A Touch Of Blues

 

 Other Side Of Dark

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

 

 

AWAY
—Robin Gale Odam

Around the block, up over the
point of tears to the trail of stones
through the green park with the song-
birds and the night sifting down.

Away for the crying—
I will go away.

                            
(prev. pub. in Brevities, April 2020;
and Medusa’s Kitchen, 7/25/23) 

 

 

 

 We’ll Talk

HOME
—Joyce Odam

Why do we get off
here?
I do not know this place
nor any of these people.
What kind of neighborhood
is this
with its houses
of no house-numbers
and its street-names
repeated at every corner.
I thought you knew
the way.
I have always followed what you knew.
But there is nothing here,
this old, ghost-town-of-a-place
you seem to remember.

You open a door
and go in
and after a moment
I follow, trusting you,
and find
a false-front house
with fields behind
and the famous tumbleweed
of movies
rolling past.
You should have
disappeared
to make this poem mysterious.
But you are standing there
with lonely welcome on your face,
your arms extended.
                           

(prev. pub. in Calliope, 1989;

and Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/13/11) 

 

 

 

A Sound

SOMEONE IN A RENTED ROOM
—Joyce Odam

Someone in a rented room playing a violin
to the night, to the music itself, in tribute
to the mood and to the violinist, music
that softens against the walls and
spills out into the hallway where
someone passing listens—
someone with memories—
someone with buried tears—
someone who unlocks
another door and goes inside.

And this is not
a romance in disguise,
this is a moment
that snags against another
moment that only exists in the
imagination of this poem,
the violinist someone who died
a long time ago, unknown to
the poet but who puts him here
to fill an unhealed sadness of someone
playing a violin in a rented room.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/11/17

[with different line break]; 1/19/21)

 

 

 

 Secretive

CAUTIONS
—Joyce Odam

You don’t tell. Trust no one.
Forgiveness is myth. Talk is cheap.

Secrets are shallow, having drowned
themselves over and over under your breath.

Information is stored for revenge
when needed—when hate replaces love.

Tell no one. Trust no one.
Truth is a fading commodity.

It’s not so hard to give in to unhappiness—the
depression that lives there under every flicker of joy.

 

 

 

 A Whisper Of Language

SOLITUDE
—Robin Gale Odam

My heart wears the stains of
the world, the lies and the cold
breath of fake promises—decades
of whispering to myself, and the
mystery of oblivion.

                      
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/11/23)

 

 

 

 The Role Of Darkness

SOOTHINGS
—Joyce Odam

Who do you think I am in the moonlight every night
by the dreaming window, watching stars leap
above ghostly cows,
the moon growing dizzy with love?

Who do you think dries the bones of light
that shudder the curtains?

And who do you think howls the dogs to sleep?

Who do you think is in love with impossible sounds
from the mouths of flowers,
those moans of dying in unfamiliar vases
on moon-dusted surfaces?

Watch with me—help me remember—since you
are the one who started all this with your sighing
and crying—refusing to enter
the terrible dreams.

There is only one more hour before light
comes swaying over the distance that is night . . .
Say this again to yourself: only the distance
of the night . . .   Now you can sleep . . .

                                         
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 1/30/14; 2/9/21;
8/30/22)

 

 

 

 A Touch Of Blues

CROW SINGS DEEP OF MELANCHOLY
—Joyce Odam
      
his black voice harshly harmonizing
with himself

his sharp eyes sharply severing
the day apart

cutting the loud sky with his wing
so wide and dark

making a noise we cannot bear to feel
or hear—it breaks the heart

 

 

 

 Night Has A Need

CROWS AND GULLS
—Joyce Odam

Black crows caw from a winter tree
across the width of misery,
claiming the sky possessively.

And in the field two seagulls soar.
And then two more. And then two more.

Clouds gather with their tones of gray
upon this dragging, gray-soaked day
and send the stillnesses away.

And then a rain begins to fall.
Then stops. And just forgets it all.

The crows call out from here and there
and send their cawing everywhere
and make sharp patterns in the air.

