Frozen Against The Darkness

Today  

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

 

 

POEM FOR SADNESS
—Joyce Odam

Everything is broken.
All my golden winds are
crying at the eaves.

The shadows make
their indecisive motions
and the terror of

the leaves is on the day
like answers in the
the fumble of a question.

Sounds ebb and flow
and seek the slower dying
of the echo.

Light can make
no further struggle so it lets
the darkness know.

Somewhere
a single goose
is slowly falling;

his space fills up with crying
and the ground prepares
its shudder.

The flying of the seed
is like a burden
in the pregnant air.

What if the dream be real . . .
and what if there is nothing
in the after.

                           
(prev. pub. in Oregonian Verse, 10/22/67; and
Harlequin Press, May 1968) 

 

 

 

The Sadness

 

 
AXIOM
—Robin Gale Odam

Because my eyes are masked,
and because rivers of tears have
stained my cheeks, and even though
my lips are hidden in shades of dark,

she has come to my hand out of the
axiom of art—from the quill pen—the
rue bird from the theory of sorrow.


(prev. pub. in Brevities, November 2019)

______________________

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.”

“Oh, 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.

­  
(prev. pub. in Trace, 1965;
“My Stranger Hands”, Wagon & Star, 1967;


and Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/11/23)

 

 

 

Look At The Weather

 

THE POET MENTIONS HER CHILDREN
—Joyce Odam

She has such children,
such children,
hidden in bibles and prayers,
hidden under blanket-tents
pulled over chairs,
hidden in the world
away from her . . . hidden.
But her strings are silver rain
and her children come home again
to dry her hair,
to kiss her wet weeping.
Her strings are silver rain.
Her children return.
She holds them . . .
she sends them away . . .
it is an old pattern.


(prev. pub. in Voices International, 1989
;

and Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/1/14) 

 

 

 

As We Watch

 

 
THE POET, STEALING TRUTH
—Joyce Odam

We saw how you stole
line after line from
yourself and called it
original, how
you threaded strands of

sunlight into your
hair when you stood at
the burning window;
how light entered you—
the transparent light

with you shining there
—an apparition,
alive and screaming
until a din of
silence received you.

How will we find you
among the golden
ashes that still hold
your original
presence. Your words were

written on the glass
where rain erased them—
your tears, as you turned
back to us—unchanged
and we believed you.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/3/17)

_____________________

THE POINT OF THE STORY
—Joyce Odam

come to me after the others
I will tell you a tale so slow
it will take hours

the point of the story
will never be reached
it will always have to be
continued
it will take days

it will be boring
but will have
a thread of interest

you will get caught up in it
like a soap opera
it will take years


(prev. pub. in Free Lunch, Autumn 1991; and
Song for a New Beginning chapbook, 1993,
Red Cedar Press of Colorado)

 

 

 

Birdbath

 

AND OVER THERE
—Robin Gale Odam

. . . in the leaves, the by-
gone of a different time barely
away from me now . . .

. . . of a different time, the
quiet stirring blown over, un-
remembered, in the past . . .

. . . the little wind and the flutter
of leaves, almost ready to fall, con-
signed to oblivion . . .

. . . or maybe just buried
in a line on a page of the journal,
and nearly forgotten . . . 

 

 

 

To Woes of Others

 

POEM WITHOUT AN ENDING
—Joyce Odam

Let us begin a poem and never finish it—just let it 

dwindle off the page as if there is more to be said, 

but when you turn the page another one begins. 

And let us title it “Poem Without an Ending” and 

give it only that one page to struggle on, ending 

there, maybe with the word and, or at least no 

punctuation-mark in a punctuated poem. And let it 

enjamb—and have too big a gap of meaning—

built up to, but not quite conveyed. And it will be 

intense rough draft—the way first thought comes, 

so quick and obscure we can only follow to see 

where it leads. And it will lead us away from it-

self, as if it resented our awakening—though it is 

the one that came to us—tossing like stones at our 

window, our faces frozen there against the dark-

ness, looking out to see—as if this is the way life 

is—on its single page the long quick scribbling—

the—
                                                                      

(prev. pub. in Poetry Now, July 1999; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 2/29/19)

 

 

 

Mercy

 

POET OF ALL THE TENDER THINGS
THERE ARE TO HARM
—Joyce Odam

The young lover of life
is more than I can suffer.
He is so passionate of all the loves
his heart can conjure.
Poet of all the tender things
there are to harm.
Gentle as gentleness
would have him be.

How can I tell him, Listen,
there is
the cruelty
and the losing
and the never becoming what you need to be;
there is the failure
and the hate to be a part of;
there is the settling for something less . . . !
when he looks at me with tangible love
and says, Yes, I know . . .
but not awhile yet . . .

Oh young imbecile,
whom I love as a sort of miracle
and dare not yet believe—
write yourself that way then.
I hope life believes you.


(prev. pub. in Nickel Review, 1970; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/26/20; 9/20/22)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

exhale at the looking glass
resolution of gravity

—Robin Gale Odam


(prev. pub. in Brevities, November 2019)

_____________________

Our thanks to the Odams—Joyce and Robin Gale—for today’s fine poetry as we continue to swelter here in California!

Our new Seed of the Week is “Roadblocks”. 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.

 

You may not have been able to access yesterday’s post, and if that’s true, then I’m very sorry. Let me know, and I’ll send it to you. One of our poets listed the Seven Naughty Words in his poem, so Blogger got irritated and blocked the whole post, insisting that people click certain things to get in. Not exactly censorship—more like a filter to keep kids out. As I said, I’ll get it to you if you weren’t able to access it.

And I guess we’ll have to watch what we try to post. So know that, if you use such words, I’ll have to take them out. This is, incidentally, the first time this has happened, even though we do use the F-bomb and the S-bomb on occasion. 

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 …against the darkness…

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

A reminder that
Twin Lotus Thai presents
three Fresno poets:
Tino DeGuevara,
Charlie Hensley & Paul Pierce
tonight, 6pm.
Reservations recommended!
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.

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