Treasures

 

Wanting

—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE BAKERY AT NIGHT

Hungry, we smelled the bread. The breeze
opened up. We followed, tried to find the source,
no bakery anywhere, only the open windows of air.

We followed the sensuality of yeast,
the air took on a tawny color. Our eyes became
as dark as poppy seeds. We tried to hurry.

After a long time we came to an empty plate
left on an old tablecloth covered with ants
and fallen leaves. The scent was here.

We heard voices off in a small distance,
and laughter, followed the sound and came
upon ourselves in an intimate embrace,

savoring a perfect moment
before we had to go back to some forgotten
hunger—some unresolved beginning.

 

 

 

Virtual Meaning

 

 

THE BILLBOARD ADVERTISEMENT

He is painting the universe with his eyes. He is
making things come true—the long far visions
that arrive blind—the birds that fly into his shoes.
The way he turns his head to perfect every detail
suggests what a perfectionist he is, though he
risk the vertigo or misunderstanding of his pose.
He is almost through—what he sees is good—a
billboard bought by a millionaire, what it says is
true : the people who look up at it from their
moving cars at the end of the day will buy.

 

 

 

Vase Without Flowers

 

LISTENING TO CHOPIN ON A GRAY DAY

I play Chopin—over and over—
all morning, and into the afternoon,
and fall into some old time that was his,
and feel how sad such distances become,

to still connect, and to have made the
reach. I wonder about him—handsome,
so young, tubercular—a genius
on his way to early death—that stealer.

I feel the day as tenacious as that—
this day-long fog that sifts into mind and
mood, and sorts out the music of my bones.
I am in love with music that can use such gray

to enhance the misery of winter. He must
have felt the same cold about his shoulders,
in his composing hands, and thus created
what I listen to today, hour after hour,

how I defeated, for awhile the Sacramento
Tule fog that stays and stays and stays.

____________________

OF YOUR LIFE:
(Reading Alain Bosquet)

A walk through the mystery that is sold here,
make it your own.

Buy it now
Pay any price. Take it home with you.  

It is real enough
to walk at your side like a beautiful woman.

Name it nostalgia; it will love you.

It will slip its arm around your waist
and walk in harmony with you.

It will not miss its show window where
it lived in admiration.

Name it souvenir.
It will be all you have to remember.

 

 

 

Coming to Terms

 

SHORTCUT THROUGH WINTER

The woman shopper
cuts through
the city’s graveyard,
pulling
a wheeled cart,
pulling her daily meaning
through the finished
leaves that break
beneath the mourn
of old, dark trees.
She does not look
at death
or its inscriptions—
she is too imminent
for that.
She walks in her own
tiredness
in the cold and stippled
sunshine,
thinking of supper.

                    
(first pub. in Folio, Winter, 1969)

 

 

 

Poverty

 

POVERTY

onion at three a.m.
heavy-scented
rotting in the sack
tracking it down
that sour spoiling thing
sentencing everywhere
with its ruin and its soft
that my hand must touch
and examine the others
next to it

and I think of how wasteful
all life is
and death is wasteful too
with its unconcern for
choosing what
on the outside
looks so fresh and firm
or deceptive age
which is well preserved

and what to do with it all
for it lingers so
in the bloated air
in the kitchen
where the use for it
was lax or slow
for we never mean to purchase
what we will not use
eventually
the way cooks do
who like to invent
their recipes
from what they have on hand

like the hearty pot of
onion soup
we could have had
simmering artfully
in winter’s house
on a particularly cold
and hungry night

______________________

PRIVATE MIRRORS

The way we love ourselves in our own mirrors,
friendly to us, liking how we look—
a kind of compromise—safe with each other,

no harsh distortion—no glaring truth
as public mirrors give.
I need to take my mirrors with me when I shop,

stand them around me when I try on clothes,
place random ones here and there for when
I catch myself passing.

Public mirrors, with their shock of recognition,
chide all vanity.
My private mirrors are quite used to me.

 

 

 

Truth and Lies

 

 

 

REMEDIES

This is how to relieve pain :
pinch yourself.

       ~

For tears, cry and buy
a pretty little jar to keep them in.

       ~

If you love,
enjoy it or regret it.

       ~

If you tell fortunes,
beware of other fortune-tellers.

                            
(prev. pub. in Poet News, 1989)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SHOPPING LIST
—Joyce Odam

laundry soap
brillo pads
tooth picks

and why not (a poem)

something to clean
something to rust
and something to

celebrate steak

      
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 2010)

____________________

Happy Day-After-Winter-Solstice 2020! Check it all out at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice/. Bay Area Editor Gail Entrekin writes that the Winter Solstice Issue of Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, published by Hip Pocket Press, is available at canarylitmag.org/.

Our thanks to the bountiful Joyce Odam for today’s poems and colorful photos! Today she muses about shopping, our most recent Seed of the Week. Now we shall set her (and the rest of you) loose on our new Seed of the Week: Treasures. 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

 

 

—Public Domain Illustration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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