odegard

upon reflection… # 2

by accident sky glazed shop windows caught us

reflecting my mother’s and my Aunt’s faces

that’s my father’s sister; with rouge, lipstick,

too much powder, and a pillbox hat with veil

they blend and stare into my astonished gaze

what irony: my mother’s wished for daughter,

looking back at her second only son

unacknowledged in her lifetime

suspected only in his private dreams

residing in still water, in reflecting surfaces

are we the dreams that stuff are made from

projections from narcissus’s adoring looks

shaping us in reversals of the way things are

inside the spirit world, some say “gloom”, or

what physicist’s invoke as antimatter universe?

in the scheme of things, egocentric posturing

propounds images of self, appliquéd on others

thence mirrored back with emotions we nourish

accusing the others rather than ourselves

calling wrath upon their innocent reflection

in a life as hidden daughter, outward son

our yin/yang wisdom frightens men and women

intuitions inappropriate from our wingéd mercury

dim reflected trauma children from the other side

“too much information” they cry

“don’t look so deep, and please don’t tell”

“let us see as in the mirror so we may construct

that which we wish for rather than what’s there”

and we are come full circle to Aunt Hedda, Mom,

staring in amaze at nephew niece/daughter son

therefore we do not window shop,

fearing exposure and repercussive otherness

within/out ourselves, our friends, all of us

dissociated from our childhood histories,

hiding from our long lost love: our reflection

© tom odegard 3/03/06

upon reflection…#1

in the looking glass

we thought we saw ourselves

juxtaposed left for right

we thought it was a simple thing

moving to our right and looking left

such a difference between

knowing and understanding

factuals versus wisdom

presumptive laws undermined by

quantum spectacles: up, down, color, and strange

in the paired proteins

only nine nucleotides/sides

wrighting and re-writing

promoting and negating chains of this and that

on a time line with an end point

in the looking glass

we fail our reflections

seeing what we want to see

as variable copying underwrites our replications

mis-spelling our inheritance

addicted to complexity

brains feeding on thought

squirrel –cage repetitions:unity against duality

religion versus cracker-barrel philosophies

adding up and falling apart

internal/external ecologies

continuing evolution

transcriptive errors build

our bodies sag, mind flutters

seeking renewal

from microscopes to telescopes

mirrors mesmerize our sight

fractal light silhouettes our mythic mysteries

while our confabulated facts

grin from within the looking glass

© tom odegard 8/13/05

Upon reflection… #3

there was always one voice outstanding

among the welter of whispered admonitions

she was always stronger than the others

firm with a strong sensual moonlit tide

and I let her guide my weirding tongue

she was a she before I self identified as him

aligning me with mother, mother’s friends,

their slips and hose calling cricket tunes

to my child skin, my narcissisus ‘flection

and thru her I was as fem as them…

in other times, ethnicities, civilizations,

we became the intercessionary guides

to reversed living, underworlds, and

mirrored spiritlands, laying on our hands

healing with a look, a mental wandering

today we are cast aside as freak, or

something to save a Doctorate, provide

a funding source for studies aimed at cures

or worse, prevention, throughout the world

or surgical normalization to make us fit

make us fit with hormones, steroids, gut

grafted into false vagina, imaginary penis

thus fantasies of overeducated minds

propose to “save” our differences by

terrifying “for our own goodisms”

and didn’t we just save our woeful world

from molestation, cruelty, abusive discipline

that turned a German Nation into holocaust?

Yet now, with mutilation we will turn a child

into a thing we want rather than what we have?

Gods be praised my multi-self remained hidden

my condition unrecognized without while within

we grew a panoply of selves to grope our way

into an evolutionary path, transforming us

step by step, from babe to child to teen to

young man lusting for his true self: woman

to meld selves into serial monogamies

and thence our wondrous now bound

together as “not two” that Eastern “nom”

for deity which recognizes everyone as God.

