Harvest is Hypothetical—

 Silent Choir

 —Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos by Joyce Odam

 

PORTENT
—Joyce Odam

The air is darkening,
will it rain?

The air is heavy
and has a blue sensation.

And the trees are swaying,
wetly pending, pending,

and the premonitions
are filling up with pain.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/20/22)

 The Rain On The Street

  

I HAVE NOT WALKED IN THE RAIN
THIS YEAR
—Joyce Odam
               (Another Poem for Ann)

you
in your little safe house
being the wife
touching the things you own

cannot know where the edge is

it is in this poem
where it cuts
your life
as it does my own

your children
are jealous of the
telephone
and your words must be
quick and loud
and filled to the brim with
wine

we spill ourselves
this way
so many afternoons
of living the fragments
only

I cannot tell you any more
how the vision blurs
to any clarity

little by little
you believe my sadness

I have told you
how it will be
each stage of resignation

there is no warning
we use the habit of
love
to deny the desperation
    
                    
(prev. pub. in California Quarterly,
Cal. State Poetry Society, Summer 1973)

 

 

 

 Reminder

 

INSOMNIA L
—Robin Gale Odam

i was writing earlier, kind of like
thinking—no filters

the veil of words—rumor, ambrosia,
oleander wine, cipher of interpretation

the reaper sharpens his sickle at the
vineyard—harvest is hypothetical

     
(prev. pub. in Brevities, May-December 2021)

____________________

THE NIGHT IS FILLED WITH BARKING DOGS
—Joyce Odam

far away dogs
who start softly
and you don’t really hear them
and then become urgent and
monotonous
and soon the echoes of night
carry and distort with the
ragged complaint of the dogs
who answer and answer
from everywhere
and the night is hollow
and lets itself fill
with this chorus of telling
and then
when your listening is
most strained
you feel the abrupt silence . . .  

at once
in unison they have signaled
and the absence hangs suspended
with shuddering echoes
before it swallows back
along the air
back over the miles of city
back to the cocked listening
of the dogs

                                              
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/26/11)

_____________________

FROM THE BOOK OF ANIMAL TALES
                             by Arthur Rackham
—Joyce Odam

Framed within a likened border—
a convergence—Old White Owl

in a huddle of listeners
and fidgeters—

something is being
revealed—

apprehension builds . . .
a worried tremble of wings . . .

Rooster knows
and Parrot knows,

Duck and Pelican know, as does
hulking old vulture and

Wee
Sparrow—

Old White Owl, in all his
pomp and seriousness, has told them.

                                    
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/15/20)

 

 

 

Just To Let You Know

 

PSALMS
 —Robin Gale Odam

i read your
beautiful songs,
closed the book,
dusted the cover 

 

 

 

It Is In This Poem

 

RELEVANCE
(Faux Sonnet)
—Joyce Odam

This simple poem,
trying to be
a sonnet—
reduced to groping
for words—
any words
—wanting to be
eloquent, but failing—
masquerading
as what it’s not.
Oh, listen—
listen to me,
telling you
this secret . . .

and this next one
—never resolving,
never resolving,
caught in mirror—
caught,
held captive
in doubled light, enamored.
You hear me, see me,
now we can
love—self and each other.
This is not the first time—
so guilty of love.
Now skim the light for texture.
I am here.

______________________

TRICK MIRRORS,

left in carnival places—such as
memory—stacked one behind
the other—with all their faces.

Some have fallen—left to be
walked on—their dimensions
worthless.  Leaning walls are

but walls now—no more
trick angles and placements
for losing yourself.  If you

get caught among them
the EXIT sign is always
backwards—behind you.  
 

 

—Joyce Odam  

                         
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen. 7/25/17)

 

 

 

Echoes of Night

 

 
HALF-LIGHT

Here at dusk the imitation of
shadow—angle of dark pulled
through a window, thin at the wall,
sheer on the breath—whisper of
remembering                                  

I avoid the mirror—I’m certain
there is new territory drawn

The hour will change at the
advent of edits—words on the    
page are not the same in daylight

 

—Robin Gale Odam


(prev. pub. in Brevities, September-October 2020)

 

 

 

Before Tomorrow

 

ON FULFILLMENT
—Joyce Odam

I will walk upon the surface of thought  
that is much like the density of light
on the surface of water.

I will pass through substance and
emerge unbroken, I will look through
my reflection and become transparent.

Raindrops will splatter my eyes awake.
Love will demand everything of me.
I will make a trap for it.

My song will benefit silence.
I will echo for all time
my life, substance.

I will enter all directions at once
with my curiosity.
Answers will not need me.

I will not mourn one moment over
another, any more than I will praise it.
I will become nothing—then all.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

origami heart
now a wad of blue paper
someone else’s trash 

 

—Robin Gale Odam

____________________

Good wishes of the season and thanks to Joyce and Robin Gale Odam as they write to us about revelations, our Seed of the Week.

Our new Seed of the Week is The Holiday Season. Write about all things connected to The Holidays, whatever those are for you—memories, kvetches, happinesses, sorrows. What do you want for Christmas? What do you think you're gonna get? 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

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy

of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

A reminder that Bob Stanley
will be reading (and playing the banjo!)
at Twin Lotus Thai in Sacramento tonight
(reservations strongly recommended!).
For info about this and other
upcoming poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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.

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
 into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
 to find the date you want.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

LittleSnake’s Glimmer of Hope
(A cookie from the Kitchen for today)

pistachio plays
kaleidoscope—
changes color
day by day…