—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Robin Gale Odam
ALREADY AUTUMN
—Joyce Odam
At the end of a long street
I see you walking toward me.
You pass window after window
without looking in.
Doors around you open
and close.
You enter none of them.
Children run past
and you disappear
into the swift shadow of time.
It is already autumn.
Will we remember each other?
(prev. pub. in Noir Love, Rattlesnake LittleBook-2, 2007
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/4/11)
The Way You Touch Both Edges Of Time
With Your Reach
It is the cold month,
the month I remember you
as separate . . . as drift . . .
as far and near—the way you
touch both edges of time
with your reach
you would love to hear this
there is that fragment of you
that is all touch
how many years now . . .
how many tears and erasures . . .
—Joyce Odam
The Day Held Me
WRONG DAY FOR SORROW
—Joyce Odam
I wanted to hold this day in bondage,
but the day held me. So many steps
to the door. So many back.
Beware the weather. It is grim.
No letter today. Why wait.
There is no tomorrow.
I could not bear the truth of your eyes.
Your hand was cold in mine.
I forgave you your excuses.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/15/14)
____________________
NIGHT MURMURS
—Joyce Odam
Something bends, the night is lonely:
the shivering moon
in the cold water—
the spread of dark—
a lone walker turns a corner,
is gone forever: how do I know this?
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/24/12)
A Safe Country
FROM DANGEROUS COUNTRY
—Joyce Odam
Somewhere in the
complexity of loneliness
you wander like a discoverer
picking the darkest flowers.
The vase that I am
waits to receive
what you believe are gifts
from a safe country.
(prev. pub. in The Orchard, 1975 and
in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/20/12)
In A Brine Of Tears
BE STILL
—Robin Gale Odam
love goes alone to the
depth of ground level at the
foot of a mountain, to the depth
of sea in a brine of tears,
then at the gatherings, among
the tombs, wailing in a confusion
of biblical reference, then simply
weeping in its right mind
(prev. pub. in Brevities, Nov./Dec. 2020)
As If A Memory
THE HURT OF THIS . . .
—Joyce Odam
the way it is ordinary,
as if it had no realization
of what was, and never is again,
layers and layers
of what takes the place
of life and its first drift of
sunlight over a gray day,
opening again
into another tomorrow—
a flash of yellow,
as if that bore
some importance here—
maybe only a shift of leaves
outside the window
as if a memory just happened.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/1/13)
__________________
THE IMAGE
—Joyce Odam
He brought the image to her as a
gift. “It is for you,” he said. “It will
be anything you want it to be.”
“It is tearing like the leaves,” she
sighed, “and it is smothering like
the wind that is too full of leaves.”
“What are you thinking,?” he
asked her.
And she answered, “I am thinking
of your hands that bring such gifts
as this.
Taking It All In
WHEN THERE IS FEAR
—Joyce Odam
This is the all of it, the resistance,
the surrender,
when all argument is done and each value
proven—
the purity of all that is given in return
for what is taken.
All of this.
All is all. And enough.
Nothing disproves this.
The balance is held, and still is tested.
It is where reason goes
when there is fear—
some dim, unreachable place full of shadow,
full of following light.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/20/14)
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Is there a rage more
beautiful
than mine . . .
I feel it rise and magnify
and stir the blood . . .
I give it room.
—Joyce Odam
____________________
Many thanks to Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam for their finely-honed, slightly spooky poetry today, and for Robin’s photos. Our Seed of the Week was Trapped—and love and loneliness are traps, indeed! Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.
Our new Seed of the Week is for the up-coming Halloween: “Fear”. 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
Wizarding Studies in Preparation
for Halloween
—Photo Courtesy of Public Domain
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LittleSnake’s Glimmer of Hope
(A cookie from the Kitchen for today):
autumn shadows
slide crooked
purple fingers
under the door…
