An Envy of Shadows

Secrecy

 

* * *

 

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

 

 

DISCARNATE
—Joyce Odam

Out of the harsh landscape comes the lone shadow,
out of the gray stone,
out of the gray hour—the vanishing sky—

the bodiless shadow, so lost there is no place for it,
only this desolation, this astounding wilderness—
no creature or vegetation, no line of horizon

or relief of water—nothing here but the slow
shadow,
displaced from its life, or its dream, or only created
for the duration of this poem.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/2/16; 11/8/22; 1/16/24)

 

 

 

When

 

THE DESOLATION
 —Joyce Odam

Here is where the lonely bring
their lucid prayers to face the four
directions with devotion to the soul
and charm the gods with their surrender.

The hills roll out
toward the far blue mountains—
the churning skies beyond—where
all the winds assail with all the forces.

The lonely ones are pure of spirit now,
nothing will fail or harm them,
they know how to plead,
they learn to love.

 

 

 

Past The Hour

 

 

RENDERED
 —Robin Gale Odam
After a mural on a cement wall

first I was a sketch of art
large upon a wall of light
rare of charm, unrivaled, full

then it was that part of me
was fallen, ruinous, unchaste
never one for enmity

take the concrete canvas up
bash it with a wrecking ball
that my bittered heart can go 

 

 

 

In The Dream

AN ENVY OF SHADOWS
—Joyce Odam

And in the room were light shards—who chose all
the forms to be, the pierce against cold, the very
dance of mystery from an old nerve of response
and as giddy? I was lifted through the glass as if it
were not there—not window—not chandelier. I
was dance with dance, and light with light. The
room blazed again as before, Shadows ceased to 

be. I could not name the colors : jewel tones, 

exotic blends, no color, one color, fragmenting the 

room into a clash of exploding brilliance. There 

was no room now for anything to regain its same-

ness, though the surface quivered back at once—

like a hallucination turning back into sanity.

                                                                 
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/7/19) 

 

 

 

As Is

 

 
EVEN HERE
—Joyce Odam

Even here, among
  the forgotten
    shadows,
      histories,
        and rumors;

even here,
  among the cold
    reverberating echoes
      that quarreled still,

it became the place
  we knew to look
    for landmarks and
      long-ago addresses;

we were the ones it
  longed to have return,
    this place of perfect
      desolation.

We were its old inhabitants –
  prodigals of time, and we
    were weary—weary—
      and ready to surrender.

Yes, here…yes, here
  is where we would rest…
     perhaps stay.


(prev. pub. in Poets’ Forum, December 1996)

 

______________________

ON THE WATER
—Robin Gale Odam

lotus flowers, yellow as a memory,
and you—young in the green shade of
her umbrella, in the long canoe drifting on

the water—you, pining for a glimpse of the
dark fishes circling in the shadows of the
lotus, in the shade of her confessions—

you, the sister of my mother’s solitude,
and her confessing the path of the fishes,
into the shade of the lotus, around the
shadows, and out of the dream

 

 

 

The Unknowable

 

 

GODS OF A HUNDRED ILLUSIONS
—Joyce Odam

Angels flutter their wings
In their transparency
I see them

or is that an error of human imagination :
what are gods without angels
angels without gods

but I see them from the hundred windows
that my mind creates,   believes,   denies,
these spellings of illogical truth.

I feel the chill at my back
and turn around to the disconnection
of a receding, dispassionate landscape.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/22/19) 

 

 

 

The Old Diary
 

 SUNLIGHT KISS THE SHADE
—Robin Gale Odam
After Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth, 1948

In the ruins of promises,
all the raspy words are behind me—
deftly you slipped away, just as I caught
my breath.

And now I sit in a doorway,
my back to a darkened room, unable to
remember what I would have said.

 

 

 

Close The Book

 

VANITIES AND DESOLATIONS
—Joyce Odam

1. It was only the slow sleep into the waft of sur-
render, the fluttering curtain at the doorway, pulled
for quiet, the way the light remembers here, to lie
quietly against the floor where a prone figure, in
one of its spells, faces the rigidity of anguish.

2. A soft singing emanates from somewhere and
thins into some listener’s reluctance to believe such
sounds can be bestowed—perhaps the guilt of rev-
erie, or the way some hand is muffled over a mouth.

3. It was always so—this used tableau, soliloquy
and melodrama, written for someone to say into an
admiring talent for such things. Note how subtle
becomes the turn of telling, how now the very ex-
istence of light is challenged by the fall of a heavy
curtain upon which a marvelous scene is playing
between acts.

4. And elsewhere—oh, elsewhere, the dissolving
begins. The bit of light is swept away and its gold
dust rises into the folds of the curtain. A great hol-
lowing absorbs the last echo and the sweet voices
are no more. The listener must now remember all
it can of this, because it’s over and the storyteller
has fallen asleep in the chair, and sometimes this
is the way some stories end.

                                                               
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/12/19)
                  
__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DESIRE
—Joyce Odam

take this incident of love—this love
that is so perfect—that you believe in,

take this round thought—let it blur,
gaze into the first desolation,

O, take this love—this hesitation—
this round thought, this blurry passion,

—alas! you take this blinding shape—
repeating to a blur—becoming fire.

__________________

Joyce and Robin Odam have brought us shudders of shadows of desolation today—our Seed of the Week—and we thank them for their fine, atmospheric poems and pix! These are indeed the envy of shadows…

Our new Seed of the Week is for Labor Day, “Work”. 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.

Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.

__________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

",,,slow sleep at the waft of surrender..."

—Public Domain Image Courtesy of Medusa

A reminder that
Twin Lotus Thai Fourth Tuesdays
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reservations strongly advised!
For info about this and other
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