Sunday's Child

 The World Turns

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

 

 

PROVING
 —Joyce Odam

Silence.
Dust of silence.
Dust-light at the windows.
Time flowing backward into time.
Silence.

Light cannot enter windows now.
Grime of old light has built to a refusal.
Memories have no wish to be remembered.

Emptiness is heavy with an old weight.
A barrier now. Breath cannot breathe.
The door too far—the lock too rusty.

Folding chairs move in the light,
ever-so-slightly.
It’s not just their shadows,

glowing;
dusk is forming.
Soon the moons will enter—
every window with its soft light,
proving.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 10/4/16;
1/15/19; 6/1/21) 

 

 

 

 Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

COMPOSITION
—Joyce Odam

When I was ready for the poem
    it stretched out
        long before me, like a trail.

I followed as long as I could,
slower, and slower,
and slower,

while the poem—
wordy with excitement—
flew like a wavering butterfly before me

        —touched blossoms
      —here
—and there

how could I ever,
    how could I ever,
        how could I ever,

        measure the distance
    with my pace—
ever side-tracking—

into this barrier—
    and that thought—
        and revision, too soon.

 

 

 

 Mind Your Ps & Qs

       

THE DESPOILMENT
—Joyce Odam

To note a scribble on a page
and deplore that scribble
as a spoilage of intention,
or accidental blemish—

or some perfection unexpectedly
loved,
as holy words are loved—
words you read as wisdom,

and then to ponder them as willful,
as defacement,
followed by
a second-thought reaction :

should you erase them,
leave them be,
white them out, if ink—
or trust as something learned,

a thought-barrier of interpretation,
the otherness of it—apart from you—
or sense the bemusement that you
might be the one who put them there.

                                                 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/10/18;
5/5/20; 4/16/24)

 

 

 

Amen 

AGAINST MY JOURNEY
—Robin Gale Odam
After Dreamtime Sisters by Colleen Wallace Nungari

I was soaring above my blue world—
my sisters came alongside, each with a
walking stick—they reasoned against my
journey, appealed to my trust in the dirt
below—how blue, they said—and how
filled with what you know—they wept
into my eyes with theirs—how blue,
they cried—how blue.

     
(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2016)

________________

                              
WORDS
—Joyce Odam

Were I words instead of these sorrows,
what else could I bear
that is as heavy.

Speaking to myself while looking in
the mirror I am taken in through
the glass, once more caught.

Here is a truth, and here is a lie.
I have become two selves.
How similar they are.

Familiar darkness has returned
through struggling wings of light.
How can I still see them. 

 

 

 

 Happenstance

DAY-DREAMING CHILD AND 

NON-EXISTENT DOLL
—Joyce Odam

Is she the doll, this far-off, dreaming,
indoor child whose face is porcelain-white
in the sickly light from the window—

her red hair crushed
against a yielding pillow.
Is she ill, a model for the glass doll

that sits looking out the window,
rigid with listening to the sea
that sounds and sounds just out of view.

Does the child, too, listen—there is such
a disconnected dreaminess about her,
eyes without joy, no air of mischief,

her white dress catches window light
that tries to warm her, but her wild hair
draws all the light from the room.

She could be caught
in an ancient year of belonging,
left without energy enough to return.

The doll ignores the child—as does the child
the doll. If they are one and the same, how does
death happen to one and not the other?

                                                      
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/27/19) 

 

 

 

 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

SUNDAY’S CHILD
—Robin Gale Odam

I wish I were born on a Wednesday—
to make valid my woe . . . to charge me
where I need to go.

But Sunday’s child is full of grace.


(prev. pub. in Brevities, May 2020; and
Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/8/23)

 

 

 

 A Nickel For Your Thoughts

I AM IN THE DOORWAY
—Joyce Odam

I am in the doorway, bracing against it. I am as
tall as it is and can easily touch both sides. Yet, I
am a child, and in reality, the doorway is huge.
I am in an earthquake. Behind me the dark bulk
of the house is shuddering, blurring and shifting
as if there were no stability left in the world. I can-
not move. I freeze to the doorway, which is white
and smooth. I fasten to the white smoothness,
close my eyes and wait. The doorway has regained
its true size. I am an adult now. A flash of some-
thing has brought me back and forth in time at the
first recognizable rumble : Earthquake! My
imagination?

______________________     

AS I GO
—Robin Gale Odam
After July Night by Frederick Childe Hassam

I will take this with me, this
broken night, as much as I can
gather as I go—

there are so many remnants,
feigning to be mine.

And yet that song I cannot hold—
it is anchored to the hour.

I will take my black bag and my
wrap, these petals from the table,

one last sip, a final glance,
and yet that song I cannot hold—
it was always yours.

                       
(prev. pub. in Song of the San Joaquin, Summer 2019)
                          
__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ART PIECE IN THE CITY
 —Robin Gale Odam

heavy and cast of iron,
sturdy on a concrete base and
reflected in the window panes of a
high-rise balanced on a full city block
of concrete, rebar, and tension rods 

 

___________________

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the Odam poets for today’s fine poetry and pix! When you’re only eight days away from being 100 years old, one could say you’ve obviously learned to persevere in the face of roadblocks—a response to our Seed of the Week, Roadblocks. And that’s our SnakePal Joyce Odam, Primo Persevering Poet who will be 100 on August 7. I guess we could ask her if she’s “seen it all”—I wonder what she would say…

Anyway, our new Seed of the Week is “Perseverance”. 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

 

 

 

 Dreamtime Sisters
—Painting by Colleen Wallace Nungari

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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