Bird Feather, No Further Info
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
LOTTERY
Mother, today I bought a lottery ticket.
Do you
approve?
I, the disbelieving, pessimistic one,
need to move myself
into your direction of belief.
You always knew good things
would would come our way
if we just keep the faith.
Today I kept your clue—
allowed myself a little hope
to see how I would do with it.
The rule, you said, is in believing
you will win—not lose—it's in
the believing you will win . . .
and on that hope, I let myself
betray my wants and needs—
my many lacks and poverties
and bought a ticket for a buck.
I did not win, of course, but for awhile
I felt the ache of highest hope.
Mother, today I bought a lottery ticket.
Do you
approve?
I, the disbelieving, pessimistic one,
need to move myself
into your direction of belief.
You always knew good things
would would come our way
if we just keep the faith.
Today I kept your clue—
allowed myself a little hope
to see how I would do with it.
The rule, you said, is in believing
you will win—not lose—it's in
the believing you will win . . .
and on that hope, I let myself
betray my wants and needs—
my many lacks and poverties
and bought a ticket for a buck.
I did not win, of course, but for awhile
I felt the ache of highest hope.
Affirmation
PROMISES
Mother, I will put you
in a poem
with long corridors
and years
and you will have
anything you want and need
and I will be there with you
forever, if you want me there
and we will be halfway
between young
and never old
and we will laugh
at funny things discovered
and you will have good eyes
and many books to read
and crossword puzzles
and I will never
argue with you
or try to have my way
and, Mother,
I will let you have
my calendar to mark upon,
the way you do
first thing each morning,
marking off the day arrived
and what it holds for you.
(prev. pub. in Passager, 1991)
Away Is Not Far
ON EXPECTATIONS :
Signs that will take you
in wrong directions—
if you follow them
you will become lost;
the signs keep pointing out
places that have no destination,
like a town that is not there—
that was never there—
that was only a town of
your own making—and you
laid out the signs
you are trying to follow,
and the signs keep pointing
to the town that is not there.
The Breathing Tree
TEN
in the sky
like a high
promise made of sunset and
voice of, say, God, in his most
religious moment—shining there
like a private illusion, not at all (un)like
some Neon-Cloud Formation
made of pollution dust in a windless sky,
the ocean blazing beneath it
with shimmering red light from the
disappearing sun, and lapping against
the consciousness of everything
even the silhouette of the very earth…
the breathing trees… the (un)breathing stone
picked up at random and carried in a pocket,
where some divining hand can feel
the comfort of it—oh, sweet digression,
you have carried me away from
The Number In The Sky
which seemed so vain
with its self-congratulation—and was
so admired by the (un)discerning,
and the envious, like an ad for happiness :
Oh, One; Oh, Zero; Oh, Ten
_____________________
FIGMENT
After a Wayne Hogan drawing
a nude figure swimming in the black sea water of sleep,
a white glow moving in a slow direction, unhurried and
shimmering with dream distortion, afraid or not afraid—
it’s hard to see from this dimension, treading the black
and drifting sky so far above—our own lost moon shim-
mering there—beside him—in that glassy water
in the sky
like a high
promise made of sunset and
voice of, say, God, in his most
religious moment—shining there
like a private illusion, not at all (un)like
some Neon-Cloud Formation
made of pollution dust in a windless sky,
the ocean blazing beneath it
with shimmering red light from the
disappearing sun, and lapping against
the consciousness of everything
even the silhouette of the very earth…
the breathing trees… the (un)breathing stone
picked up at random and carried in a pocket,
where some divining hand can feel
the comfort of it—oh, sweet digression,
you have carried me away from
The Number In The Sky
which seemed so vain
with its self-congratulation—and was
so admired by the (un)discerning,
and the envious, like an ad for happiness :
Oh, One; Oh, Zero; Oh, Ten
_____________________
FIGMENT
After a Wayne Hogan drawing
a nude figure swimming in the black sea water of sleep,
a white glow moving in a slow direction, unhurried and
shimmering with dream distortion, afraid or not afraid—
it’s hard to see from this dimension, treading the black
and drifting sky so far above—our own lost moon shim-
mering there—beside him—in that glassy water
TIME-LAPSES
The way she was leaning against a tree, a scar of
sunshine on her mouth. You would have kissed her,
but she had just spoken a word and you had to answer.