© tom odegard 3/03/06

I am that

imagine…

a foetal brain bathed in estrogen

turns female after normal genetic

decisions have built a male body… she,

swimming in the red-warm dark beneath

the beating heart of her unsuspecting mother

listening to family arguments thru womb walls

sensing sans understanding the disconnect

waiting in her future…

imagine…

she comes to know herself in a

family that calls her "John";

pushes hockey stick machismo

as appropriate for rising young men

living in their neighborhood; sister and

brothers devising exquisite tortures

to offend, poison, and bend her

growing feminine mystery.

imagine…

coming of age in jean, jackets and boots,

in gymnasiums full of cruel boys, and

oblivious girls, fighting a body that

in no way fits her conscious wish, her

unconscious dreams; every minute

her brain strives against

the body's energies, the penile drive,

those undesired erectile activities…

imagine…

seeking masculine sanity

in military uniforms, black belts,

sniper and commando training, desperate

search for camaraderie among men at arms

while fashion, color sense, connectivity,

empathic feeling searches for vulva, breast, hips,

a kind word, the proper pronoun,

social acceptance, emotional civility,

imagine…

a life filled up with contradiction

mental outlook versus physical aspiration

inside up/out, routs of misinterpretation

becoming suppressed yinful contagions

of grief, rage, lust, love, compassion

hoping against global and personal history

for companionship to support her

required surgical/medical transformation…

imagine…

the flared bell curve of gender;

flat lines reaching toward pure male/female

hardly a statistical blip at each extreme

most everyone rising/falling/searching

among viewpoints thru odd proclivities

opposite/same/intersex so secret intimacies

for love, trust, respectful congruency within

stabilities of partners or particular friends.

imagine…

a society of humans, accepting "other" as

identical to self; bearing witness

to the unity of life, mixed, matched,

burning with desire among infinite choices

ecstasies with random faults, sensuous design,

exquisite gentility happy to abide by a

universal etiquette: compassionate respect,

sincere support, and mutual consent.

imagine…

Parsifal

We can climb up syllabic conundrums

or kiss our sweet concepts goodbye

or march against every debasement

of Earth, Water, Fire, or Sky...

We can wander with wonder and wishes

or skip to the beat of DOW JONES

pretending we're richer than Midas

as we poison our brains with cell phones...

But the Sky absorbs all that we give it

as does Water, Fire, and Earth...

the accounting is cash on the minute

from the moment we climb in our berth...

If we dawdle with torpor and wishes

as we have for an eon or two

we'll be burned on the pyre of glitches

we've built up with pieces of truth.

So let's cease with our babble and construct

put down our sharp points and bleak jibes

this history of ours spans a minute

on the track of life's carnival ride.

Not separate are matter and spirit

nor distinct from life is the mind

and bodies are one with electrics

whether vegetable mineral or kind.

Come dance with the earth at the crossroads

there are forests and bridges nearby

the fete at the castle is waiting

for honorable guests to arrive.

Landings

We do 'em all the time...

in a manner of thinking, speaking,

romancing, acquaintanceship...

not so easily done anymore

not so practiced, so everyday normal as

when we talked to one another, face to face;

did foxtrots, waltzs, polkas, and

danced holding each other close

talked to one another in the barbershop

conversed likes and dislikes on dates,

in the car, at the beach, on a ferris wheel...

not so much of that anymore

with electronic go-betweens

chat rooms, e-mail. roam an' cell phones

video tape and jpgs

hardly a letter writer among us...

even at that we're barely literate

never literary...now, most everyone

can takeoff at the drop of a hat

but landings, ahh me, landings are hard

whether you're crabbing with pots, stars, or rings,

fishing with flasher, down riggers, or bait,

phone sex? Give me a break...

yeah... landings are just plain tough...

so much depends on nuance

the feel of the oncoming moment

tug of the line,

smooth steady lift from the water,

tone of voice, and the easy fluid moves

among speed, yaw, and pitch

wrapped up in the whole show

most of it over without time to think

we just don't get much practice

even when we're practicing

landings... 11/03

This Moment

Each moment is a seed planted...

millions of moments

millions of seeds

most will appear to yield futures

from whence their first cause will founder

in the opaqueness of memory

So futures are as malleable as

the mis-remembered past...

What a wonderful opportunity...

forget future

let go of past...

seize the moment

flow into no beginning,

no end...

We are leaves in torrents

or on swift smooth pools

On the water there are only edges

surfaces, eddies, waves, upwellings,

whirlpools, backwaters, wetlands,

bogs, and incipient meadows: moments

composting into futures

Leaves at a distance dance no meaning

we are content: calm in this moment

DSD

Are you a disorder

As in physical or mental?

It's a happenin' thing in some circles.

Academic hornswogglers and psycho-

Sexual ethicists are draggin the barrens

For categorical justifications to

eugenically abort non-heteros

Well, golly-gosh wouldn't it be nifty to

rid ourselves of femmish men and mannish fems

as well as those crazy intersex rads?

After all the crap we've dumped on them

wouldn't they prefer an end to their

medical questions? Oh yeah, Amen!

