Black Roses For My Midnight Joy

 Evelyn Nesbit, 

"The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing"

THE DARKNESS
—Joyce Odam

You have come with your gift
of black roses for my midnight joy.
Now the house is full of flowers

that die after all, no matter how
I loved them. All of my rooms
are thick with their dying

and I am sad now. Flowers cannot
heal me, yet you keep bringing
these impossible black roses.


(First published in My Best Regret
Mini-chap by Joyce Odam, 2008)

____________________

HOW OLD LOVE REMEMBERS
—Joyce Odam

Love is such a hound—
sniffing out the years,

till it finds
the old familiar scent again.

_____________________

OLD KEY TO OLD LOVE
—Joyce Odam

I will send this key to my old lover—
make him guess. Love is mysterious.

He will wonder what it’s for:
what love . . . ? what door . . . ?

(Key-to-my-heart door,
the key—the lock—my heart—all rusted.)

He will unwrap the key with expectation
—turn it in his hand and try to remember

why it seems familiar—
why it keeps growing smaller and smaller

until it becomes a flaking blemish
in the rusty hollow of his palm.


(First published in Poets Forum Magazine, 2007)

___________________

MY LOVE WHO IS A DANCER
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

My love
who is a dancer
cannot dance
unless I tell him to.

But I am silent
as a love
who cannot tell
the true from true.

My legs are numb,
he tells me in my arms
when I have told
the music go.

My arms are strong,
I tell him
so that he will know
I love him still.


(First published in ARX Magazine, 1970)

____________________

PRECARIOUS LOVE
—Joyce Odam

Later we will say how we were happy,
then permit a silence to fill some space

left open. We will not want admissions
or what passes for comfort zones, seldom

entered. We will gloss over surfaces till they
shine with sincerity, we are that frightened.

______________________

THIS LONELY LOVE
—Joyce Odam

It was a far-fetched thing, this lonely love,
made of feathers and cold moonlight,
distant moans from old woes.

How easily they conjured
something to use
for reasons:
Perfect!
Every ruse!
Cold-storage-lies!
Early blames! New contagions!

Tawdry cynics—needing
something simple to believe in—falling
into old patterns because they were familiar.

_____________________

YOU ARE MY LOVE POEM
—Joyce Odam

You are my love poem
you funny ballet-dancer
belly-laugher
comedian
and sad-eyed star
of tragedies.

How late you are
to my role
of audience.
I confuse myself with art
and applaud your performance,
write you a fan letter,
this poem.


(First published in
Red Cedar Review of Colorado, 1993)

____________________

SUFFICIENT LOVE
—Joyce Odam

Like fate—they converged—from opposites.
what matter, differences? Differences attract.

They would love when fate would permit it,
briefly or forever.

Love was an abstract they believed in.
Neither was ready when it happened—

when the glamour of waiting was over.
Even that sufficed.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

TOWARD BLOSSOMING
—Allegra Silberstein, Davis

Here we are this very day
light streaming through bare branches
tinting them with shades of silver

Here we are this very hour
our tongue awakened spirit
poured into words

Here we are this very minute
fingers curved on our pen
the otherwise of forget

Here we are this very moment
like blossoms opening
Here.

___________________

—Medusa

Thanks to two of our Valentines, Joyce Odam and Allegra Silberstein, for today's poetry. Allegra writes:  Five years ago in 2007 I received my first and the last in a series of Valentine postcards sent by Ted Kooser. He inspired me to start sending Valentine postcards...first I sent only to a few people: family and others who were alone and might be glad for a Valentine...my criteria has expanded and this year I sent about 50 postcards. Happy Valentine's Day!—Allegra

 Evelyn Nesbit, 

Inspiration for the original "Gibson Girls"

Living In These Palaces

Frank Andrick and Ann Menebroker, 2010

FINDING OUR LIVES FULL OF PEOPLE
—T.L. Kryss

Watching the crowds as they emerged from the underground.
Eating an apple in a deserted station when a woman came up
and sat down beside you.

Working the crosswords, pencil poised in deep thought, broken,
when a child ran across the concourse chasing a sparrow.

Learning from the ticketmaster that his sister lives in the same
town in Poland, that the cost of produce in the local outdoors
market remains reasonable to a certain extent.

Boarding the train with a suitcase and bumping into yourself
in a mirror.

Bending down to pick up scattered papers and finding another
hand at your side and the words "can I be of assistance?"

