Red Persuasion

 

No Compromise

—Poems and Original Art and Photos 

by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

SPEAKING IN BLOOD

The words are all red
this morning, red for love,
and lack of love, and for the
word itself. Look how intense
they appear on the page—shaped
like that—awkward like that,
meaning what they mean,
even as they question
what they mean.
How
fierce
they are,
as if to win by
their very boldness
—their red persuasion.

 

 

 

Strange Night

 

RACING LIONS IN HIS SLEEP
“Lions can run faster than us, but we can run farther.”
                                          —Valeria SBM Mendes

How reflect these eyes of such resolve
and pride—strong will and strong
stride—fierce history and love
of land, innate power of the
mind—man of hunting—

human rage,
and skill,
face painted
to symbolize
the lack of fear—

racing lions in his dreams,
modern man of yesteryear,
primitive of Soul and God,
living in the now from then
soon the lion must decide—

the tally of the race from
its own pride—Lions can
run faster—but Man can run
farther—even though the jungle
disappears—all on the endangered list.

_____________________

THE CHILD ARTIST AT AN EASEL OF LIGHT

This maelstrom of self—this painting on mirror—this
discovery—will the child come true—continue to be,

primitive, child of the fierce proud look. How much
discovery can glass hold; how much distance

can extend behind the positioned, reflective, self?
What does the child know beyond color and smear—

what does he grasp of perspective’s first freedom,
how much will the child retain of the old connection

between hand, and mind, and eye—and this canvas
of light—this pigment of the sun’s dispersive glare?

To what far-self does the child begin to compare
with his rapt intensity. See how he is private—

lost in his art—how he holds his brush—its body
braced, sure of itself?  See how his eyes insist on

his just-discovered right to perfection, how he fills
the glass surface and beyond, how he paints on

through the dimension of mirror, paints the ground
beneath, paints the frame’s restrictive, bordering air,

how he paints the blue and dazzling sky behind him;
how he paints the lowering sun, how he paints himself?

                                                                
(prev. pub. in Tule Review, Summer 2000, and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/14/15)

 

 

 

The Silence

 

WEB OF SUNLIGHT  
"Your own shadow sits in silent study”
                          —Charles Simic
                       
You sit in your yellow shadow in brazen
sunlight, haunted by the darkening eyes  
of watching—you glow for me—almost
burn with shimmering blindness—how
can I turn away. I have yet to love you.
The light forms around you with such
fierceness. I penetrate the glare with
my possessive eyes—you emanate
and draw me in. I become a blaze
with you—the web of sunlight
holding us together, till I am
merely a vibration and you
are a stunning presence
waiting to absorb me.

_____________________

OUR LOVE

How like a sorrow is our love,
ever wounded,
ever cruel,

with its little humor space,
with its cutting tool.

Love, your eyes are hot as hate
and mine are such an answer :

when we look,
and when we speak,
our hate is like a cancer.

 

 

 

Empty

 

FINALITIES

Because we are done. At once. Sudden
and silent, not even time for a last no.
        .
A little bit mysterious. Even for us.
But that is how we surprise each other.
        .
Old quarrels are best. So well known
we can say them at the drop of a guard.
        .
Just now : Your splendid rage, causing
its reaction, your eyes like a sermon.
        .
I am no Amen. I go into the room at the
back of my mind and rock in the dark.
        .
Each night I kill a moth because it is frantic
in the lamp and attacking me in its blindness.
        .
Even when we try, we are unable to repair
what is valued and broken.
        .
Just now—this dangerous look between us.
No compromise.

______________________
                                              
THE SELF PORTRAIT OF SORROW
After Sorrow (1882) by Vincent Van Gogh

Alas, I am this old gray thing sitting on a rock
in the middle of a feeling so bleak it becomes
my own landscape—Alas, I weep—Alas—,
I am a sag of futility and weariness—
I have no mirror.

Time breaks around me in heavy pieces. I do not
care. My hair is a long straggle. My breasts sag,
and my stomach is scrunched against my thighs
as I draw myself into a tight ball of holding.
I hold myself—I hold myself—and hide my face
in my folded arms.

 

 

 

The Worth of Something

 

HAND OF SORROW

In the hand of sorrow
the flower dies,

hand that has touched love’s
face and felt the tears burn,

hand that has fought
the restraint of gesture,

hand that has been ignored
in the hand of another,

hand that flutters and flails
when articulation finds no words,

hand of sorrow holding this dried-up flower,
this yellow rose.

_____________________

HANDS OF HATE

What is the suffering of hands in the hands
of possession—jealousy and blame, states
of mind with the touch of madness for
proof against the feared denial—the
sense of lovelessness, held like
greed—the ownership that
causes death of love to
slip away from hope
to hopelessness . . .

Believe . . .
In . . .
Hate . . .   

And what is Love's hate,
that it destroys so much,
with all Love's doubt—or is that
something else—something to regret—as
strong as disbelief. What wins when hands of
anger, willing hands in blind retaliation—strike
and strike in mocking sympathy when misery's
bitter need guards such clinging pity for itself . . .

______________________

IN THE IMMENSITY OF LOSS

To be a small figure at the edge of a flat                    
sea—forever at calm for the reaching eye
to reach a brief forever with a far-reaching
stare into the loss of possibility through the
air that is gold with sunset and as far as the
soul’s horizon—to stay here with no need
to make one more fierce or melancholy
cry, where there is no ear and there is
no answer—this timeless moment
that stays in the suspension
that is mind in memory
sorting the self against
the enormity of despair.

 

 

 

Words On A Page

 

 

 

THE IMPERFECTION
After a painting by Kathrine Lemke Waste

A certain rage—
like words upon a page :
ceramic blue—real peach,
the nothing we can reach

rumple the cloth around,
the last confining sound
that rustles in the light
and makes the dark too tight

the self-hate or self-pride
revealing what we hide—
the art so poor
that it must still endure                 

the center of surprise,
the wounds, the opened eyes,
the canvas we destroy,
the tantrum we enjoy

the efforts we abuse
for all the art we lose—
like words upon a page
torn by a certain rage.

 

 

 

Other Side of Dark

 

 

MIRROR AFTER MIDNIGHT

It is easy enough to send praise into aftermath.     
What we receive of light is the other side of dark.

Who shouts in the hollow becomes the echo—
a word I can use—dense with meaning.

We are at the service of our souls
which are at the mercy of our lives,

in the stone light
gray thought, manufactured as shadow.

Tears are the salt of grief, joy, and
humor.

Empty the womb for the lost child—
name it Sorrow.

Two who are unnamed
go toward love with fierce anticipation.

The hotels are empty now. They served
the lonely and the lost in their transitions.

It was the gulls—so starkly white in the
gray field—dark skies roiling inward.

Reading it all wrong—that word again—about to
break, like a face left in its mirror before it got old.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

WOMEN WHO HATE VIOLENCE
—Joyce Odam

How they react
to the weapon and the thought.
Hating it.
Wishing it away.

If a bullet should come at them
they would stand and weep
and hold their hands out.
They would offer their love.


(prev. pub. in One Dog, Oct. 1996)

_______________________

 

Thank you, Joyce! Joyce Odam has written about our Seed of the Week: Wrath, using, of course, redness and darkness and no room for compromise or persuasion. Any wrath in your life that you can’t seem to shake loose from?

Our new Seed of the Week is “Sunlight”. 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 a National Geographic article on “The Power of the Sun”, go to www.nationalgeographic.org/article/power-sun/.

_______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Angry Birds, or

The Wrath of Jays

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

LittleSnake Paints a Self Portrait