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… # 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… #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
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 fusillade 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…
In memory of our daughter, Anne (1960-08)
© tom odegard
I met my future daughter in '81,
she was 21 and I was 20 years ahead.
Back then, I hid my double nature from everyone,
though she would later say she'd read me from the start.
We were intimate at once, in an ICU in Lake Tahoe
a skiing accident - headfirst into a rock at Kirkwood Meadows
her mother and I were dating -
you know the drill, "your place or mine?"
The doctors reached us in the late evening and
we got there well before her father. Bon Chance.
I said I was her Dad and took command,
barring both tearful groaning parents from her room,
her head a basketball, her body restrained in a striker frame,
three days in a coma, doctors and nurses muttered
"one chance in a billion" I wouldn't have it -
"cut that shite" I said, "be positive or don't come in."
Seven days and they, not believing in miracles
stuck her feet with pins and she blew them away
pulling out the IV - demanding to be freed.
"No one," they said "has ever" I shut them up.
We were close without knowing until in this last decade
we understood - deep in that magical blood bone way
that daughters transform men into fathers - we did things together -
esp. art films, one night stand movies, zoo's and galleries,
sailing on our sloop SpeedQueen or Lake Merritt's rental boats,
we hugged a lot and we loved each other without conditions.
Abuse has so many faces - and the dead do not apologize -
in oh 3 her deranged grandmother on her father's side, died, to be followed
in oh six by that father who left undone the things he alone could do
and even though she'd consciously adopted us as her "real dad",
her grieving, angry child, raged on and coped in hidden ways.
In public she was ebullient and wise, stubborn, picky, and obtuse,
she suffered children meek or otherwise but never fools
and dictated when she might and how it had to look; she was for
choice, equal rights, peace, widespread prosperity; enjoyed ballet
modern dance, and supported her friends through their adversities.
Inside her home she stuffed herself and every room,
armoring her inner children against their fearful world.
We loved her actively and she gave as she received.
When we presented Tom/Ms. G she brought us skirts,
when we and her mother died in our 07 auto accident,
she called us back "Listen you three, you're not done yet ."
To her depressed mother and ourselves she spoke,
"It is what it is! Feeling sorry wastes precious time."
Now, we hear her speaking through our grief
telling us she did her best,
as we must do
blessing her life by living ours,
knowing she loved us and all her friends
as we and they loved her.
floating on ice © tom odegard 10/09
(this only took 49 years to write after the act)
Drunk in the dark
we tumbled down
drifts of snow to lie
facing huge sky
on lake ice
Stars stumbled above
amid light filled dust
or was it sand on the dark
matter – omigod “no matter!”
we uproared from frozen water
hobbled up on stalwart shoulders
we rose a thousand feet
to heap among friends’ fired
roasty toasty cheeks, hips, and lips
melting our star-full mind
now we share memories:
snow clad walls and ice
milkyway studding the sky
volcanic crater’s white expanse
bonfire, booze, and bibulous friends
we were drunk in the dark
tumbled down to
to thrust face into sky
lying still on ice
we are floating on Crater Lake
TWO for Intersex… © tom/ms.g (aka tom odegard) 10/09
One:
We met at a Sushi Bar,
oh my, unlimited sashimi,
tempura, not so great spring rolls,
plenty of beer, and jabber, jabber.
Four bodies and six minds bizzy, bizzy,
with their personnas cutting up
their oddities uncloaked
everything they thought, or thanked,
“out”
“far out” some might say,
but for us it was a brightsome
toothsome time to speak,
“My God, how far we’ve come…
to find our other, each and each,
and join them now yours and mine
and thereby be ours and in this moment
one.”
Two:
Steak and trez leche cake
spinach salad and potato salad too
we four plus two
took up where we’d last left off
teasing out each other’s secrets
the wherewithall we had or didn’t
everywhichway, “tri-sexual” we’d said,
forget hetero, and bi – we’d try anything
with our “raincheck” proviso-ed.
David/Iris and we agreed while Peter
remained observant on the side –
not quite neutral he (normalized they said)
read ”mutilated” in your bed under the covers
and if you don’t shudder freak then think
of baby girls their clits cut down to size
protecting parents, gym teachers and
future husbands from wild surmise.
Didn’t we touch all the bases
our philosophy “Nous sommes” (WE ARE)
leaving God’s scruples where they belong
in Dante’s frigid final circle of hell.
This one is still being uncovered...
They’re waiting up there,
Smith, Tubbs, Cogswell, and Crocker
their earthly remains are embalmed,
casketed, crypted, and tombed
in cold, cold, stone citadels of greek, roman,
medieval, or gothic miniature revivals
are they awaiting Tralfamadorean transport,
messianic trumpeting announcing salvation,
the Resurrection, eternal damnation… well,
probably not looking forward to Satan’s diabolique.
You’d think they’d prefer a shallow grave,
or ashes spread far and wide to be re-upped
before the notes blow from Gabriel’s Horn
who will burst their stone facades,
breach their biers and too solid caskets
to bring them forth to plead before God’s judgment.
We must presume their wealth and earthly powers
tangible to us in their too magnificent towers
are meant to sway Christ’s mercy in the end
despite the sins they promulgated here?
Do we suppose their wealth and earthly power
underwrites a future bliss? You’d think they’d
want to be out and about – not murred up
like so many casks of amontillado or brandy.
Didn’t Edgar Allen get it right with his Tell Tale Heart?
And Thurber’s There's A Unicorn in my Garden –
there’s no sign of humor in these stony rooms
but the views are mostly grand even in bad weather
and the lawns are mowed the bouquets swept up,
and best of all none of them complain of dogs,
walkers, runners, deer, raccoons, possums, and
an occasional streaker flitting from tomb to tomb
under a full moon brilliant city sky.
The Gulf between Order and Disorder…
6/10 © tom odegard
We are lived by powers we pretend to understand. W.H. Auden
Rereading Comedian as in the letter C
we presume to see ourselves locked in
the poet’s room overlooking a Hartford winter
while in mind Yucatan’s venereal green
plays bass riffs upon our hidden soul.
How from work to home Ser Stevens hid
his self from challenged wife and friends
yet dreamed such poignant fantasies as
Sunday Morning or Peter Quince, or all those
Carribe Keyes floating in their turquoise sea.
Those evocations of muscular divinity arose
from summer stays among inshore grassy dunes
to impounding beachy seas demanding sound,
from overspill of words. His syllabic froth
built fantasies of feelish fact and factual feel,
empathic intuitions broad or fine tuned
danced, sang, or played in every drop of light
indulging flights away from this staged world.
So his necessary angel sweeps us there with
An Emperor of Ice cream and Farewell to Florida.
Indeed we are now wallowed in that scream
and No Blue Guitar’s will reinvent the dream
of green-goings or Black Birds flying. We have
lost our humility in euphemistic data pretending
to understand the measure of divinity with tuning forks
that build our gyred tragedies toward this end:
our Crispin’s adored Keyes like Byzantine Suzannas
wait as oil plumed serpents ride the turquoise Gulf
to tar scaled, feathered, and grass topped beaches
bringing toxic grief to every southern shore. And lo,
our Comic speaks, “man was never master of his fate
nor yet a Socrates to snails.”