A Dangerous World
—Poetry and Original Art by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
EARLY DARK
walking downtown
dark at six o’clock
a mild winter evening
just early enough yet
for hotel boys to be out
on roller blades and bikes
and lone men ambling by
with hands in their pockets
and you and I looking for
a restaurant we heard about
the car six blocks away
too late now I think of
the money in my purse…
stories of murders…
a dangerous world…
walking downtown
dark at six o’clock
a mild winter evening
just early enough yet
for hotel boys to be out
on roller blades and bikes
and lone men ambling by
with hands in their pockets
and you and I looking for
a restaurant we heard about
the car six blocks away
too late now I think of
the money in my purse…
stories of murders…
a dangerous world…
(first pub. in Parting Gifts, 1998-99)
The Stars
Drawing the moon to me,
for its strength,
drawing the night around me,
for a cape with pockets of stars.
I have heard that the moon is lonely.
Lovers have told me this.
The moon has not so conspired.
It is not for loneliness that I am devoid
of light and texture—of light and
dark meanings—secrets of the self.
The moon in my hands
has closed it eyes and become two.
I hold it from breaking.
The sky waits for me
to let it go—
to let it just drift back into place.
The wall behind me is window now.
My hands are still shaping the moon.
It is still asleep. The sky pulls.
I can feel my hands letting go.
The globe I use for a model is perfectly round
and balanced in this room of world and ambition.
____________________
I WILL GIVE YOU THAT BUTTERFLY
What gift
shall I give you :
I will give you
that butterfly
that takes its rest on the flower.
The butterfly is not mine
but I will give it to you.
I will give you the flower too.
And the sweet air around it.
And the earth I pull it from.
These are not mine to give
but
I will put all this in your hand
or in your pocket
or in your eyes.
I will give you anything
in the name of love.
(first pub. in Yes A Magazine of Poetry, 1971)
Practicing Her Look
USEFULNESS
I am an old rag.
Come wear me.
Let me fit my holes
over your openings.
Put yourself in my pockets.
Read the notes there.
I am faded,
yes.
I am a rag of some
favorite garment that I was.
I tear
with each use.
I stain
with all I do.
But I can be useful
yet.
Here, let me wipe your counter.
Let me shine your shoe.
(first pub. in Paisley Moon, 1990)
Thinking
FOR THE APPLAUSE
He is doing pratfalls.
He is wriggling his mustache and
walking like Charlie Chaplin.
He is googling his eyes.
His clothes are baggy and
he pulls his pockets out
to show his emptiness.
He’ll be anything to make you laugh:
the butt of every joke;
a sad drunk; a wishful lover;
a hungry person—
pantomiming his real life.
He close-ups toward
the camera,
looks in
and acts surprised to see you there,
grows shy
and hobbles away,
falling again,
this time into a pie.
He pulls the meringue away from his eye
with an index finger, tasting it,
so glad to be fed. He grins.
You laugh at him.
___________________
FROM PURSE TO PURSE
She takes this old purse to empty it. Oh, what it holds :
years of wrinkle and crumple—notes and reminders all
clipped together or wrapped up tightly in rubber bands.
All that business, stuffed-in against the darkening leather
that sours and molds, everything kept together for the
handiness. She has so many errands, so many appointments,
so many lists and telephone numbers—the coins that slip
down among the receipts—the keys that fit the guarded
locks of necessity—too important to lose.
Her Eyes
SOLARIZED
And now she stands
in shimmering silver light,
seeming to drown
in wet air—solarized—
looking off
into moody nowhere,
her long coat hanging
long and white,
her hands in her pockets.
Her car breathes
meltingly beside her.
The world has gone wavy.
Behind her, the drowning trees
suffocate into pulling,
emptying skies.
She leans for a balance
between movements of sound
that are becoming screams—
perhaps from those scream-birds,
invisible in the trees.
Where will she go now? If only
we could see her eyes.
___________________
THE RITUAL OF MOURNING
Leaning in black dresses against black chairs,
the smell of candles in the parlor.
A black and white depiction
of grief and grief’s despair.
A priest with a long face and a black robe,
staring. A pocket watch
in the hand of someone—who, is not clear,
but may be death.
However grim this appears, there is
respect for the ritual for the one who is not there.
Self
SELFNESS
Here we go hungering after life again,
despite certain hallways and dark-hung mirrors
where we continually walk toward
and through ourselves
as if the walls never taught us
anything. The least structure failure
and we lose who we are,
depending on memory to recreate us.
Each day is like this,
created and uncreated,
life after life, learning the maze of resistance
which is our illusion of difficulty.
We have not been here before,
though part of it seems familiar.
We trust anew, and mistrust eventually.
Why are we singular and not blent
as the smug words say—part of
a single consciousness?
Though I try to enter your space of being,
I feel my difference. I am blocked by my selfness.
I can only imagine you.
Our thoughts combine, and what was confusion
is now love, though we destroy it
with our inability to know, and be known.
Hungry for touch, we reach
and recoil. What is that sensation
that it devours us with such desperation?
______________________
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)
_____________________
Success! I survived the surgery and am good to go, so far, at least. Many thanks to Joyce Odam for her poems and original art this morning! (Notice how she cleverly slips our Seed of the Week, “Pockets”, into her poems.)
Our new Seed of the Week is Lost at Sea. (As always, think metaphorically. It seems like the whole world is “lost at sea” right now.) 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.
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, mostly adrift ~~~
"I will give you that butterfly..."
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