Just Plain Delilah
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Robin Gale Odam
THE UNDERSOUND
—Joyce Odam
If you reach out
and touch where shadow
winds like sound against uncoiling mind,
and feel your hand grow cold
within that flow, yet stay to feel it
chill the creeping length of you . . .
O if you touch
the center of its word
and probe the vowel
of its open throat
and feel the meaning
glow against your palm . . .
O if you feel your body know
the syllables
that fall from all dark sound,
like petals before
oblivion of blind eyes—then you
will touch the undersound of silence
and trace the resurrection
of all lost surprise.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
—Joyce Odam
If you reach out
and touch where shadow
winds like sound against uncoiling mind,
and feel your hand grow cold
within that flow, yet stay to feel it
chill the creeping length of you . . .
O if you touch
the center of its word
and probe the vowel
of its open throat
and feel the meaning
glow against your palm . . .
O if you feel your body know
the syllables
that fall from all dark sound,
like petals before
oblivion of blind eyes—then you
will touch the undersound of silence
and trace the resurrection
of all lost surprise.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
Flags
HURRY
—Robin Gale Odam
Listen to the music—oh no, oh no,
oh no, in the background—can’t you
hear . . . over there, in the background,
in the script . . . it’s in the script! It’s in
his eyes! Why can’t you hear . . . the
credits are beginning to roll, listen!
Hurry!
____________________
MORNING IN EXILE
—Joyce Odam
In the wake of time
a gentle dream unfurled.
It curled
the edges of her sleep
and warmed the reaches
of her consciousness.
What was that taste!
Her lips moistened
beneath her tongue.
Not salt,
that taste was sweet,
she yearned for more.
The core
was hard against her teeth.
The peel
wedged there.
The dream grew wings
and lifted
from her mind,
shuddering free to find
a heavy branch.
It held
and withered
like a last, forgotten leaf.
The wind was grief
and dark with music
of forsaken years.
She heard him groan.
The salty taste
was tears.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
In the Wake of Time
THE POET’S WIFE
—Joyce Odam
She came to the door,
night-eyed, witch-haired,
and whispered,
“My poet is locked in his tower.
No-one disturbs his twenty-third hour.”
“How did you meet him?”
we asked her. She smiled.
“He composed me one day
when he was drunk on rhyming.
He liked my sound and metaphor.
I liked his timing.”
“O what are your children doing?”
we shuddered.
She shrugged. “They are cutting out words
from what we say, doing research
for their father.
But he throws their adjectives away—
why do they bother?”
“Will you show us your forest-garden?”
we flattered.
But she warned, “Something heavy
is in the air. No one can breathe what’s growing.
The night is sick with molding green.
And I am sick with knowing.”
“Will you tell him we came . . .” but whirlpools
moved in her moody eyes,
and she
was already climbing her husband’s stair,
taking key-shaped pins
from her struggling hair.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
_____________________
ANTAGONISTS
—Joyce Odam
They rustle crisply on the yellow grass
like cracking voices whispering, “We’re old.”
Yet loathe to stay together, leaves and lawn,
repelled by one another, let the wind
uplift the leaves and toss them on the sky
and press the dry grass closer to the ground.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
—Joyce Odam
She came to the door,
night-eyed, witch-haired,
and whispered,
“My poet is locked in his tower.
No-one disturbs his twenty-third hour.”
“How did you meet him?”
we asked her. She smiled.
“He composed me one day
when he was drunk on rhyming.
He liked my sound and metaphor.
I liked his timing.”
“O what are your children doing?”
we shuddered.
She shrugged. “They are cutting out words
from what we say, doing research
for their father.
But he throws their adjectives away—
why do they bother?”
“Will you show us your forest-garden?”
we flattered.
But she warned, “Something heavy
is in the air. No one can breathe what’s growing.
The night is sick with molding green.
And I am sick with knowing.”
