Illusions of Death

 

Death Just Stares
—Poetry and Spring Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

DEATH OF A LANDSCAPE
(after “Draft of a Landscape” by Paul Celan)

Razed. Stricken. Dug up and abandoned.
Graves. Memory’s neglect.
Small histories of small lifetimes—
Here somewhere. Look for it.
Whatever you have lost.
Where is this place. It is cold.
It has no welcome.
It is a place without expectation.
Stones and ruts.
Here and there a weed.
That’s what you came to learn :

the tenacity of weeds
the patience of stones
the caution of ruts
the horizon cannot be reached
nor the end of day
the sky is a separate thing
you wish for a bird and a bird flies by
you are creating this, your own landscape.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)

 

 

 

We Talk of Dark

 

 

ON THE DEATH OF POETRY

We talk of light the way we talk of dark.
We mention gray twilights for compromise.
But really, it is only light and dark.

Our voices set against each other—shrill
and distant—our gestures rising in a dance,
intense with choreography.

Night flounders down
with clumsiness.  
We fold into its tangled garments and sleep.

                ~~~

I wake briefly to see someone searching
among us for whatever she has lost. She
picks up page after crumpled page and reads.
She nudges each of us with a question.

But that is not it. She picks up a child from
the center of us and carries it away with her.

                 ~~~

The window is full of birds. One of the birds
thinks up a song of pure senseless joy
and begins singing.

 

 

 

Bias

 

 

 

THE DEATH OF FOG

The sun is after us.
We are hidden in
the wet fog
but now a glow
begins.
We feel it grow
against our disbelief.
We are all misty
and made of
moleculed gray.
We cling to
everything we touch.
We move through
one another
as the dawn
moves through the night.
The sunlight burns.
We suffer light.
Death is
too much to hold.
We are squeezed dry.

(prev. pub. in Writer’s Showcase)

___________________

THE DREAMED DEATH        

we are the dreamed death . . . now we go
silently down old stairs and corridors,
now we go floating in and out of minds
that are terrified of us . . . we leave our
shadows there . . . we touch their eyes closed
and we whisper awful things to them . . .

                                                
(prev. pub. in The Lilliput Review, 1999) 

 

 

 

The Time of Place

 

 

 

DEATH OF THE CLOCK

After the moment has closed the hour
there will be no other.

The clock will close time
as we close a finished book.

We shall be caught in
some foolish moment of our doing :

raising a hand to strike,
breathing, chewing,

all the ticking in life
will stop,

and the eyes of the mind
have a final knowing :

no more metric feel, or sound,
or measure will be—

no deadline to hurry to, or miss—
except this one.

                                    
(prev. pub. in Cape Rock Quarterly, 1967
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 2013)

 

 

 

Keeping the Night

 

 

HE TAKES DEATH IN HIS ARMS

He takes death in his arms
and dances tenderly with her
in the shadowy drift back
through time’s numb music.

He loves her fraying memory,
the way she feels cold against
him, her heart to his heart,
one heart beating for both.

Death does not struggle nor
comply with his anguish, but
folds limply about him like a
thin layer of cloth in winter.

But he holds death in his arms
and speaks longingly to her, saying
her name, and what their connection
is. But death just stares

past his shoulder and catches
the sight of them in the mirror
that dizzies about them as he
circles the opposite direction.

Death does not remember him,
but she loves this dance,
and she loves this mockery of
conjured self in reaching glass.

____________________

THE ILLUSION OF DEATH

This is a time of place; we slip through hours
and shadows of ourselves like outdated guests.

We are enormous in the light of vast windows
that repeat our reflections as we scan the distances.

Birds with bent wings soar in our direction.
They are slow and deliberate. Their beaks shine.

But this is a place of time. We turn back to the rooms
we occupy. We look at each other then look away.

We go to the cages and enter. Sleep receives us. We are
in vast dream worlds, flying into windows of black glass.

Our wingtips shudder as we brace for the illusion of death.
In the morning we rise into sunlight, shining and happy.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2018)

 

 

 

Many of Us

 

SLEEPING TOWARD DEATH

I must not waken her from herself, this mother of sleep
who dreams so far away from me, sleeping toward death.
She lies with her face to the ceiling, under a flowered
sheet. I look in on her—yes, her quivering, soft stomach
is still breathing.

She sleeps later and later—on drifting mornings—on
slowing afternoons, needing more sleep than food. She
says her daily beer does not let her become dehydrated.
(She’s had a few.) It keeps her alive, she says. I’m glad
for this. She needs her sleep.

 

 

 

Acumen

 

 

 

OWNERSHIP

I, with my seven-minded horse,
go through the visions of its eyes.

How high the night.
We grip and ride.

Three ears east, we listen.
It is the light.

We make a silhouette
and define ourselves against the sky.

The horse dreams.
I guard its sleep.

Later it tells me :
One innocence. One flaw. One kind forgetfulness.

I am its strength,
it, my direction.

Sometimes we feast
on grass and rain.

The rest is hunger.
We are lean.

My mind is one.
The horse is free.

And always, it turns—just before
the fall from where I lead it.

Sometimes we fly,
but only after death.

The rest is sad :
capture and simple grazing.

 

 

 

Old Themes

 

 

DEATH’S LAST WORD

And now I face an ending not my own :
Today I saw a brown field full of crows
And yesterday the sky was full of gulls
I feel a contradictive undertone.

How can I be the one slow death abhors ;
The crows were stark as sadness, huddled there
The gulls just bright opinions of the air
As life is full of never-ending doors.

I turn away from all but death’s own room.
You turn to say the crows are just a curse—
The gulls for all their whiteness are much worse
—that all will end that ever was begun.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A DEATH IN MY MIRROR
—Joyce Odam

a death in my mirror
a face behind my face
for a moment frightened
to find itself in my eyes

_____________________

Good morning and many thanks to Joyce Odam for her poems today, as she works around our Seed of the Week: The Death of Spring. And those photos of hers! Explosions of color, right here in the heart of Spring!

The moon is full tonight; good night for all sorts of adventures… Our new Seed of the Week is just that: Stories of the Full Moon. Every poem is a story, right? Even if it has no plot. 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 the Farmers’ Almanac Full Moon Calendar 2021, including Native American names, go to www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-dates-and-times and scroll down.

For the poem, “Draft of a Landscape” by Paul Celan, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=32091/.

And remember: Medusa accepts poetry, art and photos that have been previously published, even in the Kitchen!

______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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