Stretching a dollar out of the pocket and giving it to a man
with a sad story.

Settling in by the window, stretching out, and having another
take a definite liking to the seat to your right.

Knowing that the conversation will be concerned with things
that float by on the surface, and accepting that with a certain
inalienable grace.

Observing the girl as she fades off to sleep and the mountains
roll by just beyond her hair.

Touching her reflection, spreading your fingers over it
and keeping them there.

____________________

FINDING OUR LIVES FULL OF PEOPLE
—D.R. Wagner

The sunlight on dust motes.
A hatch of gnats, suspended
In the coming of the evening,
Made to look like a mysterious
Jewel by the same light that
Pulls hawks to a late circling
Above the river.

All the doors and windows open,
As if Summer were an endless
Affair. In and out they come.

Finding our lives full of people.
The room is full. The room is empty.
We kiss one another, hold our bodies
As outstanding trophies, collections
Garnered from the sweetness
Of moving through window after window,
Door after door, sleeping and waking,
Touching one another, knowing the night
Sky ripe with stars, having songs
About all these things, singing them.

Finding our lives full of people.
Watching one and then the other.
Leaving and returning through room
After room. Losing sight of them, regaining it.
Leaving all but memory.
The memory leaving.

Finding our lives full of people.
Making palaces filled with the wind
Of their constant movement.
Living in these palaces,
Day after day, forever.

______________________

—Medusa (with thanks to D.R. Wagner and Tom Kryss for these poems they exchanged in 2010)

Pawsore

The Black Pegasus

—Painting by Odilon Redon

STREETS
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

finally

a whisper of hope along Sugar Street
and the secret alleys where pharaohs lounged
where they pushed off on their barques
along the Nile, sailing down their corridors of power
kings and commanders with knotted whips,
electric shocks

shrieks of pain still echo along the crumbled walls
narrow streets of filth and shame
market stalls huddled close
whispers against the bleak
behind veiled windows closed during the long wintry summer
sweet thought barred
power a frozen desert
hope chilled

whisper of starved streets for the rapid scurry
and sweep along the revolutionary moment

startled streets swarm

___________________

Thanks, Patricia, for the poem celebrating the success of the Egyptian uprising. You can find Pat's new rattlechap, Dawn and Dirty, at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

Another treat in the Kitchen today is our guest poet from Austin, Texas, Mary Rudig, who uses the pen name, Minhocao. Minhocao lives in and works in the great state of Texas, which is the only exciting thing about her life, she says. She spends her days being a prairie dog in a cubicle farm, but when released, she writes, makes eccentric poetry recommendations, and pretends to know something about gardening. Her publications on Medusa's Kitchen and the upcoming Ophidian are her first! Minhocao’s Christmas gift to herself was an online poetry journal, which can be perused here: minhocao.livejournal.com  Scroll down for a photo of Mary that is an MK first: a round photo!

__________________

EARLY SUMMER
—Minhocao

The cicadas have
   come to the suburbs.
It is too cool for air,
   too hot for closed windows.
I listen to metallic chirps
    through screens and
The blurred sound of the box fan
   and wash the dishes.

__________________

EVENING DESIRES
—Minhocao

Crowded sometimes,
Our lives—there is
Scarcely room for
Two. When I raise my
Hands to strip
You bare for
Love-making, my
Elbows bump
Against time,
Obligations,
—Regrets.

____________________

SKINNED, BUT WALKING
—Minhocao

When I was
very young, I
kept my pelt
hanging on
the nail beside
my bed.

Until
the morning
when they stole
it, locked my
fur up, down
in the root
cellar.

They
gave me a
white dress,
gave me a boy,
not yet a man,
instead.

When
I cried for
the key, they
only said:

Hush
your mouth
Girl,
he's a
good man
and my,
but
don't you
look
so fine,
in that
pretty
pretty
dress.

______________________

SELF REFLECTION
—Minhocao

The road crew has
     left another rock pile,
The sunlight puddles and streaks
     across white limestone.
An orange safety sign lies
     abandoned in the tall grass.

______________________

BLOODED HEAT
—Minhocao

My head,
     tipped by your hand,
Guided like a coursing hound
     into
The heated blood of your kiss.

If I tremble,
     forgive.

I am pawsore
     and
         famished.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

For these "holidays", with their big, stuffed commercial fliers,
why not—instead of buying candy, jewelry and flowers—
give to world hunger relief organizations?
Don’t people realize that the same money for mere trinkets
could instead be put to use saving peoples' lives?
Besides—what could be better to show your love than
a receipt showing that you cared that many other people get to eat?

