COMPARISON HAS ITS USES, triple dreamku series with photo by Roswila

COMPARISON HAS ITS USES

Dream One:

we busy ourselves
on the small ball court learning
a new game ending
a stick has to be captured
then lobbed off court in time

he says “Game over,”
pointing past the court boundary
“I’ve landed a stick”
I turn to look through shadows
we’ll have to take his word

“Well, it’s better than a stick in the eye,” I think


Dream Two:

the boy I’d loved bops
me on my head with the carton
from his cute costume
a laughing rebuke pops from me
in the form of my brother’s name

my two women friends
smile as they point out my mistake
I’m briefly stunned
by this connection between
deceased boy and estranged brother

“But it’s better than
a two-by-four over the head”
I mutter still dazed


Dream Three:

I can’t believe it!
just as I hear that the man
I like quite a lot
finds me attractive too
they roll right over him

flatten him just like
a pancake, no, like a crepe
he’s so thin I could
read a newspaper through him
with no trouble at all

gazing at him I stew
over this unfair action
he pops back to size
like a sponge that’s been released
my mood is leavened also

“Well,” I say softly
“it’s better than here today,
gone tomorrow”


[three dreamku series on three different dreams of 12-3-11. These were dreamed in the order above, and the dialogue is almost verbatim from the dreams. It’s unusual for me to be able to recall even one or two lines so clearly from a dream, either written or said. I may have recalled all these because I’d gone to sleep asking for clear, memorable dreams. (Since I’ve changed from posting a dreamku every day my dream recall has become a little less reliable.) It also helped that I drafted these ‘ku on waking in the wee hours when recall was still quite fresh. Rather than waiting till morning which has been my wont for some time now. That these dreams were interwoven with familiar idiomatic expressions may have also helped. I.e., the images lead – in their quirky ways – to the closing expressions. As to the recurring theme of making comparisons, I've been journaling about this and what it can and has cost me in my life. The dreams seem to be balancing that with the idea that comparisons are also be a way of coping with difficult experiences, and of leveling over-reactions. And most of all I found the word and image play of these dreams fun! Laughter -- especially at my own over-the-top emotions -- lightens things up, too. Photo "One Way to Look At It" by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE that in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, that the photo accompanying a daily dream poem or non-dream based poem is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse -- similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku). I've also recently realized that although the dreamku (i.e. dream based poems) posted here tend not to have metaphor or simile, the accompanying photos almost always act as such. And to write a metaphor or simile into a dream scenario is something I rarely do. It can be confusing: did it really look like a hand, say, in the dream, or am I just being poetic to make my conscious point? As these dreamku act as a dream journal, my over-riding tendency is to try to stay close to the actual dream scenario itself. Admittedly making for a tendency to less "poetic" dreamku. Then why pay attention to any haiku, tanka, or monoku parameters at all when writing about my dreams? Because I find in even attempting to adhere to them I'm making choices that relieve my dream recall of a great deal of chatter so that I can get down to some important dream aspects. Here's a link to THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING PHOTOS in which I go into some of the basic parameters for dreamku and the photos chosen to go with them (and with any non-dream based poems I post here, as well).

The archives in the sidebar hold years of the daily dreamku, tanka, monoku and photo posts I've made, grouped in one post by month. As I no longer post dreamku (or non-dream based poems) strictly daily, each post will appear below and then in the archives by the day on which it was posted.

There are many other sorts of posts here, not all dream-based. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non-dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers than myself), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION.

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‘til next time, keep dreaming,

[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; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and OPENING TO THE LIGHT ****