Instranslatable Strangeness
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Robin Gale Odam
4:00 A.M. AND ALL IS WELL
—Joyce Odam
you breathing against my elbow
your knee in my heart
the soft drowning of the pillow . . .
i roll like a stone on the
earth-float of sleep’s dim water
nothing can drown me . . .
i rise to the rooms of intranslatable
strangeness, listen to the sound of the
coffee pot and count the clock . . .
is night’s other side always this
different, the house this confessional,
with its old nails in its mouth . . .
everything is such a soft loudness
even the whispering of my thought
my eyes upon the eerie wall
the shimmer in the cup.
(from Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll, 1975,
—Joyce Odam
you breathing against my elbow
your knee in my heart
the soft drowning of the pillow . . .
i roll like a stone on the
earth-float of sleep’s dim water
nothing can drown me . . .
i rise to the rooms of intranslatable
strangeness, listen to the sound of the
coffee pot and count the clock . . .
is night’s other side always this
different, the house this confessional,
with its old nails in its mouth . . .
everything is such a soft loudness
even the whispering of my thought
my eyes upon the eerie wall
the shimmer in the cup.
(from Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll, 1975,
by Joyce Odam)
The Heartbeat
MAYBE FOUR INSOMNIAS
—Robin Gale Odam
The pendulum, the metronome
and the heartbeat—something for
measuring.
The perfect lullaby is my favorite
song—I haven’t written it yet.
Oblivion and sorrow,
I am at the verge of a precipice—
the nature of the edge is over,
probably down.
Sublety carries such power—
I may give it a try, write like my
mother.
Losing Words
HOW MUCH I KNOW I THINK
—Joyce Odam
When the word is lost the words
come back in alphabet. When the mind
has lost its place, in blank or sane, I want
the word I want—not some old sputtering.
I want to think and know my way
through thought of sense—not cry each
time the mind goes blank at loss of mind.
Oh tree, I watch with empty joy at your
pure rapture. And how express such a
little game of mind gone free . . . this much
to know from mind to self, my mind is clear
in itself, without my force of need—how can
one get through the force of want. The mind
pulls back and the tree, the reason of it all, with-
out the key and what is lost of something like nil,
already this and that when I’m the one from my
blank mentality all lost and gone. I know
that I can spell a word and that is good. How
little or much I know, I will not let myself
believe all this. I’m on my guard.
Believe All This
SUNDAY’S CHILD
—Robin Gale Odam
I cried about my birth—the acid of
breath, the clumsy bulk of my blankie,
the line of space one push from the
quaver of the heartbeat, from the
dark of space, from heaven—
I lay on my tummy,
on the cliff . . . overlooking the world.
_____________________
LEMON CENTER FOR HOT BUTTERED ROLL
—Joyce Odam
you are right
about the woman
she is taller than
your love for her
her impossible smile
flows down upon you as though
it were a sunrise
do not murmur her name
too soon
she does not
know it
she is preparing an
avocado for
your breakfast
you must love it or
she will cry
do not call her anger
she will kill the
spider you have
trained to watch her from
your serious eye
she will grow
fat
when you please her
sing songs for her in
your borrowing voice
she will listen and
write you a poem
and never
read it
to you
(from Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll, 1975,
by Joyce Odam)
______________________
TATTOO IN PERMANENT INK
—Robin Gale Odam
instead of wandering
he writes a simple couplet
The Everchanging Present Moment
WHAT ABOUT TODAY
—Joyce Odam
Today will let us go,
then let us be
when the day is over.
I guess myself along
until I know how much
to teach my mind
from intuition, experience,
to count upon my effort,
to reflect upon your questions.
—Joyce Odam
Today will let us go,
then let us be
when the day is over.
I guess myself along
until I know how much
to teach my mind
from intuition, experience,
to count upon my effort,
to reflect upon your questions.
Under the Poem
AWESOME OR AWE-STRUCK
—Joyce Odam
it’s one or another—all you
gotta’ do is grab for words or ideas,
or any other such help slipping thoughts
through, and just become, in the awe of it . . .
looking out the door and what the . . . whoa!
it is the golden tree holding still and swaying
in the sunlight, and the thick green bush,
the birds going in and out of the leaves . . .
and beyond, the row of bamboo bending
back and forth in the same wind, half gentle,
half still, and the day begins, my mind finding
the poetry—everything counting on the little
golden tree, starting it all . . .
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
POEM WRITTEN AT THE TYPEWRITER
—Joyce Odam
under the poem
a cockroach
dead on the
typewriter-roller
round he goes
lyrical and thin
a brown song upon black
a black song upon him
(prev. pub. in Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll,
1975, by Joyce Odam, and Medusa’s Kitchen,
November 5, 2010)
______________________
Those Odam poets, Joyce and Robin Gale, have been at it again, sending gorgeous (our Seed of the Week) poems and photos to brighten our Tuesday! Many thanks to them for hard work and great results.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Mirrors”. (This is right up Joyce’s alley; she must have two million poems incorporating mirrors, one of her favorite subjects.) 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.
Twin Lotus Thai Fourth Tuesdays in Sacramento features Tim Kahl, Goli MacPherson, Beth Suter and Indigo Moor tonight at 6pm, plus open mic. Reservations are strongly recommended! Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about this 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
—Joyce Odam
it’s one or another—all you
gotta’ do is grab for words or ideas,
or any other such help slipping thoughts
through, and just become, in the awe of it . . .
looking out the door and what the . . . whoa!
it is the golden tree holding still and swaying
in the sunlight, and the thick green bush,
the birds going in and out of the leaves . . .
and beyond, the row of bamboo bending
back and forth in the same wind, half gentle,
half still, and the day begins, my mind finding
the poetry—everything counting on the little
golden tree, starting it all . . .
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
POEM WRITTEN AT THE TYPEWRITER
—Joyce Odam
under the poem
a cockroach
dead on the
typewriter-roller
round he goes
lyrical and thin
a brown song upon black
a black song upon him
(prev. pub. in Lemon Center for Hot Buttered Roll,
1975, by Joyce Odam, and Medusa’s Kitchen,
November 5, 2010)
______________________
Those Odam poets, Joyce and Robin Gale, have been at it again, sending gorgeous (our Seed of the Week) poems and photos to brighten our Tuesday! Many thanks to them for hard work and great results.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Mirrors”. (This is right up Joyce’s alley; she must have two million poems incorporating mirrors, one of her favorite subjects.) 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.
Twin Lotus Thai Fourth Tuesdays in Sacramento features Tim Kahl, Goli MacPherson, Beth Suter and Indigo Moor tonight at 6pm, plus open mic. Reservations are strongly recommended! Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about this 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
“Oh tree, I watch with empty joy at
your pure rapture…”
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
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.
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
