphors! Not all clowns wear clown suits, you know…
For upcoming poetry readings and workshops available online while we stay at home, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
____________________
—Medusa
Green Landscape (Paysage Vert)
—Painting by Marc Chagall (1877-1985)
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.
—Painting by Marc Chagall (1877-1985)
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.