Time, You Old Ghost

 

Comparing Time to Time

—Poetry and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam,

Sacramento, CA

GHAZAL FOR DOLDRUMS

I fit my narrow bed like a child growing into a crib.
Morning and the clock conspire to move me.

The heater clicks on and off in a loud rhythm.
The room is hot and cold, and I shiver here.

I stare at the two blackbirds hanging from my fan.
They do not move, and I do not wish them to.

Pictures on the wall continue with their sceneries.
I look at them all morning—all afternoon.

The clothes in my closet have their own bodies.
I no longer fit or desire them.

I live in a room of books now. I read and read them.
I write down my own words, poem after poem.

The world outside is impossible. I no longer live in it.
Shall I compare time to time—an apple and an orange?

I may get up soon. I may choose to be reborn.
Maybe hunger will move me.  Or the telephone.

__________________

I AM WRITING A POEM ABOUT SUNSHINE

The day begins. It is a slow gray day. It may rain.
The window is filling with first thin light. But I
am writing a poem about sunshine and will use only
yellow words to cast off these gloomy predictions.

I will turn on every light in the house . . .  
I will play music . . . I will call you on the phone
and talk nonsense until you laugh.

I will not accept any gloom today. I am contagious.
I will uncap my brand-new tube of sunshine
and smear it everywhere; I have more than I need.
Open up your old dark house and see for yourself. 

 

 

 

Broken Trips and Safe Returns

 

CONDOLENCES

now on the day it should have rained
they were going to San Francisco
by way of Sonoma
(a joke they came to
after many broken trips and
safe returnings)

if they had gone
maybe the
death wouldn’t have happened
one wouldn’t have had to call the other
on the telephone
(cancellations are delicate timings
of plan and error)

if it had rained
they might have been safe
going with
instead of under
(so many new words to say
from point of shatter)

                                   
(prev. pub. in Purr, 1975)

 

 

 

Delicate Timings

 

 

 

THE QUIET LOBBY

After Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music
by Robert Bringhurst

In the lobby, a few old men sit around and stare out the
sidewalk window, or read old newspapers, or doze
and dream their unsolved dreams. Time is a carpet be-
tween them and the worn distance to the outside world.

The clerk at the desk is a manikin of boredom and surly
patience, barely noticing what passes by the window or
who wanders in and slips up the stairs.

The hour is unimportant. It stays the same. No one asks
the time. Rain comes and patterns the unwashed
lobby window with streaks of intricate design.

The old men watch the rain for diversion as the desk-
clerk answers the harsh ring of the telephone that breaks
the boredom of the place.

He listens a long time with no expression, then motions
one of the men to the phone who asks who it is and
gives a long shudder of tears, as if he can’t believe what
he hears.

_________________

STARTING SUPPER       

She is lighting the oven
with her one match.

She puts her hands inside, like
pies, till they are done.

She looks toward the children
who are watching her.

She twinkles her eyes,
but the children do not smile.

She looks for a pan, but
she has not washed dishes for days.

She thinks aluminum foil
will do.

She chops up the bones
of a . . .

the phone
rings . . .

when she turns to answer it
the children run away.

 

 

 

 Repeating Ourselves

 

OLD HELLO’S

phone-talking, both at once—all rich                          
surface talk that reaches through each
other's voice, sensory, deep, ignoring,
little asides that slip away—too fast—
too fast to capture—
                                say—
                                      let in—
                                             let in—   
                                some new guide
of thinking, slide past the other voice,
layered, leading to fail reaching, turn
here, expound—but none can yield or
clarify, that's where we are, both seek-
king to find each in the other self, ani-
mated, floundering—so many sureties

___________________

FROM PURSE TO PURSE

She takes this old purse to empty it. Oh, what it holds :
years of wrinkle and crumple—notes and reminders all
clipped together or wrapped up tightly in rubber bands.
All that business, stuffed-in against the darkening leather
that sours and molds, everything kept together for the
handiness. She has so many errands, so many appoint-
ments, so many lists and telephone numbers—the coins
that slip down among the receipts—the keys that fit the
guarded locks of necessity—too important to lose.

