The Dark Dream
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
WHAT KEEPS ME AWAKE
From one moment to another, change :
Rain
Wind
Numbers clicking on the clock
The air in the room
Chill
The dog dreams on the foot of my bed
Making dream-sounds and movements
And does not know of the
Rain
Wind
Clock
Why can’t I sleep—is it the moon
Boredom
Hunger
Some old anxiety, some new concern
Is it the moon
Rain—I was not mistaken
The air opens
The world moves
Night is wet with shining puddles
(Does the weatherman know ?)
Were I not a page of silence
I might not know of this
I might not know what the clock knows
I might not listen as hard as I do
Where in the night
Does it say I must sleep
Where in the night
Does my meaning change
From one moment to another
THE WORLD IS MUCH TOO SLOW
WITH WAKING
and there is the white moon hanging
and a dark cat passing under,
prissy-footed in a stubble-field,
and a slow-motioned dog is barking,
far away it seems,
and the moon is sharp and full
and the cat is slowly stepping
through the shadows
and has almost reached the end now
and is just an abstract motion
in the field’s absorption
and the dog has hushed
and the moon has not quite paled
and the soft blue tone of morning
is just beginning
and a slight cold breeze
gets through as a crow takes
its dark silhouette across the window
and a long block away, across the field,
a jogger runs, tiny as a toy, and the cars
flow by him with their headlights on
and the spell is breaking
__________________
WANTING TO WRITE YOU A LETTER
Today the world is filling with white rain and a long gray
wind and birds with flashing wings and sharpened eyes.
And today the cold is moving in like an old guest, and
the light is thin at the windows, and there is much think-
ing to be done. Something is holding the world like a
cube of ice. And today the leaves, as at a signal, fall and
soften against the ground, and I want to write you a letter,
but a poem is trying to write me. And today, time shortens
itself into dark, and it is winter, and will be winter, until
winter must let go. And we wait for that—with a patience
earned and remembered. And here and there a flock of
words is trying to become a poem—and I know that if I
keep writing, one will come to me—and when it does, I
will send it to you.
Big World, All By Myself
IN MYSTERY
One cannot reconstruct,
the mind is locked,
lost in its mystery
which is sacred.
One cannot undo––the
thought is purely wrought
with option to believe,
or be suspicious of.
Thus is the rot
that fills the world with
evil––as god-given
as a holy curse––the
sinners named and locked
in the name as given––the sin
the forbidden difference
of the mind’s opinion.
Lavender and Green, In Collage
SOMETHING STAYS ALOOF, I SEEK
AND FOLLOW
Nothing is everywhere, it moans and listens.
It listens, along with me. We are attuned
and there is nothing everywhere.
Oh there were signs
and confusions one could follow
that had nothing to do with direction.
I have an obsession but cannot say
how dangerous the mind is in surrender.
Hear me through the distortion
of my explanation :
the day is filled with answer,
I bring my questions and my turbulations.
I dance to this, I writhe and bend with agony
and learn to suffer. My mind is flattening again,
still wanting, and still wanting—both are same,
same and different. When did sound become words,
how they misconstrue and blame.
Some words are powerful, some inane,
work against each other. Something stays
aloof, the very thing want needs.
How complicated now the sortings and
the findings. The eyes surrender.
Effort takes another misdirection. Everything
is plural. Nothing is everywhere, still advising.
__________________
PLACE
Where would I go to hide the self from its great care
—what Innisfree find
to simply love,
and be,
and heal
from the self
that I have made,
and has been made by others.
What mountain, or shore-place—or even city’s core
—what closet small enough
to brace against—
keep in,
keep out,
whatever I want.
Oh, the world is bleak and sore
and I bear all its wounds sometimes
and would heal somewhere in a safe place
of my choosing—hold myself there like a doll—
take myself inward until peace and balance
returned, and once more
thought would not destroy me.
Where?, I wonder, where could that be?
—that simple place that needs
my solitude—,
for I would be my own stone-tossed center
as my layers smoothed, and stillness happened.
In My Solitude
POLITICAL DISADVANTAGES
In the politics of love, there is no need for sorrow.
Take what you want and give it your blessing.
It is all earned. You deserve what you want
and your skill is praised. It is a war of win.