Once again then, we'll classify everyone

who varies a bit in crotch, hips, or chest

as either yes or not as for that queer gene,

we'll pretty soon happily indemnify

Mommy/Poppies against homo babies

And by the by, intersex, well

you didn't need to guess cause

they're physically disordered or

mentally screwed

and "screwed" is what we're going on about

can they take it or put it in according to Hoyle?

It's a binary two-step for Aryan Bandscapes

To create a world that's normal and straight.

'course hormones and pesticides will make their play

and kiddies will be varied in other ways

but these ethical wonks will assign a gender

based on pocket depth or pee pee timber

...when all will be well til she's 16 or 30

When she’ll question her assignment as down and dirty,

And the gender team will say without chagrin

You’ve got “gender identity disorder”, my friend!”

But shrinks and medicos have to fund their families

By prescribing exorbitant drugs and therapies

Cause helping the sick, the halt, and the lame

Is now passé against capitalism's money game

Just look at Bush and all his stinkers

who’ve suckered Christians as well as cross-dressers

Into muscular patronage and double billing

For anyone who’s willing to make a killing

With bombs, depleted uranium, and withheld food

While proclaiming themselves on the side of the good.

Dionysian Rituals...# 4

U taught me to engage

the admiration of my true friends

those ancient and newborn quirks

of circumstance

multiple fixed sorts

of genders, empathies and retorts

who uphold and support

my will.

U introduced me to my skin

welcoming me from within, without,

nurturing old to very young

with sensual songs

of many textured escapades

entangling limbs in bright parades

and warm debaucheries to grade

my life.

U show me vistas of what is

revealing new geographies of selves

embracing my wizened babes, women,

and sweet men

in soft double tongued desires

filling our minds with singing lyres

while dancing Dionysus gyres

our birth.

shadows...

our shadows move through us

scary to everyday egos

filling in blank paper reams

sensual in black cocktail dresses

or backlit see through cotton shifts

playing genderalities

even so young motherselves

dance cheek to cheek as shadows

spoken words: shadows of experience

drifting corpses in unconscious deeps

hysterical discoveries in dream time

shape changing when inner eyes focus

becoming morphic blurry monsters

even as our girlish figures

swing with Dionysus in the shaded woods

our shadows speak in vertigo

absence of meaning drives creation

wondering, we lean into each other's cool gaze

held attentive by bright inner light

my shadow whispers, "Love you!"

even as our sweet shy boys

sing vespers against their fear of night

slender I was,

you are,

past/future

together we scare the others

walking in green summer

talking with, of, and oblivious to,

shadows

Ritual Sacrifice

The facts are these: you, me, everyone who's

stood against these whores of power

skanky men in expensive suits

writin' us off as un-necessary expense

givin' us over to all day suckers of Fear

we let 'em get away with it; we sucked up to comfort:

"cool" cars, sexy clothes, dumb songs, odorless armpits,

and "being all we can be"; yes ma'am we bought it,

hot coolness and cool hotness - exaggerated difference

from a bit o' skin to sex to facts an' opinions dividing us from

each other

we did it... fell for selfish pride - put ourselves ahead of

mother father sister brother neighbor friend and

would not, could not share a common goal

lest we lose our pay slip, our funding source.

Oh yeah, we did it - couldn't get enough of twin towering infernos

falling a million times over - sold us straight down dat ribber

to da highest bidder offerin' US of A securité, or better yet:

5 seconds of righteous indignation at some profiled piece of meat.

Whatta joke - Whatta a buncha patsies,

down right US of A dumb fucks... that's us -

We're the national secured state. Uh huh! You and me!

19% of us think we're in the top 1%

and 20% more think we'll get there, any day now...

That's the 39% that vote - well wouldn't you?

The rest of us gave that up years ago

just to show 'em...Show 'em what? And who's 'em anyway?

I guess 'em has got the message 'cause we're already livin' in

our own prisons

guarded by our fear of each other our fear of ourselves...

and when the Challenger explodes, Princess Diana becomes road kill,

the Columbia breaks apart at 200,000 feet we get

a little rush of sympathy mixed up with satisfaction;

once more innocence transforms to scapegoat.

The Ritual Sacrifice Returns -

Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphegenia once more

for a "fair wind" to Troy,

and a twilight for Iraq!

We consumate with poets in attendance

9/2003 Tom/Ms.G Odegard

Us "guys an' gals" have got to stay together...

there's so few of us who toe the line and keep up the pre tenses...

