Turning Into Winter

The Night of Missing Stars
—Poetry and Photos by Joyce Odam,
Sacramento, CA

BIRDLESS SKIES

dark
moon    
lost in
night of
missing stars,
of sky-winds
that threaten
to tear the sky
with a grittiness
of sounds that wail
and sigh until there is
nothing left but fury of
regret, everything dying
at last—heaven's last bird

 

 

 

 The Fury of Regret

THE OLD DARK

From the breath of cities comes the old dark
and its favorite night bird that
chittters once outside my window
and is gone—gone to what other darknesses
there are between it, and its swift reflection—

that myth of substance—and I feel the night
close over where the night bird was
and erase the memory of itself—and now
the porch light shifts back into place,
and I turn back from that sound that I imagined.

 

 

 

The Duration of the Poem

 

DISCARNATE

Out of the harsh landscape comes the lone shadow,
out of the gray stone,
out of the gray hour—the vanishing sky—

the bodiless shadow, so lost there is no place for it,
only this desolation, this astounding wilderness—
no creature or vegetation, no line of horizon

or relief of water—nothing here but the slow shadow,
displaced from its life, or its dream, or only created
for the duration of this poem.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/2/16)

____________________

INTO SOUNDLESSNESS

…reading backwards into
life—its cold journey…

words float into soundlessness,
unspoken

hopscotch was always made of
white chalk

charity shoes were always dance shoes
but I could not tap

how tenderly the child's hand
holding a butterfly…

herds of butterflies unfolding into
the sky now, disappearing

a lone word— marvelous,
trails after

all is all, knowing, unknowing, simply
dissolving inward—outward—evolving

oh sigh—
echo, oh cry

 

 

 

An Echo of Breathing

 

JOURNAL

why weeping—why not,
have I not felt the sway of
great emotion, felt time
slip past before readiness,
how I favor regret over
the contradiction
of the mirror—glass
breaks and multiplies,
with image, and I run
past myself through the
mirror to the other side of life—
that parallel—time is on a wheel
rolling, backward, always ending up
back to the moment which is smooth—
coiled with momentum—Ferris Wheel

 

 

 

 The Revised Memory

 

 

THE RECONSTRUCTED MEMORY
After Memory by Agnes Lawrence Pelton, 1937

Let’s take this apart, discover it,
wonder is for wonder :

a pure white vase over-
spills with rose petals floating off,

the vase gleams from within
with contained light,

a new-born sea erupts from its base,
teeming with new realities,

the white vase becomes white heat,
no longer able to contain form,

was it always meant to spew roses?
create stars? why is it familiar?

Memory : white flare, white burst
of energy taking shape,
fragile with illusion . . .

Memory : Needing to find you
in the swarm of thought, even now
able to define me . . .

Memory : Contrived image now,
taking on its own memory. . .
memories . . . on and on . . . beyond mine. . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/19)

 

 

 

Complicated Silences

 

 

A BOOK OF LOVE AND REGRET

Year after year I anthologize you, loose pages
full of smears where conversations failed,

whole pages of complicated silences,
paragraphs of lyric tears—ah—

such a book as you have become . . .

compiled of your own complexities,
your dark symbolism, your comic surprises.

It is not fair that you still argue the old points—
refuse to surrender the grievances between us . . .


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/12/19) 

 

 

 

Static Measures

  

  

THE GOLDEN RAGES
 
What do they mean,
we who are in
the glowing dark

must seem
too insignificant
to please—

but we are pleased.
We feel the fragrant rain
begin to fall upon the fires

our eyes have claimed—
the fires of joy
and love.
 
The jealous rain
consumes and quenches
and never leaves a stain.

_____________________

TEASE IN A SLEAZE
After Silent Partner by Ray Caesar, 2009

The only adornment now
is her exaggeration—
posed like a siren,
one arm akimbo
on top of
her tiny
bureau,
painted
white,
her tiny purse,
a-dangle from
her black-gloved hand
—one hip in a sway
to convey her sexy angle
—her vanity—hers alone—
her devil-may-care look,
eyes half-closed.  Only
the taunting hour knows
how slow it goes. She has
decades to go before she grows
into a seasoned Movie Queen,
Imaginary— Sinful— Evil—
with writhing tentacles beneath
her flowing gown to protect her.           
Flirty Gertie is what she calls herself—
at thirteen, to the innocence of her mirror.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/16/21)

_________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TOO LATE
—Joyce Odam

One brief look and she is gone.
Try to follow and be lost

in a swirl of leaves
and scented breeze of autumn.

She is only what is thought
and you are turning into winter.

__________________________

Good morning, America and beyond, and many thanks to Joyce Odam (and daughter/co-editor Robin Odam) for today’s fine offerings!
   
Our new Seed of the Week is “Cantankerous”. 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.

For more about Agnes Pelton, go to www.wikiart.org/en/agnes-lawrence-pelton/memory-1937/. For more about Ray Caesar, go to www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/t250g6/silent_partner_ray_caesar_digital_2009/.

__________________________

—Medusa

 

 Memory
—Agnes Lawrence Pelton, 1937

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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