ONE OF MY HAIKU IN JAPANESE!

dry glory vines
cling to the gate
seed pod harvest

I'm so excited to finally feel OK about posting this. I've had it for years, but had lost the man's name who did the calligraphy. A friend had emailed him my haiku above (below the graphic). He then emailed me his version in Japanese ideograms. I was so thrilled and still am! I finally realized I could email that friend and just today got his full name, KOTARO MAYAGI (from Tokyo, Japan).

I cannot recall if I ever asked him why he says he "changed the subject from the one who harvests," as my last line addresses the harvest of seed pods itself, not the harvester. (Translation problem? Though I suppose "harvest" can be read as either the harvest in process or the results of the harvest. ) However, it does seem to me that the haiku is essentially the same in both versions. And beyond that, it is just a delight to see a moment I wrote about in Japanese ideograms. The haiku form's "mother tongue." :-) And doesn't the Japanese version look like vines climbing?

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.

NO POEMS TODAY, just thoughts....

[A typical beach path on Block Island, Rhode Island]

No poetry today. I’ve been doing a lot of work on my writing files (yes, still working on them, I’ve been writing since I was a teenager and I’m now 63-1/2 ... that means an awful lot of notes, poems and stories, also a lot of garbage...:-D). In my note files I unearthed what I’m sharing below. I’ve come across these thoughts before through the years and always save them thinking that someday I’ll write poems using the images in them. Well, that someday has not come and now that I’m blogging they seem like the right sort of things to share here, just as they are. Unadorned, un-fussed with, as they came out of my pen at the time.

These two notes were written on my first trip to what turned out to be my favorite place on earth, Block Island, Rhode Island, probably in the late 1980's. The first below occurred to me as I was dusting off my feet after a beach hike. I clearly recall stopping the dusting in a spot just like the above photo, digging out pen and notepad from my backpack, and making the note:

...fears, negativities, etc. are like wet sand: they cling only as long as we keep them out of the sun. It is their nature to let go, to fall away, when exposed to the Light.

This next one I wrote sitting on a small beautifully grassy hillside next to a road on that same first trip to Block Island. I’d been having “conversations” with various nature aspects when the grass spoke up:

...."Yes, the water spirits are vain, and the sea and rock spirits harsh and too definite,” opines the waving grass. I ask “And you?” The grass says jokingly “Of course, we are perfect,” then goes on “you like to watch us dance in the sunlight and wind because it is much like the way impulses move along your neural pathways.” The grass continues “You think you initiate action. Not at all. You are like us when the wind blows across and through us – the initial impetus is from somewhere else. We then respond in our unique ways, given our form, our place, our neighbors, our history. But we did not move ourselves. We dance within the power blown to us.” What the grass has taught me today is to know the invisible by how I am moved.

May we all enjoy this dance life moves us to create...and not forget to keep notes! :-)

* * * *

Resource: 2003 photo album of Block Island by miztibosworth, some gorgeous shots of scenes I've actually witnessed myself.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.

ON BRIGHTON BEACH BOARDWALK (A Poem by Patricia Kelly)

Brighton Beach Boardwalk, (c) Lesha 2004, nycfoto.com


ON BRIGHTON BEACH BOARDWALK

Decades have passed since I last
traced this shoreline.
Restaurants now bear chic names
and umbrellas over their trendy outdoor
tables, where memory holds out for crowded
bars and Jewish delis opening on the boardwalk,
awash in aromas of beer and knishes.

I am startled to find the old wooden
steps down to the beach buried in the sand,
only the top curve of railing still beckoning,
a beginning that is its own ending.

While the beach itself has narrowed
with the years, even as I have expanded,
both ocean and my shadow claiming
more territory, like the sand packed
beneath the boardwalk burying that dark
cave we teenagers retreated to ....

that underground I entered, grasping
after the brass ring in a life spinning
rapidly out of control, as I drank too much
and necked with one guy or another
in the boardwalk’s shadows ....

With one heavy sigh I accept that the cave
and its shadows have been laid to rest, slowly
and surely, gracefully and not, with the passing
of season after season.

I sit on a bench to rest my aging knees, giving
way gratefully to the immediacy of light
and heat, to this moment of clear
skies and all-embracing seas.

Sometimes it is good
to be faced with good-bye.

* * * *

This poem is just short of 11 years old (revised since then, and today before posting), so it is entirely possible that the buried steps and filled-in walk space underneath the boardwalk have long since been cleared. Even so, what the poem addresses for me remains as true as the day I first drafted it. I had participated in a Labor Day poetry reading on the boardwalk by Coney Island -- which is just a walk down the way from Brighton Beach. After the reading, I decided to stroll to Brighton Beach, not having visited it in probably almost 30 years.The photo above is recent, taken looking toward Coney Island. The section of Brighton Beach I reference in the poem is to the viewer's back. Unfortunately, Coney Island, too, is rapidly becoming a memory. But what memories! The rides, the games, the food! I especially cherish my memories of Steeplechase, for instance.

Hope your holiday is a happy, healthy, and safe one.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.