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

_____________________

—Medusa

Mary Rudig (Minhocao)

Longing Alone Is Singer To The Lute

Darling House High Window, Santa Cruz

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

IN SEARCH OF TALES
—Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento

The cottage was a puzzle of mysteries,
portioned by artful window panes and arches
that led to the shoreline. Late sun found the
arches and shadows reached toward the
beveled panes.

Inside a darkened room they slept, the
woman and the man—they had come
in search of tales, and to touch the sea.
They had come to . . . stir and grow restless as
shadows spilled through the arches and fractured
in the bevels and lay fallen among the mysteries
and the woman and the man, who stirred in their
dreaming of sailing ships and giant turtles and
sea snakes and old men who had followed
sixty-five silver-bellied gulls into the salt wind...

Legend claims that, if you look carefully through
the beveled windows, they can still be seen, the
woman and the man, dreaming with the mysteries
in search of tales in the darkened cottage room,
past the arches that lead to the shoreline.

____________________

Thanks, Robin Gale Odam, for this poem that I woke up to this morning in my inbox. It's based on Katy Brown's wonderful Darling House photo that I posted before we went to Santa Cruz last Saturday. Katy and her bf, Robert, are friends with the owners of Darling House, a stately old mansion next to the sea in Santa Cruz that is now a bed-and-breakfast, so they visit it sometimes, and Katy, of course, always has her trusty camera at the ready. Valentines can be sent to anyone and anything, yes? Even to the beautiful windows in a mansion overlooking the sea, or the dreams of the people who look out of them. And what better way to send a valentine than to write a poem...?

WARNING: The reading at La Raza which I originally posted as happening Friday night actually took place on Thursday, not tonight. My bad—sorry.

Here are some poems from Eddie Millay, who knew how to talk about love and loss and everything in between. She knew it t'warn't easy...


AFTERNOON ON A HILL
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing
   Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
   And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
   With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
   And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
   Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
   And then start down!

_____________________

SORROW
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
   Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
   Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
   I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown,
   Or what shoes I wear.

_____________________

SONNET XII
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,—but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
Our steady senses; how such matters go
We are aware, and how such matters end.
Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
With lovers such as we forevermore
Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
Receives the Table's ruin through her door,
Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
Lets fall the coloured book upon the floor.

____________________

SONNET XV
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,—farewell!—the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The colour and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

____________________

SONNET XIII
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we,—articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
Longing alone is singer to the lute;
Let still on nettles in the open sigh
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
As any man, and love be far and high,
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
Found on the ground by every passer-by.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

LOVE ME FOR A WEEK
—Robin Gale Odam

If you would suit my mood,
if you would bring me morning...

I would reflect you in my eyes...

I would place your flowers in my jar
and remove those that withered, evening
by evening until the last one remained,
which I would then press, for my
book of loves...

You would love me for a week.

____________________

—Medusa

Bring Me Morning

—Photo by Robin Gale Odam

Waiting In The Middle

That perplexing moment when a deciduous tree

cannot decide what to do next...

—Photo by Carl Bernard Schwartz

I WANT MY MONEY BACK
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

A few decades ago
I attended grammar school
and was taught and tested
on the serial comma rule.

Don’t think about it, just
obey the rules.

It was not until this century
when I tested for a state job
that I learned they now imposed
a different serial comma rule.
Too bad it wasn’t in the
curriculum to teach us how to
deal with absolutes becoming
obsolete.

No more planet Pluto, either.

Anyone remember adverbs?
Today they just get pecked
and devoured like the best
fruit at the top of the tree,
leaving us with an avalanche
of ordinary adjectives to
modify verbs.

Kids study careful so they can
breathe deep and sing loud.

Those whose families paid
their fair share of taxes for this
“education” should join in a class
action lawsuit to receive just
compensation for being forced
to buy damaged goods.

I want my money back!

____________________

Thanks, Carl, and thanks to today's other contributors, including Mitz Sackman (who is just getting over a 5-month writing "drought"), and Paul Lojeski, a SnakePal from 'way back in New York who lived in Santa Cruz from '69-'73 (some of the go-go years!) and who misses it sorely. Read about that in his poem which will appear in 02 (The Ophidian) later this spring: deadline for you to send yours in is March 1. See the b-board for details.

