Hope's Blindfold

 In the Dark Mirror
* * *
—Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam,
Sacramento, CA
—Photos and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam

 

 

THE MYTH YOU TRY TO LIVE UP TO
—Joyce Odam
After Unconditional Love by Sarah Descallare

Hope wears a blindfold so you can grope
toward the brightness of your desire.

It is the only way to earn what you want.
It is its own guarded secret.

It will tell you, and tell you to follow—
follow. And you will follow

and not stumble,
though there are pitfalls everywhere.

Your heart is pure and your
want is sacred.

You will never fail yourself,
and someday hope may reward you.

                                         
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/23/10; 9/13/11; 

9/22/15)

 

 

 

To Sing At Dawn

VENEER
—Robin Gale Odam

You were beautiful—your mask,
your costumes, your voices, and the
lyrics you sang as if you were real.

                        
(prev. pub. in Brevities, October 2013;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/7/23)

 

 

 

 Mercy

THIS PAGE OF PITY
—Joyce Odam

This page of pity
is for your great loss,

is for your sad song,
is for your mute cry.

I have unrolled it for you
as if it were a scroll,

as if ink could ever
wear such woe

and not bleed there
indelibly. Oh,

you to come to me
with such great sorrow

and spread its shadow over me
like a wing of heaviness.

My shoulders ache
with sympathy.

                        
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/27/12) 

 

 

 

 The Sense of Time

HUMILITY
—Joyce Odam

What is it that has taught me this force,
this grand pretense, this mask of life
worn for survival

what is it that has taught me this craft
of hope and put my faith in this carrot
that I follow for the maybe of it

what will I thank for this that I go on and
on in absolute illusion, because just once
if I go on in any such reasoning, I go on

to the next day, and the next, because
I'll have conjured some attainment
that I need for
going on,
and on,
and
on


(prev. pub. in  Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/6/24)

 

 

 

The Loneliness

WE ARE

all particle—of the earth—of the air—
of every whispering voice and every

tear fallen from grief, or joy, and every
tear for the silk fabric of fog, mist over

water, sound of crying, the harsh notes
of rage, the emptied stare,

looking at everything—brooding,
crying—the very act of this—the

very rhyming in every windowed
reflection made of glass, the sensation

of touch, the rush of pleasure, the feel
of darkness to the grope, the sunrise,

the sunset, the blur of hope in the frazzled 


mind, the very hope of existence in the doubt,

the distance and the near—the everything,
and everywhere—in this moment, here.


—Joyce Odam
                                                

(prev. pub. in Cal. Fed. of Chaparral Poets Contest;
also in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/21/21)

 

 

 

 How Round the Hour

JOURNEY
—Robin Gale Odam

as though time stood still
all the others watching us
bind our vows in vain

promise anchored in the deep
vessel fettered in the sand

                       
(prev. pub. in Brevities, May 2020;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 8/6/24)

 

 

 

 Chance

WAIT WITH ME (… and we cannot …)
—Joyce Odam

A donkey becomes holy in my mind.
I do not hold to one place
or one thought.
I scatter and wonder
into everything.
How will I
pray
into
my
want
and need.
I am humble.
Words tighten
and I cannot speak.
I am slow, I am sore,
I am a-flounder in my
heart and mind which
combine, and I wait… for
a forgiveness… for a sign…

                                         
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 4/28/20) 

 

 

 

Watching The Day Change

POEM FOR EVENING  

—Joyce Odam

Evening
is the soul
of the long day.
It is lost
for awhile
in half dark
and half light.
It moves through a time
of forget and remember.
The sound that it makes
is shadow.
The place where it goes
is night.
                 

(Forest Lawn Contest, 1st Place, July 1996;
prev. pub. in The Human Voice Quarterly, 1968;
also in The Night Eye Mini-Chap, 1998;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen, 9/13/11)

 

 

 

 There’s A Crack in The World

NOTE
—Joyce Odam

enjambment
hope and
suicide
all promising
their dark
and their
spark of
light
diffused to
this arrangement
all our dreams
composed
upon the soft
continuance
of time in lock
no key
no door
except the
shadowed promises
oh rage
oh joy
take turns
with me
I waft
and flicker
out
now you
are free


(prev. pub. in Red Cedar Review, 1993;  
Dark Verticals Mini-Chap by Joyce Odam, 2002;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen 10/4/16)

 

 

 

 Want

MORTAL
—Robin Gale Odam
After To the Forest by Edvard Munch, 1887

I hold gently to death. He leads me
towards the tree shadows near the unfolding.
I wear my best transparency. He bears my name.

                                             
(prev. pub. in Brevities, June 2016;
and in Medusa’s Kitchen 6/20/23; 12/24/24)

 

 

 

 The Mind And Body Begin To Heal

HOPE AS REVERENCE
—Joyce Odam

I love.
Though God
is. Or will be.
Or never was.
The frightful name of Him,
The Wholeness, the Emptiness.
The Fringe of Existence.
His or mine,
Hollow God.
Voiceless God.
God of Soul and
Original Question.
Afraid of Himself—
said here for the Superstition,
the Incomprehension, too big
a word for Utterance  
like God, who is Ever and Beyond.
My prayer for Him, for His Melancholy.
We circle. I Love, but love is Mysterious
and Sole—entirety and void—void filled
with God who does not translate Himself,
lonely and incomplete, here for the glory,
for the explanation, which is meaningless
to the fear and incoherence—the distance
of our incomprehension.

 

 

 

 Poverty

Today’s LittleNip:

AN EMPTY PAGE
—Joyce Odam

I wish I had words on this page.
Thought vanishes as I think it.

Time is culprit and suspect.
I wish I had words.
                   

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 3/27/12)

___________________

Thanks to Robin Gale Odam and Joyce Odam for their fine poetry and Joyce’s sharp visuals as we enter the second half of 2025. Our Seed of the Week was High Hopes.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Dark Secrets”. 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

 

 

 

Dark Secrets

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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