HAIKU: Response to One Deep Breath Prompt of 7/3/07

bright summer day
we squint to read our poems
in the dingy bar

This week's prompt at One Deep Breath is to think about light/shadow. The haiku above is based on memories of many a sunny afternoon poetry reading in a shadowy bar in Greenwich Village, New York City (a sort of artsy, "bohemian" area of town). Great fun, but hard on these aging eyes. Especially when the light outside was so bright by comparison. :-) The collage above is one I did on the cover of my first dreamku notebook.

Give One Deep Breath (link above) a visit to see what you can by others' lights and shadows.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.

ALL DREAMKU POSTED IN JUNE OF 2007

The Six of Pentacles in The Tarot of the Cat People

This month’s dreamku are an even more mixed bunch than usual. But that, in a way, makes sense. My life isn’t very cohesive right now, not with making plans again to move out of my apartment (maybe even out of state), for instance, or with beginning to lose weight (yet again). Not to mention that my three closest friend’s lives are also in various states of upheaval or intense change. Though I must say, overall I’m left with a positive feeling about this month of dreams. The first of my favorite dreamku in this month’s motley crew is:

arresting
she finally spears
the goat in the stream

This dream “outed” how I’d been undermining myself (I’m a Capricorn = goat). The spearing brought the goat to the surface of the stream where I could see it clearly. I learned about this aspect of myself some time ago, but had “gone unconscious” about it until this dream.

The second is this one:

“Stay here,” she urges
“stay until I get back”
sunlit living room

I can’t even clearly say why I like this one. It was no one I know in the dream, nor did I associate the woman to anyone I know on remembering the dream. The dream carried a feeling of sadness and comfort at the same time. One thought I had was that some soul who’s not incarnate now was asking me to stay in this life until she returns....and I don’t know if I even believe in reincarnation (though I’m open to the idea). Psychologically speaking, I had thought some aspect of myself that is either relegated to shadow or unconscious may be letting me know she’s going to resurface. At any rate, I like the feeling I get when I read this dreamku.

And I hope you like any feelings you get from reading the dreamku below. (If you want to learn more about writing dreamku, you might read my three-part A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams. Links to each part are just below the DAILY DREAMKU at the top of this blog.)

ALL DAILY DREAMKU POSTED IN JUNE 2007


June 1, 2007

night shift
he poses in costume
after costume



June 2, 2007

THE SIX OF PENTACLES
(from dreams of 5/31/07 and 6/1/07)

we pull and pull the
narrow black strip from my mouth
endless

the handsome intern
offers to help with my throat
cold empty room

I try to find
my colorful furnished room
memory gap

deeply attached
the black strip flaps from my mouth
searching for home

I accept aid from
the intern in his cold space
ambivalent

she asks if they showed
me all the new rooms above
tour de force

the cover picture
for “The Six of Pentacles”
black mansion gates





June 3, 2007

the earned is given
she’s so young to be
the head gymn teacher




June 4, 2007

the long walk
hero and villain portraits
line the lobby walls

[This dream image reminds me of one of the myths of the origin of The Tarot's 22 Major Arcana cards. As I recall it, the images lined both sides of a long hallway in an ancient mysteries temple, down which an initiate would walk, meditating on each image in turn.]



June 5, 2007

abandoned
the cracked ceramic zebra
on the sidewalk



June 6, 2007

waiting to exhale
I relish his embrace
but not all the smoke



June 7, 2007

the cat clambers down
my back and plays with my butt
we all laugh



June 8, 2007

the tables turn
he escapes from
the formal dinner



June 9, 2007

I agree to wear
my red costume uniform
parade day again



June 10, 2007

I sing shyly
it might as well be spring
attentive heart



June 11, 2007

no way back to
the lower level workshop
dead-end stairs



June 12, 2007

rust colored bugs crawl
from the phone recharger base
reinfestment



June 13, 2007

beautiful prize date
he’s afraid she’ll find his pain
too much to bear



June 14, 2007

cleaned and cared for
her lost father after
she steps up



June 15, 2007

worn white shoes sit
in place of the old black ones
dusty corner



June 16, 2007

elegant
overhead iron work
unnervingly old



June 17, 2007

they commit
atrocities at the last
sinking ship



June 18, 2007

BODY OF WORK
(from dream of 6/17/07)

she doesn’t like
how he repairs the building
my nakedness

he fills the office
with showy orange blooms
whisperings



June 19, 2007

of keys and lines
her car that’s a poem, too
passes the test



June 20, 2007

“Stay here,” she urges
“stay until I get back”
sunlit living room



June 21, 2007

I eat my dinner
huddled by the wall
busy lobby



June 22, 2007

strung along
we fill each sink hole
as it caves in



June 23, 2007

arresting
she finally spears
the goat in the stream



June 24, 2007

please don’t vandalize
the black on black collages
take a lot of work



June 25, 2007

her deceased step-mom
lives in the house as it’s repaired
not for sale



June 26, 2007

children’s art
crowds the dark walls
sibling lunch date



June 27, 2007

it’s comforting
to hold my black teddy bear
the cab driver’s smile



June 28, 2007

she falls into water
from the dark machine
tiny heads float



June 29, 2007

CULTURE
(from dreams of 6/27/07)

the cult rears the boy
like an Egyptian prince
outsiders spy

she reads her poems
at his invitation
the cult's non-response


June 30, 2007

dispersed by power
radiating from my palms
demonic twister

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.