An Illusion
—Poetry and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
ON PERFECTION
I have marred the page with my pencil,
made a rude mark
and reached for an eraser.
Now there is flaw and rectification.
Now there is penance and smug solution.
How easily we repair the damages :
a pencil mark of carelessness—
a pen
would have been fatal.
But the page leaves a scar,
wears a smudge of reproof.
I put a bookmark there.
The bookmark is a stare. It knows I am guilty,
will not let me get past this point of reading.
How careless I have become.
I have marred the page with my pencil,
made a rude mark
and reached for an eraser.
Now there is flaw and rectification.
Now there is penance and smug solution.
How easily we repair the damages :
a pencil mark of carelessness—
a pen
would have been fatal.
But the page leaves a scar,
wears a smudge of reproof.
I put a bookmark there.
The bookmark is a stare. It knows I am guilty,
will not let me get past this point of reading.
How careless I have become.
Winter View
MOODY AFTERNOON WITH PIANO AND CAT
I was bored with the light falling on the piano. I wanted
the music sheet to simply open—to be lazy—dwindled
out and long, and play the stared-at song.
And I wanted a door to close softly—like the perfect
ending to a song. But the light stayed—thick and dusty
in the heavy afternoon.
I was stuck in time’s slow meaning, staring at the dust
on the piano. And the cat jumped up onto the keys and
walked a tune across them.
I listened intently and the cat jumped down again,
and I loved the cat for its disturbance on my reverie.
And the light shifted,
and something moved across the room like a wet
shadow, and I knew I was weeping to myself again.
And the cat purred against my leg and meowed for my
attention, and the piano sank back into the wall as the
hour lengthened. And I guess I could have held the
mood a while longer—but it was over, and the cat won.
Broken Ice
GOLDEN SUNLIGHT ON THE STAIRS
line by line
the steps align
and the Ballerina
dances
on her
toes
and flings
her joyous arms about
and knows
and does not know
how the steps align
to keep her
in rhyme
in perfect pantomime
________________
BEHIND THE POSE
After Cristina Venedict, Drawing Love With Light
If only it were not so dark behind the pose
of the girl in the yellow hat
with the two red roses
tucked in at her waist,
her lax hands folded
and her face turned away—
so calm, so deeply calm
below her hat—we might
have believed her role of
lover, to perfect love
in return, but there
is no music or
change of mood,
her pose is broken
and her mind is sad,
as if she had never
lied or told the truth
or known the difference.
What can she prove to the mirror
made of time in reverse—her yesterday,
her yesterday. She was the light that love
remembered—dark was the price for anyone
who gave in to sadness and not to joy. Her mood
is insurmountable. And the artist is not to blame.
Thaw
CHARADE
If a perfect rose is not enough beautification for
your shoulder what must you lose of love with
its wanting—your long look down your arm to-
ward the floor, your eyes so terrible with loss
and waiting for the background to overtake you—
what use memory that saddens and holds—what
use this worrisome glitch of time with its cutting
symbol of mockery. The rose is beautiful—will
wilt. He’s gone.
Design No. Zero
THE LEAVES IN JAMES WRIGHT’S
BOOK OF POETRY
I found the leaf in a book, pressed backwards,
tiny yellow veins defined against the
flattened green of broken outline.
Some keepsake memory,
brittle to the touch.
I did not want to take the leaf
from the page it came to know
nor deprive the page of the leaf—
what did I know of such undoing,
the other leaf waiting to be found,
the patient one—more perfect
than the first, all points intact.
Did the two leaves fall from the same tree?
I only wondered briefly—my admiration
was humble—my touch gentle—
such a strange reverence.
__________________
THE FABRICATED MUSE
(Poet and his muse, Omar Rayyan)
Never mind, Old Poet, your dream
still lives,
perfect and unsullied
as any desire
while
tenacious vine
climbs up your musing window
where you lean on your elbow
and sigh
and close your eyes
and sniff the air
and your conjured Muse
still hovers near
like a tiny hummingbird,
but your pen won’t move
and your thoughts won’t clear
though she strokes your dreaming ear
and whispers, write me . . . write me . . .
Snowflakes and Bonfire
LOOKING AT SNOWFLAKES*
In all things perfect
I becry my imperfection.
(As) in Multiples(s)
there is Singularity.
AI! I hurt with my unknowing.
How far to the edge of existence—
the abyss of time.
How fast they undefine,
the melting of snowflakes.
There now, the proof
of the inaudible questions.
(As) each snow flake is different—so the
individu(ality) of the human connection.
How eerily beautiful the object of the word
I try to write with the object in mind: snowflake.
The evolving of form into formlessness...
Six of six—spokes—
is part of the human design.
(The other has no claim in this.)
Why raise old questions as though for the first
time ever...? Is complexity simplicity?
Already the melting...
the feather falls...
Oh, now, speak of what you know.
Simplicity, Complexity : all questions.
How did the heart get loose from the center,
and the center hold?
Metallic to the eye—the solid form of water
caught in the snowflake.
Singling, into doubling, into tripling—
there—another three
in one.
Six roundings from six definitions—
sameness and difference.
Of snow flakes, which is more beautiful?
There is no more or less to snowflakes.
There is no stillness . . . slipping away . . .
even as you define it.
How can my eyes look away from this?
but time won’t let me.
Vertical or horizontal, placement is random.
There is no random.
The articulation of silence—
to imagine the melting snow flake.
Time Lapse: How can this be
when there is no time.