If only I could be as flamboyant as you my

sweet vision of artistic savviness

meeting in the mirror in the Beanery on an unexpected evening

flying the poetic speaking labyrinths with

that Minotaur and Pasiphae wishing her whole heart

for the bull again and Steve an' Us

We an' steve hunkering down under

the fusillage of too much dining room noise

no room for poetry

no room for service

no room.

It was serendipity plus,

it was textured like that,

meeting you and wishing you well

no I will not make it on Thursday

(that's Thor's day of course... and

He was an idiot with a hammer not much with girls I guess)

me, I'm more a Wodin's day or Sun Day or especially Frigga Day...

but the week has scrambled down to getting up at 7 to make a 9:45 am

flight out of sunny Oak Land into Drizzle wintry Pac. NW

all the I wishes aside you an' I

you an' we havin' each other on, on, on,

the oblivion express chuffing at the station

steam billowing from the overflow vents on the right side of the tracks

re-member the hurly burly of departing by rail

the "awwwlluhhh ahhhhboooArrrd love songs of black conductors lookin'

forward to pensioned off retirements

oh you love_gal… kissing miles of pell male

skin in dark venues seeking the light

while steve sings a mantra of chopinesque words

tumbling over themselves to reach the sea

We waiting pentup with our own worlds we hope

we can get out before we board the train

We relishing the minutes of wondrous everydays

the smoooth, on putting of clothes, off taking of same to slith/slithe

into crisp clean sheets our naked sins dancehappy in the dark

forgiving

we waiting for the bright stranger with

his bag of just right words ready

to launch us into the next next next love nest…

maybe it had nothing to do with serendipity…

maybe it was all written down in the master poets book long long ago

maybe and maybe not the happening of life is

simply that

this living planet's provender for in_ter_res_ting times

I wasn't ready for so much input

and you outputting all you were in song

for the dream of equal women/men,

every color strong in the right sans wrong.

Had we met before

fire work finales would have paled upon our bed of trust

you know I'm so much more at home with flesh

the slither skin of smooth against the run of fingerplays

and you too

we knew that right off the bat

you're fingering so ab so fucking lootely wright

precise on the button_holes of wood buttons, metal buckles,

cloth and flesh flutes drawing notes

from the dream of the original BANG!

And didn't we both say, eyes drowning in each other,

skin slip_sliding slushous among labials sucking our

unconsciousness up into the light of bright

didn't we both say – motoring home under the quasi dark sky –

the brighter stars rainbowing our thoughts

didn't we say, "Glory Hallellujah! In ecstatic We Oh!"

It was always true your love and mine ageless

not bound to trimesters, bimonthlies, semi-annuals,

perrenials, annuals, or other earthy divisions

not bound to comedies of taste, humoresques of moralities,

dramas of incessant yammer/natter

miss_takes and take_him-outs,

nor the endless guilt pleas of tragedy

no ma'am

our's is an outside love

a beyonder's pledge of deeper trust

a subterranean labyrinth of understanding

on the fringe of words.

Why do I go on? Why do we go on?

And you sitting for that instant completely clear

our father and lover present and totally absent

our lips mouthing, our mouths lipping

"Weloveyou-Iloveyoutoo"

Why do I go on? Why do We go on?

Even as the dark grows and

the apple slices dry

writing in your feminine voice.

It was another age ago,

you/I/we partners in a different scheme

you ascendent and I descendant as

here and now we might have been reversed genders,

because even then there was as much understanding

with/without the tapestry of skin to skin…

So this noise factory with puzzled barista

stands testament to the passing by of friends and

not so friends coming out of the wood_works

after a long summer of hiding…

while you and I exchange these vows

in the middle of the early fall,

in this glorious silent reflection

even as our respective compounding

fills up with the sound of Drumming…

Morning's mournings

In the morning we were made one

with disordered men & women

labeled disingenuously to unite

us with each other's difference

into two: this type or that type

how we moaned - mourning our lost

independence, our unique variations,

lumped beneath a psycho-medical heel

as you parceled us among your own

binary dispositions: your yes or no

did you enjoy our squirming,

our resistant voiced complaining?

Invisible we must have been inaudible

as you used your power point to fit us

to your scientific screed: male or female

a wake is in the offing too many kind

are surfacing with odd concavities or

crude proclivities or phallic sensitivities

the whole against the pole without mayhap

defies adaptability and nature's zest for chance

so we deny singular dualities - in quanta

we resolve as color, strange, gluons, bosons,

and peripatetic quarks, neutrinos on the side

and we propose: leave disorder far behind

that we may welcome everyone to human-kind.

