Only This Desire
—Poetry and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
FIRE DREAM
Do you thirst,
said the spectre—swimming before me—
my dream stretched out like a blanket afire,
the sky foreboding at the edge of the question.
I tried to answer, but the cup I held
kept spilling, and I could only watch the pouring.
Do you thirst,
said the spectre—swimming before me—
my dream stretched out like a blanket afire,
the sky foreboding at the edge of the question.
I tried to answer, but the cup I held
kept spilling, and I could only watch the pouring.
Sleeping Inwardly
CONCERNS
swimming into the mouth
of locked water
a young whale
finding the
shallow beach
at the end
and rocking itself
to death
against our helplessness
swimming into the mouth
of locked water
a young whale
finding the
shallow beach
at the end
and rocking itself
to death
against our helplessness
(prev. pub. in Parting Gifts, 1997)
Secret Meanings
NEGLECT
Whatever it was, it was.
No use lamenting.
It grew large with neglect,
flattened like a shadow
and bulged like a light.
It flung itself everywhere
and crashed into emptiness.
We had no use for it.
It was pathetic.
Did not fit anything.
It starved on purpose,
carried its awful eye
in its mouth
with an awful meaning.
It choked on our love,
so we quit loving.
We did not want guilt
to be a part of this.
We carried water to it
so it would drown,
but it just lay there
gasping, then swimming.
What we did not know
was what its hold on us
had become, how we
wore it like a secret
to secret meetings
where we talked about it
in secret whispers.
Always it welcomed us back
and wrapped itself around us
with shaking shoulders
for us to weep against.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)
___________________
YOUR FAMOUS REGRETS
Of your regrettings
there are two
that keep their hauntings:
one, frail blue,
and one as silent
as a clue
you re-examine
through and through
but all its details
hide from you . . .
it won’t remember
what it knew.
Whatever it was, it was.
No use lamenting.
It grew large with neglect,
flattened like a shadow
and bulged like a light.
It flung itself everywhere
and crashed into emptiness.
We had no use for it.
It was pathetic.
Did not fit anything.
It starved on purpose,
carried its awful eye
in its mouth
with an awful meaning.
It choked on our love,
so we quit loving.
We did not want guilt
to be a part of this.
We carried water to it
so it would drown,
but it just lay there
gasping, then swimming.
What we did not know
was what its hold on us
had become, how we
wore it like a secret
to secret meetings
where we talked about it
in secret whispers.
Always it welcomed us back
and wrapped itself around us
with shaking shoulders
for us to weep against.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)
___________________
YOUR FAMOUS REGRETS
Of your regrettings
there are two
that keep their hauntings:
one, frail blue,
and one as silent
as a clue
you re-examine
through and through
but all its details
hide from you . . .
it won’t remember
what it knew.
Inward Thought
SKY PUDDLE: A PERSPECTIVE
In a puddle of water—the sky—
clouds confined to this small rain lake,
the brief flight of gulls
that do not stir the surface,
that do not seem displaced or strange
though they fly upside down;
and vertigo is not the point of this—
that such a shifting vastness
can be caught—fragmentary
and deep—if one looks down to see—
and does not break
the image with their own reflected feet.
(In slight revision from publication in
Poets' Forum Magazine, 1996)
Inside the Illusion
THE SUBLIMITY
swimming underwater into
the dimension of green
into the world of no time but that of held breath
a whole length of effort continuing
beyond possibility
freed now from the difficult world of air
from the heaviness
. . . of . . . mortality . . .
swimming delirious
and . . . deep . . .
into the arms of hallucinated ones
who have drowned
who are there now beckoning . . . guiding . . .
and gesturing with the easiest of movements . . .
to . . . how far . . . and where . . .
the palaces are . . .
This Poem
THIS POEM, NOT MY OWN
Again I steal
words stolen by another—
recreate, rewrite, re-say.
Who will know,
recognize,
or challenge
this poem—
in all
its incarnations . . . . ?
Again I steal
words stolen by another—
recreate, rewrite, re-say.
Who will know,
recognize,
or challenge
this poem—
in all
its incarnations . . . . ?
The Transferred Dream
TRANSFORMATIONS
As I write this, you are treading the far cold light with
your patient body. You are in a golden sea that you
have dreamed. You have lit the whole dream of your
life with this swimming.
________________
I am sitting here, huddled in a long, dark winter. I am
reading the sea of words that you have spoken, but
they break as I read them—turning as brittle as my
drowning, uncomprehending eyes.
________________
Now you are huddled by a small fire you have made.
You are in a mountainous terrain where you love to be.
Your face is full of firelight. You feel the dark presence
of animals around you, but you are no longer a hunter.
________________
I am walking by the sea again. The sand is a soft blue
with little sparkles of gold. I am being gathered up by
the sound and reverberation until I feel I am turned into
shadow and realize this is how it was meant to be.
I sit down beside you—
breathing your emptiness.
Sea waves surge and surge
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
STORY
—Joyce Odam
You in your caves of light
and dark, swimming under-
water, holding your breath . . .
How deeply you entered
the breathing-holes of the sea
and, time-deprived, swam back . . .
_______________________
Joyce Odam has written to our Seed of the Week: “Taking the Plunge”, sending us poetic thoughts in various shapes and sizes, and always textures—water, fire, light, dark.
Our new Seed of the Week is "My Friend, the Darkness". 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.
Check out the Summer Solstice 2021 issue of Canary Magazine at canarylitmag.org/.
_______________________
—Medusa
As I write this, you are treading the far cold light with
your patient body. You are in a golden sea that you
have dreamed. You have lit the whole dream of your
life with this swimming.
________________
I am sitting here, huddled in a long, dark winter. I am
reading the sea of words that you have spoken, but
they break as I read them—turning as brittle as my
drowning, uncomprehending eyes.
________________
Now you are huddled by a small fire you have made.
You are in a mountainous terrain where you love to be.
Your face is full of firelight. You feel the dark presence
of animals around you, but you are no longer a hunter.
________________
I am walking by the sea again. The sand is a soft blue
with little sparkles of gold. I am being gathered up by
the sound and reverberation until I feel I am turned into
shadow and realize this is how it was meant to be.
I sit down beside you—
breathing your emptiness.
Sea waves surge and surge
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
STORY
—Joyce Odam
You in your caves of light
and dark, swimming under-
water, holding your breath . . .
How deeply you entered
the breathing-holes of the sea
and, time-deprived, swam back . . .
_______________________
Joyce Odam has written to our Seed of the Week: “Taking the Plunge”, sending us poetic thoughts in various shapes and sizes, and always textures—water, fire, light, dark.
Our new Seed of the Week is "My Friend, the Darkness". 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.
Check out the Summer Solstice 2021 issue of Canary Magazine at canarylitmag.org/.
_______________________
—Medusa
Summer's Here!
—Public Domain Illustration
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.
