The Weeping Maiden

 

To Steal A Wish Or Two

—Poetry, Photos and Original Art 

by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

 

COINS IN BRIGHT DISTORTION

Time after time I pass the Pond of Wishes and
throw no coin, though I draw a Curious Fingertip
across the water and watch as children try to reach
the pennies, dimes, and nickels through water that

is deeper than it looks, and wishes are cheap, and
never come true, or if they do, are incomplete
and I throw no coins, since I do not believe
in wishes, though I tend to steal a wish

or two when I am up against the wall of life,  
when the test of life shines with wealth
in the circle of hope, and the ease
of hope’s temptation.

 

 

 

 Of Belief

 

TRUST

Hope comes to me in the guise of a weeping maiden,
stumbling toward me, face bent into her hands,
having lost her way again,

pretending not to see me
looking at her through my compassionate mirror—
how I guide her with my eyes : this way . . . this way . . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2020)

___________________

FANTASY OF RISK,
After Girl on Horse by Olga Bazhutova

Lest it be a statue where we saw a black horse
stretched to whole length on reared legs in a
droll woods—a tiny girl in a child’s saddle
posing for dangerous-effect—waiting for
the camera-click—the child poised and
unafraid—the day a cold one—white
sky background, no one around to
thrill, or wonder : whose horse ?
whose child ? what reason ?—
the power, and the patience  
to conquer levitation of
the mutual mind : the
watcher and the one  
who proves through
disbelief, what art
can do with art’s
model—trust of
child and horse
that belongs
to her since
—birth of
both—
they swear

 

 

 

The Mutual Mind

 

WHEN ART IS AT RISK

How do I render, thee, O Still Life :
Flowers…  Fruit…   Glass…   
Whatever…

how do I render,
faithful to Pencil…   Mind…   Eye…
in attempt at rendition

—exact, or impression—
how decide,
when arrangements wilt…

spoil…   or shift their shadows
—how bring forth talent
from lack of talent...   Time is fickle.

 

 

 

 Recurrence

 

RISKING A MORNING WALK

Attacked
by an orange
butterfly, I waver
past—avoiding the shadow of
the crow.

~

The crow—
cawing rudely
at my intrusion on
his path—scolds me so loudly that
I duck.
 
~

A dog,
sharing the same
sidewalk—sniffs his way past,
taking his rights for granted—same
as me.

                                  
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2018)

___________________

LOTTERY

Mother, today I bought a lottery ticket,
do you
approve?

I—the disbelieving, pessimistic
one—need only to move myself
into your direction of belief.

You always knew good things
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
a while I felt the ache of highest hope.

 

 

 

Three Shadows

 

 
POEM FOR COMFORT

She is sick. What do I tell her when her eyes go round
with the whorls of fear and swallow my helpless look.

She asks a question of my resistant truth. I hold her hand,
grope for a platitude, and risk a joke.

I try to phrase the softer lie. Her fingers seem to glow
in my hands, “The fever from within,” she says.

I burn in her touch.
We feed the jukebox. We laugh, not to cry.

__________________

THIS SINGING

Wanting pure song this day of unbeginning,
of already winding too tight, relearning
its saddest joy from heartache and hope

from wanting and needing,
from striving and failing, and striving again
into the hours that are draining,

how can I hope this—want this—
so much—when from a meadow of
remembered time, there is a meadowlark.

____________________

LIVING IN THE VALLEY

Here is the last light
saved from day—
saved past a shadow edge,

and here is the emptiness
from a space
so full it seems forever lent.

But slow is slow, and forever
meant : clarity forever,
if the day does not end.

And here is where the story
does not change—
there is a mountain that holds

everything from view
and trees that shrink from distance
as though distance can’t be crossed.

And we live here,
in this valley,
where the last light settles

in a little pool
and the moon lives there,
giving us hope,

for, there
a few stars shine
as deep and brightly as they can.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2021)

 

 

 

 This Moment

 

WE ARE

all particle—of the earth—of the air—
of every whispering voice and every

tear fallen from grief, or joy, and every
tear for the silk fabric of fog, mist over

water, sound of crying, the harsh notes
of rage, the emptied stare,

looking at everything—brooding,
crying—the very act of this—the

very rhyming in every windowed
reflection made of glass, the sensation

of touch, the rush of pleasure, the feel
of darkness to the grope, the sunrise,

the sunset, the blur of hope in the frazzled 


mind, the very hope of existence in the doubt,

the distance and the near—the everything,
and everywhere—in this moment, here.

____________________

WHEN LIFE IS GOOD

Lest I regress to some old meaning
less desired
old scriptures lost

burdens of cost
old blunders
redefined

poor rhyme not wanted here
slant or pure
all layers intertwined

but my heart and soul can overflow
at the sight of pink blossoms
in the moody month of spring

how the quickened feeling
of hope
can change the air—

but more like the close call
of some gentle creature
that got away from death

or the final unwinding of
the endless ball of tangled string
that life depends upon…

 

 

 

 Theory

 

Today’s LittleNip:

dealing with it
—Joyce Odam

reality occurs
glimpse after glimpse

theory after theory
fit into place or lose perspective

shifting as it shifts—
never fit quite together

____________________

Hope. That was our current Seed of the Week, and lots of our poets put their pens to it with fine results—not the least of whom was Joyce Odam. Hopeful poets are what we need for a hopeful future, yes? Thank you, Joyce—as always, well done.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Sanctuary”. 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. And see every Form Fiddlers’ Friday for poetry form challenges, including those of the Ekphrastic type.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Summer Solstice 2022—
another vision of hope!






 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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