Story Behind It
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
DAVID IN THE SUNBEAM
In the sunlight on the floor
the cat sleeps.
It is almost a stillness.
The child on the tricycle
pedals into the sunlight
and is broken into
endless golden motes
settling and
turning him again
into a child.
In the sunlight on the floor,
where the cat and child
were a moment before,
all that is alive in it
is lifting and falling.
(prev. pub. in South Florida Review, 1970)
In the sunlight on the floor
the cat sleeps.
It is almost a stillness.
The child on the tricycle
pedals into the sunlight
and is broken into
endless golden motes
settling and
turning him again
into a child.
In the sunlight on the floor,
where the cat and child
were a moment before,
all that is alive in it
is lifting and falling.
(prev. pub. in South Florida Review, 1970)
Rendered Thus
DREAM SCRIPTS
I have never let nights go dreamless,
unsettled and strange
twisting them into scenarios
ever uncompleted—
ever dangerous.
I, the messenger, the lead, the foe,
the very direction—
without finale,
make up the dreams without ending,
knowing I can break out of sleep
at the point of my destruction.
_________________
DREAM MIRROR
After Landscape from a Dream, 1936-38
by Paul Nash (1889-1946)
It’s not that I love this dream, but I can’t get
through the mirror to the sea. The sky is a flat
and painted blue, and a huge white cloud is in
the way. A pane of glass becomes a cage. A
boulder of fire creates a second, retributive sky
—blood red and near—and a lone dark gull is
flying right at me.
A frame of fear surrounds it all and I don’t know
what to do. I can’t awake, and I cannot sleep.
Mirrored in metamorphosis, I am turning to a fear
myself : my own face holds my feathered face.
My arms have turned to wings. My shoulders hurt,
and my mouth is cruel. My frozen eyes do not be-
lieve this metaphor, of which I am both abstract
mystery and indefinable clue.
Like Moods
THE DREAM OF SURRENDER
After Portrait and a Dream, 1953
by Jackson Pollock
A face that is caught in a garish mirror
where colors gnash and light stabs.
Your life
is a white room of sleep.
Your mind holds a candle.
The flame wavers.
You stare through yourself
as if to escape :
you are a smeared painting,
your dream has defined you
against a wall of canvas.
You echo this—repulse,
then admire—
held by your own stare,
by the anguish of the art,
rendered thus.
You have lost your power.
Such is the angry power of the dream.
After Portrait and a Dream, 1953
by Jackson Pollock
A face that is caught in a garish mirror
where colors gnash and light stabs.
Your life
is a white room of sleep.
Your mind holds a candle.
The flame wavers.
You stare through yourself
as if to escape :
you are a smeared painting,
your dream has defined you
against a wall of canvas.
You echo this—repulse,
then admire—
held by your own stare,
by the anguish of the art,
rendered thus.
You have lost your power.
Such is the angry power of the dream.
The Dream You Dreamed
THE DISTANCE OF YOUR MYTH
I have come as far as your life. I am
your fantasy, all you remember
or want. Sometimes I come as shadow
torn by light. Sometimes I lie beside
you in your sleepless night. But always
you forget me…you don’t believe in me…
you want another. I am the distance
of your myth. I become the other.
___________________
THE DREAM OF YOUR SLEEP
I drift on the dream of your sleep.
I am a petal of your thoughts.
I have no image of my own
on this lake of night.
Do not drown me.
(prev. pub. in Poetalk)
Dreams Me Again
DREAMS ME AGAIN
Dreams me again in violent sleep—sees me in red deep
loom—woman of moan, blood-shadowed, whom he fol-
lows helplessly. I smile at him on mornings when he tells
me stories I do not comprehend. Tonight I will follow
him again and call him to the edges and the dark; and I
will be so silent he will think I am fate masquerading as
love; and
when the morning hand is clocking one more circle
around us, I will slip out of his mind when he wakens
and smile my innocence when once more he tells me
his dreaming.
____________________
DREAM STRUGGLE
At dawn, a silence, thick as air,
gray as morning. Some despair
lays its heavy hand
on troubled sleep and
smothers there—
sleep’s strange land
where sleep becomes an anxious place.
If guilt lives there, so must disgrace.
Mind unlocks—relearns
what always returns :
Dreams me again in violent sleep—sees me in red deep
loom—woman of moan, blood-shadowed, whom he fol-
lows helplessly. I smile at him on mornings when he tells
me stories I do not comprehend. Tonight I will follow
him again and call him to the edges and the dark; and I
will be so silent he will think I am fate masquerading as
love; and
when the morning hand is clocking one more circle
around us, I will slip out of his mind when he wakens
and smile my innocence when once more he tells me
his dreaming.
____________________
DREAM STRUGGLE
At dawn, a silence, thick as air,
gray as morning. Some despair
lays its heavy hand
on troubled sleep and
smothers there—
sleep’s strange land
where sleep becomes an anxious place.
If guilt lives there, so must disgrace.
Mind unlocks—relearns
what always returns :
old concerns
it must face.
it must face.
Indefinable
IF LOVE IS LOVE
If I am echo, what is sound.
If sound is silent, what is love.
Finding is losing. Loss is found.
So go the facts, illusions that confound.
Dreams are hauntings, so we dream,
dare not slumber, lest we drown.
Praise the new day once again.
Then is now, and now is then.
Thus the circle we are in . . .
sleep and waken . . . spin and spin . . .
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
DISSOLVINGS
—Joyce odam
I am the dream
you dreamed last night.
Am I the one you love?
*
I am not real.
Or else
I am.
*
When night comes back
with sleep for you,
will I be sleep?
____________________
Joyce Odam sends “dreamy” poems this week, a side-bar to our Seed of the Week: Hibernation. Who knows what big bears dream? All we can know is our own dreams, and most of those are doomed to be forgotten…
Our new Seed of the Week is “Haunted”. Hey—it’s almost Halloween! Does anything go bump under your bed? Or do you stay awake at night, worrying about [fill in the blanks]? Past memories, good and bad, current worries and misdeeds—most of us are haunted by something, so write about it and 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.
Today is Sacramento Poetry Day! Tonight, 7pm, in-person and online (note change of day): Sacramento Poetry Center presents Viola Spencer, Patrick Grizzell and Andru Defeye plus open mic to celebrate the 35th Sacramento Poetry Day. 25th & R Sts., Sac. This event is free but seating is limited, so attendance in-person requires a ticket (reservations). See sacramentopoetryday2021.brownpapertickets.com/. Attend online in the usual way: us02web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/. Meeting ID: 763 873 3462/; password: r3trnofsdv/. To comply with COVID protocol standards (and to help protect immuno-compromised participants and audience), admission will require presentation of COVID vaccine card, no-contact temperature taken at door, masks worn inside, and as much distance as possible kept in the theater.
Also: check out the fine Sacramento Bee article in yesterday’s edition at www.sacbee.com/news/local/sacramento-tipping-point/community-voices/article255191557.html/. And see Facebook for a broadcast of Sac. Poet Laureate Andru Defeye interviewing Viola Spencer and Patrick Grizzell. (Can also be found on youtube/.)
_____________________
—Medusa
—Painting by Paul Nash (1889-1946)
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.