The reading at The Book Collector last night was spectacular; be sure to stop in and pick up a copy of Rachel Leibrock's broadside and Pat Hickerson's chapbook, as well as to take advantage of TBC's month-long 25%-off sale. And the list of near-future readings in this area is long and rich (check that out on the b-board, besides), including Patrick Ball at a benefit at The Palms in Winters this Sunday. About him, Katy Brown reports: I can’t stress enough how wonderful Patrick Ball is!! This is an opportunity for poets to hear one of the last of the old-time bards in action. He is a world-class harpist and a fabulous story-teller. He weaves stories, poems and conversation in with his playing for the most mesmerizing entertainment you can imagine. He is truly amazing. 

____________________

URBAN SOLACE XXIII
That Day Again
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys

He dreaded this day
It rolled around every year
The day that he was supposed to
Be able to read her mind
Give her what she most wanted
Make her feel loved
Make her feel valued
Give her bragging rights
Be that Romance guy
That he is not in real life
But he has to make the effort
Pay his dues to the
Gods of merchandising love

___________________

and I heard wild music
—paul lojeski, port jefferson, ny

In nights
beyond
local
situations,
bright in hope
and trying,
one more
song
flying
on broad
wings,
flying
on broad
wings.
we
were
rockin
it then,
rockin,
rockin
it then.

_____________________

A BAND IS PLAYING
—Paul Lojeski

It is the song trying to be
Remembered Kunitz sang
Of to the best of his recollection.

Fewer and fewer hear the music
Now winter’s come stomping
Down its unsympathetic road.

They say nothing’s changed
By man’s hand but I swear
That cold’s the coldest cold ever.

Hear the hammers thunder
On our mountains of disbelief,
Hear the drumbeats getting louder.

____________________

THE LAST SUPPER
—Paul Lojeski

That ass-shaking
cold night I went
over and she was
sitting by the light
wearing sunglasses
and an eye-patch
over the perfectly
all right right eye,
the sight of two
too much, I guess,
and she frowned
when I entered late
again, taking a hit
on that tiny joint.
I sat at the table
with the dinner
she’d made, now
forlorn and singing
its own blues
of neglect and waste
and I tried a joke
or two but she wasn’t
having any, sliding
down her dark road
with the monster
she'd made of clay,
her mouth a curse
as I made a run
for the door.

_____________________

suffering
—paul lojeski

that most
hungry
and loyal
dog's
blood
red teeth
at your
throat,
the nightmare
in the mirror
you
can’t stop
petting.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

THIS MAD LIMBO
—Paul Lojeski

It feels like a space
between two worlds,

one on either side
of my mind. In this

indescribable middle
I wait, trying to see.

____________________

—Medusa
 

Crying Spider

—Painting by Odilon Redon

More Love-Snacks From The Kitchen

Winter Sunset

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

A WINTER SUNSET IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The day was much too warm
To truly be called a Winter’s
Day. Narcissus were in bloom.
The greening of the fields was overloaded
For the time of year, but there it was.

Evening had loaded itself on moisture,
Banked the clouds into sheets,
Stretched them across a valley landscape
And was pushing the sun down behind

The whole thing in poured golds and
metallic hues that could easily have
Been kept and put aside for
Late Spring or early Summer. Five
O’clock was not used to handling
This kind of display at all.

The sky was slightly embarrassed
But would never deny that wealth
Of colors and special fashion
Such a rare gem as this could command.

And so it commanded and looking we obeyed.

____________________

Thanks to today's multiplicity of contributors, including Pat Hickerson, who'll be celebrating the release of her rattlechap, Dawn and Dirty, at The Book Collector tonight (7:30pm at 1008 24th St., Sac.); Taylor Graham, who'll be co-hosting tonight's new read-around series in Placerville (Poetry Off-the-Shelves) at the Library, 345 Fair Lane, 6pm; D.R. Wagner, who'll be releasing a SnakeRings SpiralChap (A Limited Means of Expression) at Rattlesnake Press's Seventh Birthday Extravaganza in April; Tom Goff, who'll be one of the poets represented in the newest issue of WTF from Rattlesnake Press, due out next Thursday (2/10) at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac.; and Cynthia Linville, who'll be hosting A Marathon of Love Poems at The Vox Gallery (1726 11th St., Sac., 6pm) this Saturday. See how busy our poets are??

Anyway, it's Love Week in the Kitchen, so brew up a few love-snacks (or any other kind) for us and send 'em to... well, you know...