“Will you tell him we came . . .” but whirlpools
moved in her moody eyes,
and she
was already climbing her husband’s stair,
taking key-shaped pins
from her struggling hair.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
_____________________
ANTAGONISTS
—Joyce Odam
They rustle crisply on the yellow grass
like cracking voices whispering, “We’re old.”
Yet loathe to stay together, leaves and lawn,
repelled by one another, let the wind
uplift the leaves and toss them on the sky
and press the dry grass closer to the ground.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
Through the Open Sky
COLLAGE
—Robin Gale Odam
To find something both abstract and
generic, a list for example—thoughts
to be stitched, as lace or tatting
The angle of the pen, the leaning
of the letters forward, as to tell slowly,
even through time and times—even then,
or maybe now
The latest synonyms are current, to my
liking—the rest vanished
Far-off, flying through the open sky,
an eagle’s view—where to land
Just like music, where to place the
breath—this time the treble clef
Then the words come to me
I let them stay
Cat's Cradle
SHAWL
—Joyce Odam
I see her poised
to a brimming moment,
lighting an opaque distance
with the flame of her, spilling
tomorrow over
with the indelible glow
her wants have fired.
And I,
where pulsing hours
thicken a shadowy season
and turn the long day
under
like soil prepared for seed, I
wrap my shoulders around
with thin advice
and watch her go.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
_____________________
SOLITUDE
—Robin Gale Odam
My heart wears the stains of
the world, the lies and the cold
breath of fake promises—decades
of whispering to myself, and the
mystery of oblivion.
Of Truth And Frail Desire
TAMPERED GARDENS
—Joyce Odam
Could I allow
the folly of return
I would not find
the changeless beauty
of that older dream.
I know
that each selection of the heart
dwells in a perfect landscape;
and I can see
the tampered gardens
mourned in pilgrims’ eyes
when they
come home again.
I would go back
to my lost gardens,
but I believe
that flowers ally themselves
with weeds
and grow wildly
in all the metric places
freed of the gardener’s hand,
and seek
the same fraternity of stem
till they unite:
weed-flower, flower-weed,
twined paradox
of truth and frail desire.
(From My Stranger Hands by Joyce Odam, 1967)
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
TODAY I WATCHED SHADOWS
—Joyce Odam
today I watched the flitting shadows
of a bird just like the whipping bran-
ches of the tree until the scene was full
of joy or I was joyous as the wind in
some kind of play, the swift shadows
of the bird and I calling the dance :
wild bird dancing with
wild trees when the wind blows hard
____________________
“I wish . . .”—a fitting Seed of the Week, since we always have a long list of wishes that may or may not be fulfilled. Our thanks to Joyce and Robin Gale Odam for today’s poems, and for Robin’s photos to go with them.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Squirrelly”. 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.
Rhony Bhopla will lead a workshop today called Write Your Artist Statement at Women’s Wisdom Art in Sacramento, 3pm. Then at 7pm, Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center will hold a Zoom reading with 16 Rivers Press’s Matthew M. Monte and Joseph Zaccardi, plus open mic. Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.
__________________
—Medusa
gathered at The Book Collector in Sacramento
many years ago, including
Kevin Jones, Richard Hansen,
Martha Ann Blackman, Kathy Kieth, frank andrick,
Annie Menebroker, Taylor Graham, and Bill Gainer.
Oh—and the wee one at the podium is Joyce Odam.
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA
Martha Ann Blackman, Kathy Kieth, frank andrick,
Annie Menebroker, Taylor Graham, and Bill Gainer.
Oh—and the wee one at the podium is Joyce Odam.
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA
For more about National Poetry Month,
including ways to celebrate, see
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month.
And sign up for Poem-a-Day at
https://poets.org/poem-a-day/, plus
read about Poem in Your Pocket Day
(this year, April 27) at
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day/.
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.
including ways to celebrate, see
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month.
And sign up for Poem-a-Day at
https://poets.org/poem-a-day/, plus
read about Poem in Your Pocket Day
(this year, April 27) at
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day/.
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.