In the next moment she was gone, though your
camera held her—you could revise her.
And then she was standing somewhere old, one hand
to her face, a fur of winter around her neck,
a man with a butterfly on his skin was with her.
But they were looking into the edge of their small
square place, which would never allow them
anything other than suffocation.
You walked right past them,
going home, in a slow, surrealistic manner,
and just then, she whispered what she knew,
and you answered what you believed,
and that is how long it took to change an ending.
The Weight of the Shadow
THE WOE-BIRD
After Man and Bird, 1963 by Henry Miller
The woe-bird sits on my shoulder at the mirror
to tell me its secrets, and I know I am privileged
to be of such trust. I love the bird for its candor and
feel it clutch deeper into my sleeve and become even
more earnest as it grows and grows, becoming heavy
with the burden of its secrets. I move to brush its feathers,
but the woe-bird shudders back as if to deny my
gesture. It tells me more . . . it tells me more . . .
until I know everything . . . makes me promise
not to tell a soul and fastens its claws even deeper,
shifting under its weight. I swear I will not tell and
put my hand to my aching shoulder and feel its claws
tighten there. The woe-bird gives me a mute, deep,
look and goes back to itself. And now I cannot
get rid of it. It stares back at me with an unresponsive
silence and preens and preens its feathers in the mirror.
Space
THE DOORWAY INTO LIGHT
After Loving Perspective, 1935, by René Magritte)
What burns in the air is light; it shapes itself to dark and
hovers there and cuts the day away to verify the perspec-
tives of Magritte. A tree of symbolism magnifies
until it is as simple as a child’s belief in art : one leaf be-
comes the whole tree and a building shrinks beside it,
white sky and white dimension glare and make
comparison to show the doorway into madness is not far.
Light burns with promise and the door repeats the shape
of leaf to shape perspective—out of
the mind’s possessing—out of the changing inner room—
out of the scale of space and time—out of the constrictive
mind, according to Magritte.
(prev. pub. in Tiger’s Eye, 2001)
What burns in the air is light; it shapes itself to dark and
hovers there and cuts the day away to verify the perspec-
tives of Magritte. A tree of symbolism magnifies
until it is as simple as a child’s belief in art : one leaf be-
comes the whole tree and a building shrinks beside it,
white sky and white dimension glare and make
comparison to show the doorway into madness is not far.
Light burns with promise and the door repeats the shape
of leaf to shape perspective—out of
the mind’s possessing—out of the changing inner room—
out of the scale of space and time—out of the constrictive
mind, according to Magritte.
(prev. pub. in Tiger’s Eye, 2001)
Am I the Last . . .
THE PATH
So vague, with only twilights now—no grand an-
nouncement—no noticed entrance, hanging to an
edge which is growing cold with shadow. Bent
years are turning our corners. How we envy them,
laughter behind us, weeping ahead—or is that so?
Is it weeping behind, and laughter ahead? I don’t
know.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THE PROMISED LOVE
“The clearest way into the universe is
through a forest wilderness.”—John Muir
Follow the music of the trees.
Follow the music of the birds.
Follow the music of the
ever-deepening winds
that pull you deeper
into the waiting universe
of mind, and heart, and soul,
to where the promised love is.
____________________
Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her poetry and photos today, featuring her takes on our Seed of the Week, “The Launch”. If life is full of new beginnings, then it’s full of launches, too, as we re-write ourselves, day after day. . .
Our new Seed of the Week is “Summer’s Heat”. 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.
To see Magritte’s Loving Perspective (La Perspective Amoureuse), go to www.allpainter.com/rene-magritte/la-perspective-amoureuse-handmade-oil-painting-reproduction-229653.html/.
____________________
—Medusa
Man and Bird Watercolor 1963
—Henry Miller
—Henry Miller
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.