But first, a poem for the juror who texted that he was "bored" while going through phone records during a jury trial. Remember: in this society, you are what you text.


TODAY IS VERY BORING
—Jack Prelutsky

Today is very boring,
it’s a very boring day,
there is nothing much to look at,
there is nothing much to say,
there’s a peacock on my sneakers,
there’s a penguin on my head,
there’s a dormouse on my doorstep,
I am going back to bed.

Today is very boring,
it is boring through and through,
there is absolutely nothing
that I think I want to do,
I see giants riding rhinos,
and an ogre with a sword,
there’s a dragon blowing smoke rings,
I am positively bored.

Today is very boring,
I can hardly help but yawn,
there’s a flying saucer landing
in the middle of my lawn,
a volcano just erupted
less than half a mile away,
and I think I felt an earthquake,
it’s a very boring day.

____________________

SONG: HE, TO HER
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

If loving is hard in the long run,
love me today.
Weave me an astounding paperclip chain,
fashion from last December’s,
next November’s long rains
a rain bracelet, woven through
sunglow and moonflow
link by link, dawn by dawn,

but love me today. Let
the key turn in the secret lock
one not unlimber tumbler at a time.
Do love’s long-hauling
coursers appear lashed
to the twelve-hour clock?
Does our love-spirit faint,
brio and élan dashed
by routine?

Let love dive a while unseen.
(Love me—when? Must we delay?)

Soon, breaking the clear blue plane,
the soulfully streaming marlin,
the icy-wet glimmering swordfish!
In one waterspout-passionate
piercing of oceanskin (ah, this
no-sooner-than-outflung-granted wish!)...

...Love me today.

____________________

SOCK THEORY OF LOVE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Among the clean clothes on the bed,
3 socks. You put two pairs in the washer.
Where did the fourth sock go?

Sometimes you end up with one white,
one blue, and a mystery passion-pink sock
you've never seen before.

(White sock, he loves me. Blue,
he loves me not. Pink…)
Everyone loses socks, everyone has

theories: poltergeists, sock gnomes,
shape-shifters, wormholes, dark magic,
Schröedinger's cat.

Some objects are averse to pairing.
For years you kept a single shoe
in your closet, hoping its mate would

find its way home. Waiting
for the phone to ring. Pink sock,
he loves me….

______________________

FOR LOVE OF A COW
—Taylor Graham

Even as a cow she was lovely.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses


Farm-boy, what made you take this detour,
missing the tourist sights along the north coast?
You turned south, instead, following

the Torridge into hill country, where forest
swarms so thick, a traveler can hardly catch
his breath on a sultry day. You press on

to the summit—a clearing: fields
of Devonshire cattle—the Old Red Oxen
of your New England childhood; beasts

who labored without complaint at cart
and plough. And here, among the lowly chattel,
she stands: Io herself, priestess

in heifer-gown. Did Hera's gadfly pester her
this far from Argos in her mythic flight?
No matter. You'd know her anywhere: perfect

symmetry of grace and line, sleek
in her rich-red, silky robe against the sweet
green of pasture; her horns translucent-

pearly as a diadem; eyes soft brown,
pure as any maiden's. Io, grazing on the bounty
of Zeus's rain-clouds.

Do you wish to change her back
to human-form?
Or is she just too lovely as a cow?

___________________

INVENTING LOVE
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

I wake up to find my fingers
twisted through your long hair
and your arm tight around me
and the stereo going on, then off
then on again in the storm.

I’d been dreaming of a woman
pacing round and round the courtyard
her boots clicking over
the heart-shaped stone
near our door.

My mouth is dry
and I almost taste blood.

I go back to sleep and dream of an old woman
dancing naked in the rain
brandishing yellow fig leaves like fans
and when I wake again
I don’t know where I am.

Then I remember that I heard your name in my head
before you even told me.

I have no map
for this new terrain.

____________________

MANY HOURS (for Rachel)
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

during the long night
I held your hand

in the street below
a police siren started up
stopped in mid-scream
its abrupt terror
spinning out to claim a fresh victim
from among the broken and helpless

at the window our murmurings
like doves in conspiracy
cleared a space for us
in the city’s dense web

Many nights I held your hand.
Many years.
Many afternoons I hoped you were safe.
Many hours I guarded you.
Many hours I dreamed of you.
Many hours I rejoiced in you.
Many hours I regretted you.
Many hours I loved you.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip:

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

—Harriet Van Horne

____________________

—Medusa

 Paper Narcissus (Paperwhites)

—D.R. Wagner

The Muse, In Love

Seem to Remember...