 

 

 

Time and Its Addictions

 

THE WAY YOU LINGER

You float—as all things float—in distant thought,
no longer real or found in designed distance.
How can you not realize where you are?
                  ~
You call me, weeping. I am closed to your voice,
cannot grant a solace to your tears, which pour
through the phone and burn my ear, my cruel mouth.
                  ~
Somewhere in sleep, you dream my life again.
I cannot make out the dream from here. My mind
is a white line on a white page. It becomes a road.
                  ~
You are walking toward me.

_________________

THE WAY OF WORDS

You touch the gray light
at the edge of that dark word.
How you speak—

so dense and deliberate.  
Is it regret you say—
so heavy with pleading—

promising everything . . .

 

 

 

To the Silence

 

I WHISPER INTO THE TELEPHONE

I whisper into the telephone.
You whisper back.

We talk of silent things . . .
we talk of silent things . . .

repeating ourselves
and offering questions.

Oh?
and, Yes?

Dyings are like this.
And waiting for dyings,

which is what we
have no words for,

though we speak and speak
in these whispers.

_________________

PERSEPHONE, FORGETTING GREEK

When she forgot her language she forgot
her love, though her house was brimming
with light in the possessable dark

where her husband kept looking through
all the bright rooms for what she forgot
and wept into the telephone his loss,

but she was away in her mind—
in a place without words—forgetting
her endearments, her lusty persuasions,

the laugh that scattered her opinions
until he believed each one
and she ruled the new place of forgetting.

 

 

 

Afterthoughts

 

DID WE REALLY LOVE?

We were on time—at a deserted train station.
We were wary of each other, now that time was
goodbye. A bird screamed out from an empty cage.

Lights were on in a small office. There was no one
there. A phone was ringing. We wanted to answer it.
There was a far-off rumbling on the tracks.

We were real this time—beyond all pretendings :
we would write each other—or we would run off
together—right now—never mind the consequences.

The clacking grew nearer—the long hollow wail of
time. The darkness shuddered. The light in the small
office flickered. We felt a rush of wings between us.

Soon, people were swarming—arriving and departing.
There were muffled words on a loudspeaker. Some-
one was being paged. We were becoming separated.

When we each disappeared, we were waving goodbye.
Time held both of us, but differently. We never met.
Somehow we passed each other without recognition.

The train was late. Weeds over-grew the tracks. Some-
one steadied the swaying light bulb in the office marked
Closed. A bird screamed out from an empty cage. 

 

 

 

Farewell With No Echo

 

GHAZAL FOR FEBRUARY

Grief is too much to know.
Time is how long it takes to know it.

Time and its addictions
is also time and its starvations.

All the hungers
know how to wait.

Time is not in waiting,
though waiting is in time.

“And yet,” I say to some malingering
afterthought, “and yet . . . .”

Time, you old ghost,
when have you touched my shoulders?

Time is the last thing to want when
there is no more to want.

Let us hold the moment and slide under
eternity’s pale shadow.

Time when it is precious is time that is
gone. Only the farewell has no echo.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ADMISSION
—Joyce Odam

Talking into a dead phone, I apologize
to the silence, confess myself
to the listening . . .
as if through a
curtain . . . imagine a
response . . . imagine a sigh of sympathy.

___________________

Joyce Odam has given us a ringy-ding on the telephone today in honor of our Seed of the Week: Smartphones, and she has included some ghazals—one of which will appear on this week's Form Fiddlers’ Friday. The ghazal is tricky. Stay tuned…

Our new Seed of the Week is “A Kiss on the Cheek”. 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.

Another newsletter resource, this one for the East Bay (but not just for the East Bay), is Deborah Fruchey’s monthly Strictly East (www.strictly-east.org). Check it out for a calendar and for listings of groups on Zoom and in person, special events, and submission calls. Kudos to Deborah for this long-running resource.

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Answer to yesterday's 

"Can you spot the snake" quiz.

(Head that doesn't come

from a turtle shell.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry events in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

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.