.JPG)
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Original Artwork by Joyce Odam
Sacramento, CA
—Original Artwork by Joyce Odam
A COLLAGE OF LONGING: ANOTHER
BLUE NUDE
BLUE NUDE
—Joyce Odam
She is untitled as usual. She is too blue for explan-
ation,
as if left between dances, or looking to be forgiven
for one of her follies.
A figure comforts her, sad and ugly, left over from
some
dark thought in a self-hate mirror, finding its way
back
to her—a collage of longing. The poor artist
struggles between them—growing insignificant at
the
power of his art, having lost control of his creation.
Only now there is this terrible love
that will face every barrier of shock and disapproval.
Only tragedy will result. How can he save them
now?
Their eyes have made the connection.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/16/19)
__________________
THE IRRATIONALITY OF DESIRE
—Joyce Odam
They leave her standing at the window, trans-
lucent and yearning after them, or staring at the
moonlight, the gray lake lapping at the night
with silver flickerings. It is not even a goodbye.
The boardwalk echoes with the lonely sound of
footsteps where even the shadows seem to make
a sound—the window candle burning down—
the receding men but slow depictions of each
other.
The men walk away from her in the moonlight,
into the perspective that disappears before they do.
Their blue shadows lag behind. They pass another
lighted window and look in. A lone chair on the
boardwalk on its shadow with no thought or
memory. No meaning. It is only a chair.
The night is only as old as it remembers. Everyone
is young. The quiet lake lies silver and green and
moves closer and closer to the boardwalk. The con-
jured nude at the window reaches out her hand to-
ward the opalescent moon and watches the men
enter the fading eloquence of their desire.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/21/12)
She is untitled as usual. She is too blue for explan-
ation,
as if left between dances, or looking to be forgiven
for one of her follies.
A figure comforts her, sad and ugly, left over from
some
dark thought in a self-hate mirror, finding its way
back
to her—a collage of longing. The poor artist
struggles between them—growing insignificant at
the
power of his art, having lost control of his creation.
Only now there is this terrible love
that will face every barrier of shock and disapproval.
Only tragedy will result. How can he save them
now?
Their eyes have made the connection.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/16/19)
__________________
THE IRRATIONALITY OF DESIRE
—Joyce Odam
They leave her standing at the window, trans-
lucent and yearning after them, or staring at the
moonlight, the gray lake lapping at the night
with silver flickerings. It is not even a goodbye.
The boardwalk echoes with the lonely sound of
footsteps where even the shadows seem to make
a sound—the window candle burning down—
the receding men but slow depictions of each
other.
The men walk away from her in the moonlight,
into the perspective that disappears before they do.
Their blue shadows lag behind. They pass another
lighted window and look in. A lone chair on the
boardwalk on its shadow with no thought or
memory. No meaning. It is only a chair.
The night is only as old as it remembers. Everyone
is young. The quiet lake lies silver and green and
moves closer and closer to the boardwalk. The con-
jured nude at the window reaches out her hand to-
ward the opalescent moon and watches the men
enter the fading eloquence of their desire.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/21/12)
.JPG)
TIMEPIECE
—Robin Gale Odam
how you guard me with your passion,
your weapons, your tools of trade, your
dangerous stare, the timepiece under your
sleeve—
the day will come for the welling of the
wells—how tears rise with no indignity—
how you will be gone, and then my
heart immortally filled at the welling—
tears to spill over the course of time
____________________
I MUST UNDERSTAND THE WORD
—Joyce Odam
Though I know the word
and I cannot reach the word
and I must undertake the word
to know beyond
the normal knowing
and my dismay
that I go fancy
when I try to stutter my way
through talk to say whatever
is the pure say instead of some un-
comprehensible reach through language,
that tool of words to define my
question or the simplest thing I try
to say when all my meaning goes awry.
—Robin Gale Odam
how you guard me with your passion,
your weapons, your tools of trade, your
dangerous stare, the timepiece under your
sleeve—
the day will come for the welling of the
wells—how tears rise with no indignity—
how you will be gone, and then my
heart immortally filled at the welling—
tears to spill over the course of time
____________________
I MUST UNDERSTAND THE WORD
—Joyce Odam
Though I know the word
and I cannot reach the word
and I must undertake the word
to know beyond
the normal knowing
and my dismay
that I go fancy
when I try to stutter my way
through talk to say whatever
is the pure say instead of some un-
comprehensible reach through language,
that tool of words to define my
question or the simplest thing I try
to say when all my meaning goes awry.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/4/22)
.JPG)
Writing The Letter
PAUL
—Joyce Odam
You lay on the couch.
