The Lonely Music
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
AFTER MILOSZ
“as if we were still participants in our
indecent dance” —Czeslaw Milosz
As if we
were still there
in our indecent dance,
and you were there with us
in our make-believe romance,
and musicians were present, playing
their lonely music, and wept as they
played, as we wept as we danced,
and it was all too much for us
loving each other as we did,
and what we hid from our-
selves was never a problem
for our confessions were forgotten
as though we had never made them,
they were that meaningless, we had
words and words and words to
murmur to each other, for this
was part of the seduction,
this praise of nothing
that was real enough for
praise and the crickets kept the
silence company after our indecent dance.
“as if we were still participants in our
indecent dance” —Czeslaw Milosz
As if we
were still there
in our indecent dance,
and you were there with us
in our make-believe romance,
and musicians were present, playing
their lonely music, and wept as they
played, as we wept as we danced,
and it was all too much for us
loving each other as we did,
and what we hid from our-
selves was never a problem
for our confessions were forgotten
as though we had never made them,
they were that meaningless, we had
words and words and words to
murmur to each other, for this
was part of the seduction,
this praise of nothing
that was real enough for
praise and the crickets kept the
silence company after our indecent dance.
Words to Murmur
FIDELITY
I walk with you through silent trees,
through golden grass,
through twilit air—
permitting love to ebb and flow
through who we were and who we are
—a grove of sadness
that we must repair.
Why such calm here
—trees and more trees
in this place without a border,
sky beyond our view,
one muted glow of light remaining?
Nothing moves, so nothing ends,
we are here in time’s lost moment,
with its mourning—
taking back what we were given.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8-9-10,
slightly revised 9-25-17)
The Imagined
FACE FLOATING IN NIGHT AIR
When a face looks out away from itself
through a grimy window of some traveling,
a passenger of life, the scenery blurring by,
the rhythm of the miles becoming years,
and the face remains turned away
watching it all pass like an audience
not remembering when it got on
or when it will get off, if this is a bus,
or even if it is a life, symbolic,
or a poem to question this
or even if the figure is only imagined
or a haunting history, or the play itself.
__________________
OLD GRIEF
my heart—
that sponge
without water—
that porous lump at the center of my love
which has forgotten how
to weep
The Curve I Follow
MERRY-GO-ROUND
The dark horse whirls. The lovers cling.
Forever is a game they play.
The other horses blur in tune.
The children seem to disappear.
The lovers grow too old to care—
they’re drawn too quick to be aware
of all but holding on to time—
in rhythmic pull the horses lift
and try to win the fastened race.
The platform strains against itself.
The colors fade to black and white.
The time is day. The time is night.
The horses creak, and rear, and bring
the circles back to where they were.
The dark horse whirls. The lovers cling.
The dark horse whirls. The lovers cling.
Forever is a game they play.
The other horses blur in tune.
The children seem to disappear.
The lovers grow too old to care—
they’re drawn too quick to be aware
of all but holding on to time—
in rhythmic pull the horses lift
and try to win the fastened race.
The platform strains against itself.
The colors fade to black and white.
The time is day. The time is night.
The horses creak, and rear, and bring
the circles back to where they were.
The dark horse whirls. The lovers cling.
The Depth of the Dark
THE OLD ROSÉ
We’re down to desperation wine
the old Rosé
we never drank
because we didn’t like it
well enough . . .
it was too sweet
for all those
Burgundy times of song and weep,
the hugging love
we tried to give away,
and keep . . . .
The Haunting History
OUR OLD STORY
The way we lay across each other in the maelstrom—
our lives blent—entangled to near destruction, yet we
needed each other. You were one, and I was the other.
We were not to be separated. Yours was a story I would
not learn, and mine was a story you would not believe.
We saved each other for winter evenings—the way we
came from two different ends of the same lifeline—told
over and over.
_________________
PERIPHERAL
Way off to the left of here and now—the moment of true,
the frozen moment trying not to melt—holding still for the
mirror which gives rumor to other mirrors—and then the
sun, sliding under the day, lighting up your body,
molded against the hour. You do not want to die of ruined
winter and sunset. You will not look at me, though your
hands have spoken. And I would have answered, except
stillness was next and stillness has trained me to enter—
never the exact moment, but the nearest one; the one I am
too slow for; the one you are when I would ask, who are
you? And we are televised against the sky—one sad clown
of summer—the other seasonless, putting on the masks.
And then the rain begins, running down our faces that are
so glad to be discovered—to be tricked again. You move
toward me, and I follow, past the image and the difference.
We embrace and the dark slips down between us.
Miles Become Years
GOODBYE
After a poem, “Goodbye”,
by Robert Creeley
Say it simply. Say it softly and sadly.
It is the longest word you will ever say.
Give it a black border for the death it imitates.
Let it go freely.
You cannot call it back.
It is a word without meaning.
A quick word. A spondee word.
It will come of its own volition.
You cannot regret it.
Let it take everything it needs.
How you hoarded it.
How you refused it—keeping it
longer than necessary.
Let it have your regret, that baggage of doubt,
that second thought.
__________________
WHEN DISPOSSESSED
After “Violin Picture/Love Song”
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Oh Violin of sad strings,
always ready to obey
the hand—
the hand at rest—refusing.
Why refuse
when music rests in the soul
as in the mind?
Violin knows this.
The hand is weary of
substituting music for want
and need and even the
superior talent of its training.
The hand is broken—
or grieving—or in mood—
a mood so bottomless the hand
cannot lift itself to the healing.
Oh Violin, how patient you are,
how loyal, how dispossessed of
the music you remember and yearn
to play again when the hand is ready.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
LOSING DAYS
—Joyce Odam
Since
the days
have begun
playing tricks on
me, I find time does
not matter to my plans.
I have become very good
at plausible explanations.
___________________
Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her musings about “Those Good Old Days”, our current Seed of the Week. Joyce concedes that, although these poems are rather dark, that’s the way she remembers it. Well, memories aren’t always the colors we’d like them to be...
Joyce uses the word, “blent”, a lot. She sends this definition: blent: alternate past tense and past participle of blend. I used to hear that word in the past more than I do nowadays.
For “Goodbye” by Robert Creeley, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN8rqnBINCM/.
Our new Seed of the Week is "Jungle Dreams". 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
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.