In the politics of sorrow, no favor is granted.
You are left alone with your soft pillow
and your tears;
your heart
burns
and words
smear on your mouth.
You have nothing left to give.
You will feel this way all your life.
In the politics of regret
there is no room for peace.
Your walls will be hung with reminders.
Love is an old word you’ll remember and remember.
The World At Attention
THE CONFUSION
“Zero Plus Anything Is A World”
—Jane Hirschfield
I am the world, as well as zero,
and I do not rue
or yield
the risk of this.
I always assign myself
to simple truth
lest I be stricken
to some ailment of the mind
in need of solace, if not love.
I only trust the self I can identify.
Why mis-perceive such matters.
I search the wonderings,
and find them vague.
I trust the way my mind is true—
true to my myth and not the rote
of absolute and only-proven fact—
faith is the haunt of everyone—
the war of difference ever lies between.
Part of the Theme
El-lip-ti-cal-i-ty, alas,
is worth the speak, of which,
much is much, and much more.
It has a squeak to the intimation—
spoke and spoken—
rather “in” than “inner”.
However, there is ever
a leak betwixt and between
the eves of time.
Ah, time that sweetens
with its own agenda,
which is love,
is always love
is always agenda—
however (once again)
is always smitten by regret.
Sometimes surrender.
All is not lost; all is only all.
The heart is always broken
and the soul is always at question.
Blame and innocence—
one looking for the others
in their duality—
oh, Sweet Life, you are your own
and you belong to us, your bearers.
Nothing is responsible.
God-knows the world is perfect
for awhile and then grows tired
and falls apart, and we, who
want to stay, must go . . .
goodbye . . . hello . . . to whatever else
is known or thought about. One, Two, and Three
always make a trio which is round, and only that.
____________________
PEACE BE TO THE MORNING
Peace be to the morning
with its cool announcement of arrival,
pale and thin, on wings of nothing . . .
And peace be to the fading of night
that takes away its dreaming and its sleep
or its long wakefulness . . .
Peace be to the mystery
of whatever is there— or not there—
that turns such pages . . .
Peace be to the memory
and the forgetting of all that needs to be
forgotten and remembered . . .
And peace be to the moment
trembling on the brink of the next one,
and to that mystery, peace, too . . .
(prev. pub. in Say Yes, 1999 and
A Sense of Melancholy,
Rattlesnake Chapbook Press #4, 2004)
Purity as Perfection
PATIENCE AS A VIRTUE
A sense of peace
comes over the day
from somewhere,
somewhere thru the streets
and din,
the hard to do, the hard to wait.
Waiting takes
all one can do on such days—
not knowing what else to do.
To do any less is what one must learn
until things get better, or come to term
with the way things are.
Even death takes its turn
and gives you all you need of life.
Here’s to life. Breathe deep and sigh.
____________________
WINDOW IN THE WILDERNESS
When the world is loved, and love is rain, and glass
is the name of truth and fantasy—both sides, out
and in—and light goes through, and glass receives,
returns, reflects itself. And time is soft, personified,
in what it holds—as memories made real again, or
kind forgetfulness, as shift of shadow, changed by dark,
or simple stare imagination’s pose. Perhaps the world
is what it is—ordained, or changed, or just a myth of
love’s sad claim. The world wants, and wants again
with old relentless faith that will persist, with eloquence,
or awkwardly. How best sustain a thought
like this? One hardly knows which way to hold the
night, or hold the day to let the glass be what it is—
transparent shield, on which the rain can see but not
get through the body’s light, the body’s dark, the
mind, protective of the heart, the soul untouched,
or touched too much. Why put a window
in the way of what the poem has tried to say.
_________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
AWAKE, MY LONELY SELF,
in the wide
and far-away
world
I
hear
and feel
in the waking
of my reluctance—
I am
as far and wide
as the dreaming
that dreams me awake
it is sun
and rain
soon
to rinse
the world of all its sorrow.
—Joyce Odam
__________________________
Joyce Odam has written to our complex Seed of the Week, Peace. Where or where could it be hiding?? Joyce has given us some ideas in her smooth, insightful poetry, and we shall continue to hunt for it, day by day… Thank you, Joyce! Peace be to the morning....!
This week’s Seed of the Week is Green. 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 Photo
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