—Photo by Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento

THE STORM THAT FURY SERVED
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

Everything tore from me, even myself.
I fell among ruin after ruin.

What I clung to disappeared,
and a great strength took me over.

My blood dried on the great stone
that took my pattern as its own.

Thus had we influenced each other
with the accident of our impact.

I fell into a sleep.
Was it an instant or a lifetime?

I awoke whole
and full of praise.

I drew a box of lines in the dirt
and called it home.

Others did the same.
We called our town survival.

____________________

It’s Love Week, and it’s fun to see all the valentines over there on Medusa’s b-board, advertising all the Valentine readings in our area this week. Michelle Kunert writes: I thought maybe a good theme for upcoming Feb. 14 would be "creepy love songs," including songs by The Police ("Please don't stand so close to me" and "I'll be watching you..."); The Backstreet Boys ("I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love me"); and Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney's "The Girl is Mine." For more, go to www.huffingtonpost.com/alida-nugent/10-incredibly-creepy-song_b_810825.html#s226089&title=All_My_Life

Well, Michelle, love is creepy, indeed, and love songs are sometimes even creepier. But let’s expand our Valentine Seed of the Week to that love monster, Love Week. Send your musings about Love (including photos and art) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs. And if the subject of love doesn’t appeal to you, heck—write about something else! You know what a soft-hearted gal Medusa is…

And thanks to our Valentines, The Odam Girls, for today's poems and pix!

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DESIRE
—Joyce Odam

What of this blind faith of love,
with its discontent and its failed reach;

that it always knows
what is real, and what is desired

is real? Only hunger equates—
that hunger that is always there,

beyond food.
Hunger is all one has against need,

need that is always there,
like a moan that is uttered in silence.

Never mind impossibility.
Impossibility is only the beginning.

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CHIMERA
—Joyce Odam

I wrote of love in a wandering sentence,
meandering dream-like toward fate
in a deep mirror with no face.

(How would I know you
if you were not real; how would
I know you if you were real?)

It was a moment caught and savored,
slipped out of unreality
to explore itself. I praised it.

(You who were the essence
had your own loss to mourn.
I was not part of it.)

It was only once, and I kept it forever
like a skillfully-created bird in a
cleverly-designed cage.

(You were only love to my desire.
I was your jailer, my whole thought held you.
You bit my finger that tried to touch you.)

True to your desire,
I turned the mirror outward to free you,
watched you disappear in its eloquent reaches.

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THE DEAF MUSICIAN, LISTENING
—Joyce Odam

how he can hear
music with his mind . . .

how he bends his head
forward and closes his eyes . . .

how the tiny doll of music
hovers its wings and plays its violin . . .

how the very skies surround
and hold the music to a page of hearing . . . 


(After L’Art Céleste, Odilon Redon,
French, 1840-1916. Lithograph, 1894)

___________________

RED GUITAR
—Joyce Odam

Lean close.
There is a secret here.
Eyes know
and other eyes repeat—
hands close to hands
in swirling sound—
the muse
in love
and helpless—
guitar between
the distance and the reach.
Love waits—the air
a blur of desire,
the red guitar
afire with wanting.
How to inspire:
one word… one word…
enough for the mind to follow.
The moment waits—suspends—
quivers with expectation.
Eyes hold eyes—
guitar moans—
holds the note pure.
The muse, in love.

_____________________

THE COLOR OF FEBRUARY
—Joyce Odam

February is gray.
And brief enough to bear.
Like grief.
And soon enough to be over.
Like itself.

Part of it sings for birth
and part for death
with its gray voice.

I honor February
for its innocence.
I give it what I say:

It is only a veil
that must be gotten through,
the way a room shifts—

and there is a door,
pale dark or pale illumination,
just enough to bear the message:

All is travail.
And all is hope beyond.
Go through.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip:

ADVENT
—Joyce Odam 

Reach for light. Now reach
for dance.
Be as butterfly from cocoon.

Unfold your arms
from self’s dark room
into window-spill of light.

Let color touch transparency.
Let your radiance
stun the mirror.

Push back
the unreflecting walls
from your bright energy.

_____________________

—Medusa

Water's Edge

—Photo by Robin Gale Odam