And below - another 4/13/08 offering occasioned by that biblical expression

....crying in the wilderness

Poets crying in the wilderness

shouting to their lost audience

audients adrift on political claptrap

and failing Dow Jones economies!

When did they listen?

Did they tire of poets

wielding words in the wildwoods

shrubberies, woodworks,

or whispering from caskets

listen... listen...

four horses are coming

slathered in oil, famine, disease, and war

four horsewomen: Irish Cerridwen,

Pig Goddess with Cauldron;

Cybele, Persian Isis and Bee Keeper;

Kali rolling Her Indian Juggernaut into our future;

Israel's monstrous Virgin and Her reckless crucified Son.

Never mind namings, legends, myths, and marvels

listen... listen... the poets are murmuring

"The dream is dead, long live the dream."

I o p e n e d t h e d o o r

2 / 0 8 t o m o d e g a r d

I o p e n e d t h e d o o r

a n d i n y o u c a m e

c l o t h e s s h a r p a n d c r i s p

a g a i n s t t h e f a i l i n g l i g h t

y o u w e r e s t r o n g w i t h a r m s

a r m s h e l d o u t , a l i t t l e b a c k

i n t h a t m o m e n t , i n t h a t l i g h t

p u z z l i n g a t y o u r a r m s i n f l i g h t

i n t h a t m o m e n t , I h e l d b a c k

I o p e n e d m y a r m s

a n d i n y o u c a m e

m y c l o t h e s s o f t a g a i n s t c r i s p

i n s i d e t h e f a i l i n g l i g h t

w e w e r e s t r o n g w i t h a r m s

i n t h a t m o m e n t i n t h a t f a i l i n g l i g h t

t h e p u z z l e s o l v e d i n m u t u a l f l i g h t

w h e n n e i t h e r y o u n o r I h e l d a n y t h i n g back

(To Edith and Jamie just because)

Sing a song of popinjays

lost to spirit mys-tery

witches drinking aconite

wizards riding ponies

ladies leaping willow wands

whips and daggers handy

all are in and all are out

"Come dare to be my dandy!"

Weirds and witches, wizards sing

songs that gambol, songs that wing,

drink the grape and ivy wine

laced with spice and resined pine.

Raise your cups and fly your brooms

far and wide on moonlight's looms

empty mind of plots and schemes

Empire's reach destroys our dreams.

Androgyne and intersex,

trans in trans or remaining set

normal folk with open minds

dance widdershins to drum and chime

stopped and started slow or fast

taken out of tick-tock's last

set in shoes to fit each person

to overcome the rigid parson

Back and forth, about, and round

marching up, and striding down,

dancing rapt in sacred groves

hear the henges rack and groan.

Let bodies fly and minds succumb

to the tambourine and drum

while poetry invests the throng

and every popinjay is gone.

Feelings: abstract future # 2

it was a compression wave of hatred

aimed at our one hundred years of contempt

driven by our unacknowledged God: Mammon

recipients: we preferred not to remember

black ooze of millenia consumed in seven score years

for a few comforts lasting a brief interval

after the fact we add insult: calling their revenge evil

casting our shock into missiles of escalating terror

our own "revenge" we style "good"...

speaking conundrums of violence: "war is peace",

"fear is liberty", "free speech through silence",

"suspicions are patriotic", "security justifies torture"

the skeletons of remaindered Americans are

ground into Yucca Mountain for bone_meal profits

while religions con the credullous with promised rapture

futures spin off into myriads of probablilities

somewhen, our great to the nth grand children sing,

honoring our love, our salvatory forebearance...

Poetry by Tom/Ms G

We be sexes

couplers, spooners,

enables, suspenders,

base pairs , over-achievers

with ambient dressings,

buffet side helpings.

Histories speak of threesomes,

foursomes who made do

but that's old witchies

scaring young grues.

No, really we're sexes

bundle bond buddies

emoting our sackfuls

in multi-tease static

to tweak, twist, and twill

our writhing in rue.

Were sexes

egrateful with job-hand,

constabular harts-horn,

pepper and nostrums,

in Dickensian moon.

We flitter on dark nights

with try-anything fingers

as skin does surrenders

on pliant boozooms

We're sexes

from reginas to rexes

opining in/e gresses;

don't fathom funk-shuns

gorge on feelie grunt-sums

we be inswell wallahs

or grisslee dangles

we got store-bought houris

with full-time passes.

Ya, ya, we be sexes

everykind slippery plexes

you pointy finger

we choppa offa!

So, you be smart stuff

stay offa our bloxes

less we put you in boxes

cause we be sexes