Is ‘thought’ better than words. I try
so hard to catch one with the other.
What is between the levels of the changes?
My mind goes dizzy with the comprehension.
Does water remember itself as
anything else... as rain... as snow...?
If one is perfections as it melts, does
the perfection become less?
Page by page I am coming near—
nearer to what I am wanting to know.
Before and after as one, as one,
the melting
What is nothing—this turning into—
this evolution—as memory only.
Source—negligible with comprehension,
abstract belief—thought as snow flake.
How solid, how geometric, less than an
instant, more than all time...
Why have these thoughts...these questions... (?)
Tentacles of light, even now, reaffirming.
The graceful tilt of perfection, altering
as you admire, too fast, too slow.
*NOTE: About “Looking at Snowflakes”: These are reflections/responses upon looking through a book of breathtaking micro-photos of snowflakes (a must-see!): Snowflakes: Featuring the Amazing Micro-Photography of Kenneth Libbrecht. (ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-3498-0, Voyageur Press, 2008)
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
MAN DROWNING IN HIS REFLECTION
—Joyce Odam
what
turned
him—
waist-deep
in the cold gray water
arms upstretched
to the sky-grayness—
feeling his perfect stillness
his perfect reflection—
losing shape now
sky and water enveloping
____________________
Joyce Odam is reflecting on reflections on this Groundhog Day—which is close enough, I guess, to Punxatawny Phil seeing his shadow. Or not. Thank you, Joyce, for these and for, of course, your thoughts about our Seed of the Week, Six Perfect Snowflakes. February is upon us!
Our new Seed of the Week is Puppies. 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.
Our apologies to Caschwa for yesterday’s error in not properly crediting his photo of Atlas. The fine photo was of his own doing, and not public domain.
And a note that the Poetry Box Chapbook Contest for 2021 is now open for submissions. Go to thepoetrybox.com/the-poetry-box-chapbook-prize-2021?mc_cid=9cf617d2e3&mc_eid=b02a0f9fa2 for guidelines and submissions info. Deadline is the end of February.
___________________
—Medusa
In all things perfect
I becry my imperfection.
(As) in Multiples(s)
there is Singularity.
AI! I hurt with my unknowing.
How far to the edge of existence—
the abyss of time.
How fast they undefine,
the melting of snowflakes.
There now, the proof
of the inaudible questions.
(As) each snow flake is different—so the
individu(ality) of the human connection.
How eerily beautiful the object of the word
I try to write with the object in mind: snowflake.
The evolving of form into formlessness...
Six of six—spokes—
is part of the human design.
(The other has no claim in this.)
Why raise old questions as though for the first
time ever...? Is complexity simplicity?
Already the melting...
the feather falls...
Oh, now, speak of what you know.
Simplicity, Complexity : all questions.
How did the heart get loose from the center,
and the center hold?
Metallic to the eye—the solid form of water
caught in the snowflake.
Singling, into doubling, into tripling—
there—another three
in one.
Six roundings from six definitions—
sameness and difference.
Of snow flakes, which is more beautiful?
There is no more or less to snowflakes.
There is no stillness . . . slipping away . . .
even as you define it.
How can my eyes look away from this?
but time won’t let me.
Vertical or horizontal, placement is random.
There is no random.
The articulation of silence—
to imagine the melting snow flake.
Time Lapse: How can this be
when there is no time.
Is ‘thought’ better than words. I try
so hard to catch one with the other.
What is between the levels of the changes?
My mind goes dizzy with the comprehension.
Does water remember itself as
anything else... as rain... as snow...?
If one is perfections as it melts, does
the perfection become less?
Page by page I am coming near—
nearer to what I am wanting to know.
Before and after as one, as one,
the melting
What is nothing—this turning into—
this evolution—as memory only.
Source—negligible with comprehension,
abstract belief—thought as snow flake.
How solid, how geometric, less than an
instant, more than all time...
Why have these thoughts...these questions... (?)
Tentacles of light, even now, reaffirming.
The graceful tilt of perfection, altering
as you admire, too fast, too slow.
*NOTE: About “Looking at Snowflakes”: These are reflections/responses upon looking through a book of breathtaking micro-photos of snowflakes (a must-see!): Snowflakes: Featuring the Amazing Micro-Photography of Kenneth Libbrecht. (ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-3498-0, Voyageur Press, 2008)
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
MAN DROWNING IN HIS REFLECTION
—Joyce Odam
what
turned
him—
waist-deep
in the cold gray water
arms upstretched
to the sky-grayness—
feeling his perfect stillness
his perfect reflection—
losing shape now
sky and water enveloping
____________________
Joyce Odam is reflecting on reflections on this Groundhog Day—which is close enough, I guess, to Punxatawny Phil seeing his shadow. Or not. Thank you, Joyce, for these and for, of course, your thoughts about our Seed of the Week, Six Perfect Snowflakes. February is upon us!
Our new Seed of the Week is Puppies. 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.
Our apologies to Caschwa for yesterday’s error in not properly crediting his photo of Atlas. The fine photo was of his own doing, and not public domain.
And a note that the Poetry Box Chapbook Contest for 2021 is now open for submissions. Go to thepoetrybox.com/the-poetry-box-chapbook-prize-2021?mc_cid=9cf617d2e3&mc_eid=b02a0f9fa2 for guidelines and submissions info. Deadline is the end of February.
___________________
—Medusa
Phil needs to join Weight Watchers.
For more about Groundhog Day, see
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.