Asleep.
I drew you.
I traveled each line,
filled in each contour,
and you never knew.
I will be
an artist, I said
to my beginning self.
Your name was Paul.
Once you
watched me sleep.
I awoke and found you
looking at me.
Strange that I remember
your name—
that much of you.
You were helpless,
asleep.
I drew you:
asleep, helpless, vulnerable;
I stole you,
never gave you back,
never kept the drawing—
no proof
for the poem
I would later write.
__________________
YOU NEVER KNEW ME
—Robin Gale Odam
Charcoal and umber, ivory and
bronze—you painted from memory.
You never colored my lips.
(prev. pub. in Brevities, March 2020;
Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/13/22)
.JPG)
Whoever She Is
I DANCE WITH THE GHOST OF MY SISTER
—Joyce Odam
I dance with the ghost of my sister
she is me
I am one
it is summer
and childhood again
we play catch
we play hide and hide
in seeking twilights
we laugh together at secrets
we sleep together in dreams
when I am angry at her
she disappears
I cannot punish her
only I am punished
by my envy
by my only-childedness
by our tearful mother
who lives only for me
I twirl in the fates of my sister
who is featureless
and has no existence
except what I give her
I pull her after me
in homesick years
in worlds where I am a stranger
and she has outgrown me
(prev. pub. in Calliope, Fall/Winter 1990)
.JPG)
Undersong
ghosts of old stanzas
now a mesh of random noise
flowers at the door
—Robin Gale Odam
(prev. pub. in Brevities, March 2020;
Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/13/22; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/16/23)
______________________
SHADOW LOVE
—Joyce Odam
It was love, I swear, emergent
in the stricken world
into which I hurled
my broken self
and marveled
that I fell
so far—so near,
the marred perfection
of the one
who beckoned me
with longing look.
I did not care how long it took.
The hand reached up
as mine reached down.
How easily a soul can drown
in hope’s reflection—
shimmering within the mind
with no reunion—still entwined
in shadow’s promise.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/14/17)
—Joyce Odam
It was love, I swear, emergent
in the stricken world
into which I hurled
my broken self
and marveled
that I fell
so far—so near,
the marred perfection
of the one
who beckoned me
with longing look.
I did not care how long it took.
The hand reached up
as mine reached down.
How easily a soul can drown
in hope’s reflection—
shimmering within the mind
with no reunion—still entwined
in shadow’s promise.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/14/17)
.JPG)
Boundary
WHAT IS NOT SEEN
—Joyce Odam
What is not seen is vital to our memory.
We call it ghost.
I no longer wish for saltless tears, but
let my eyes burn.
The cloud of knowledge : texture and
longing, ever-re-forming.
My mind flares up, caught again,
in violent description.
Now, to waken, is not to give in,
but to remember.
Lapses crowd in, little descriptions and
floundering, ‘the self’ forgotten.
Notes to myself
flutter neatly around me, like visions.
Hurt cries pain to sensibility,
caught on a thorn, pulling.
It’s all right, we murmur,
it’s all right.
Baying at the moon again,
my silent voice in patient bewilderment.
How can such a swirl make sense,
such a delirium become permanence.
.JPG)
Night Bird Sings
IT IS THE MUSIC
After Blue Mozart by Raoul Dufy
—Joyce Odam
It is the music, soft and sad, that leans forever
on the light—the ambient shadows close and
listening. It’s but an echo, a recall, the room
defining what you hear, the ghost that listens
by your side. Note the dust on time’s piano,
how the light leaves nothing there, how the
pale light from the window shines upon
the keys. Dusk is always full of longing.
You must bear it. Close your eyes against
the heavy, heavy, yearning. In the corner,
out of hearing, sorrows magnify. Let them
have the thoughts you send them—blue and
lovely in the gloaming—out of time’s own
voiceless praise. Time continues. Music stays.
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/16/18)
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
VISCERAL
After Green Landscape by Marc Chagall, l949
—Robin Gale Odam
The tiny boat, the sea of green, the
bloom of indifference, and these
shadows—just one kiss.
(prev. pub. in Brevities, January 2017)
___________________
Lust. What can I say? The Odam Poets (Joyce and Robin Gale) have plenty to say about it— our Seed of the Week—and we thank them for today’s fine post.
Our new Seed of the Week is “Compromise”. 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
Blue Mozart
—Painting by Marc Chagall
—Painting by Marc Chagall
A reminder that
Poets and Writers Workshop
meets in Cameron Park today, 5:30pm.
For info about this and other
future 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?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
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!
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?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
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!
