Forgotten Hungers

 

Truth About Gray

—Poetry, Photos and Original Art by 

Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE BAKERY AT NIGHT

Hungry, we smelled the bread. The breeze
opened up. We followed, tried to find the source,
no bakery anywhere, only the open windows of air.

We followed the sensuality of yeast,
the air took on a tawny color. Our eyes became
as dark as poppy seeds. We tried to hurry.

After a long time we came to an empty plate
left on an old tablecloth covered with ants
and fallen leaves. The scent was here.

We heard voices off in a small distance,
and laughter, followed the sound and came
upon ourselves in an intimate embrace,

savoring a perfect moment
before we had to go back to some forgotten
hunger—some unresolved beginning.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/22/15)

 

 

 

Some Hour of the Day

 

ONE FOR THE KITCHEN

Meals are un-ritualistic here.

Survivings.

No grace, complaint, or conversation
to amount to much.

Ordinary.

Like each day happening
without a death.

Necessities
of preparation.

Putting the plates on the table.
And the food.

The quick consuming.

Finishing with or without
a compliment.

Wiping the stove
and the counter.

Offering leftovers to the refrigerator
like prayers against the future hunger.

Washing the dishes.


(prev. pub. in Legend, 1972)

 

 

 

Aspects of Gray

 

THE RARE PLATE DISPLAY
After The Purple Stocking by
Sir James Jebusa Shannon (1862-1923)

Amid the plates and plates adorning the walls
and display shelves in the gallery of
plates—things of priceless worth

in public showing, in braggery of art,
well dusted and well shadowed,
all numbered and signed—

walking by them, a young girl is engrossed
in her new skill, her moving hand
intense with the knit and purl

of purple wool—
a stocking.
Will she finish—?    Knit the other—?

 

 

 

About the Earth

 

BURNING POETRY AND OTHER
OLD PAPERS

cleaning house
is what you call it
and you put a candle in a basin
and begin to sort through
purses
boxes
drawers
for papers to throw away
and pretty soon
you begin to feed the fire
for its sake alone
for it is so quick and final
with its consuming
and you find
you feed it faster and faster
and soon you are giving it
old letters
recipes
money
and soon the ash is lifting
in celebration
and when the house is purged
you pick up
your small suitcase
full of emptiness
and float
like paper-ash
through the wavering doorway

 

 

 

Poem Collector

 

PAPER POEMS

once caught as stillness
it is still alive
the foam on the beer
the laugh in the camera

it was a taste of summer
the shivery trees saying
no, it’s winter

the fruit on the ground
and the yellow bees
and the fallen paper poems
have not moved

there is danger
in holding anything
things must grow old
and blow away

the day was a sad one
too much love to
never know
no one loves strangers

we do too love strangers
cry the strangers
from the smiling paper

but summer is over
it turned gray
and it tore for its life
at the overturned chairs

shiver by shiver the
summers returned
but nothing was ever
in the same order

_____________________                   

OIL PAINT ON BUTCHER PAPER 

(after Elizabeth Doran)

—the oil paint on butcher paper
            struggles
                        at the pouring
 spreading into the vague pattern
            of happenstance
                        merges
                                   the mauves
            and blues
with the persistent yellows
the
      white
            goes thin,
the orange     clumps together,
      the butcher paper
receives the abstract depictions
           and becomes—
        the artist,
    does not dry
  at
once
but lets
the composition
form into a masterpiece.

 

 

 

 Gibbous Rock

 

MOTHER : A CHILD’S DRAWING

She takes up the whole stage.
Powerful.
Her ridiculous heart
huge upon her breast.
Her eyes as large as plates
in her heart-shaped face…
She stands at the center
prepared to dance
or just be beautiful…
She stands in flowers
prepared to sing
or just be beautiful…
All things good surround her :
Creatures… Toys…
The balloon on the end of a stem…
The bright window with its path of light…
All good things surround her :
The dancing dog…
The round, spiked sun…
The mystic stairway to the mountain…
She is attended by all symbolic things
loved by the artist-child…
Oh, her child has drawn her happy, alright.


(prev. pub. in Blind Man’s Rainbow, 1997)

 

 

 

Nested

 

 

TOKENS OF LEAVING

At an outdoor table of a café at Sausalito we left
part of our food for a gull who took a liking to us.

We sat still
and watched him steal from our plates.  

We could have touched him,
but we did not try.  

We watched him lift and bless
the simple sky with his boldness.

We were glad to remain still and offer
the token of our stay to such a candid creature.

Later, we took the boat away from Sausalito,
content with this small memory between us.

We did not know what to do with our remaining
hours—so we indulged in little foolish doings.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/1/15)

 

 

 

A Thought One Has

 

 

IN THE MOVEMENT OF LIFE
After “Farley Mowat”, a photograph by Elisavietta Ritchie, 1994
in NIMROD Points North: The Arctic Circle, 1995

The year you were dying.
a man stood on a vast plateau of ice

and looked out over the horizonless reaches
at the vast calmness and imagined your death

as his own. He knew nothing of you,
nor you of him.

This is a later recognition.
I give it to you as a gift of human connection :

that one could connect to another
and not be aware.

It is internal—
a thought one has when

there is a silence to fill with something more
than unnamable longing.

 

 

 

The Unnameable Longing

 

 

REITERATION

Years later I found you in a bar
and sidled down beside you—
looked sideways and asked you why

you died. As usual, you didn’t answer
but just kept staring down
into the beer in which

you cried and cried and cried.
“Well, Hell!” I said.
“I’ve had it!” and rose to go.

And you raised your head
and asked me
not to go, so I stayed—
 
the same old scene
played out : though we
had much to say, we didn’t speak.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DAY-END
—Joyce Odam

I will be old when this is over.
My shawl will be thin;
It will barely cover me.

I will sit in a chair for hours
under the terrible distance of my memory
which is a spiral.

Everything that presses in will
find me narrow. I will not fit myself.
I will spread across the floor in shadow.

______________________

Here we are, waking up to the first day of March! Do people still do the lion/lamb thing? Up here in the Sierra foothills, March has come in like a lamb, with sunshine, and birds singing, and clouds coming and going as if there’s no need for them around here. Rockin' Joyce Odam has so skillfully written about gray, though, speaking to that lion which is a repeated longing that never quite goes away. And she has sent us rockin' photos to go along with the poems, with occasional reference to our recent Seed of the Week, Beer Cans and Paper Plates—a foggy subject that can turn grey if you let it. (Who drank all that beer, anyway?) And that's how she rolls...

Anyway, our new Seed of the Week is "City". 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 more about artist James Jabusa Shannon, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jebusa_Shannon/.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

The Purple Stocking 

—Painting by James Jabusa Shannon (1862-1923)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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