The gulls insist on being white.
I don’t know what they’ll do with night.

As desolate as all this seems,
it’s just the first of many themes,
as fragile as the life in dreams. 

 

 

 

 Times Of Time

THE DISSUASION
—Joyce Odam

If you see me as beautiful, know I am real,
I am tattooed to enhance my beauty,

I wear a gold ring in my nose
and a silver one in my lower lip.

I wear a spiked bracelet around my head.
I braid beads into my hair.

I carry this branch of tree-life in my hand.
Every talisman has its power.

I am the daughter of the sky
and of the stricken land. We accuse you.

You see love in my eyes.
You see my mouth does not open to speak.

I am female.
I forgive nothing.

I may love you, but I love my beauty more.
It is my own.

You may desire me,
but that would be your sacrifice.

Animal soul and tree soul imbue me.
The elements nourish me.

I am deathless now. Would you hold me?
It will take more than that. It will take more.


(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/5/24) 

 

 

 

 Death Just Stares

BITTER AND SWEET
—Robin Gale Odam

It begins with naught—
he drew a shadow out of the
shotglass and drank it down fully

If you perfect your dark look
the world will look darkly on you

I have not lost my memory of this

He thought I said "combatable"
so we were married

Even at the darkest of joy
there is a beginning and the end

                      
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 3/21/23)

 

 

 

 In Mind And Time

LIKE PARABLES
—Joyce Odam

The wild deep rows. The haggard light.
The old clock running down. Its hands
of time praying and letting go—moment
by moment of whatever time is, which is

to remember nothing of anything. Rows of
dark light manipulate themselves into layers
of sweet dreams. Oh, sleep is insidious, and
so like death, with its little gray commas  , , ,  

here and there, interrupting the light between
words, hesitations, and the silence thrills
to be so loose upon the quavering air, and
love is everywhere in little surrenders—

putting itself in jeopardy, committing errors.
Why do you think we terrify ourselves—
dwindle away like mutterings? Each memory
is thin, like a twilight that is easy to feel

at the close of day. Why do you think
we feed the dark our simple terrors? There
is no more space for words that are over-
used and fallen all around us, like parables. 

 

 

 

 In A Book Of Poems

MY WISH FOR YOU 

—Joyce Odam

I cannot find words for you—you
of mute language—keeper of silence,
textureless against texture.

Leaves drift around you from
another page. Are they words?
You watch them fall.

The air is blank, like a white sky.
You are only a drawing.
I love your perfection.

The next page will turn you over.
I will not turn the page. You are
the keeper of what I want to know.

The words that seem to know you
are jealous words.
I cannot get past them.

I want to write over them,
leave you there
without the words of another.

You refuse
my writing of you,
will not help me.

You hold a small book,
tightly closed.
Is that where you keep yourself?
                                

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/19/16)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE DREAMED DEATH   
—Joyce Odam     

we are the dreamed death . . . now we go
silently down old stairs and corridors,
now we go floating in and out of minds
that are terrified of us . . . we leave our
shadows there . . . we touch their eyes closed
and we whisper awful things to them . . .

                                           
(prev. pub. in The Lilliput Review, 1999;  
and Medusas’ Kitchen, 4/27/21)

___________________

There are new neighbors (our Seed of the Week) and there is us—when we move, WE become the new (possibly obnoxious) neighbors, says Robin Gale. It’s all perspective, I guess. Anyway, thanks to Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam for some fine new-neighbor-ness today, and to Joyce for the way cool visuals.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Empty”. 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

 

 

 

Irises are here!
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For 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.

Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.
To find previous posts, type the name
of the poet (or poem) into the little
beige box at the top left-hand side
of this column. See also
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom
of the blue column at the right
side of this column to find
any date you want.

Miss a post?
You can find our most recent ones  by
scrolling down under this daily one.
Or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column.
(Please excuse typos in older posts!
Blogspot has been through a lot of
incarnations in 20 years!)

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!

 

“The gulls insist on being white . . .”