Birthday Dreamku Post and photo by Roswila

coulda lived better
coulda lived a lot worse
life is in the "is"


[Re-posting of an old dreamku from March of 2008. Today's my 68th birthday and this old dreamku came to mind as being more true even than I realized back then. (Actually it's more an aphorism than a dreamku, but who's being picky? :-D) I also like it because it doesn't prod or question but simply accepts. One can go a lot of places with a life continually returning to the moment of "is." At least that's a recurring hope I have these days. Back to the dream: When I dreamed it in 2008, I was chanting those actual lines in my sleeping mind and may have been trying to write a song. The photo for today doesn't have any real relationship to this dreamku. Though I suppose if I sat with it long enough I'd find some thread connecting them. However, I'm not so inclined and am indulging myself by posting it anyway as I love to take and share pictures of this particular stand of canna leaves. (Oh, for a nickel for every time I've said that about these leaves, or something else that graces our grounds. :-D) This photo is called "Double Entendre."]

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, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the dreamku form.

* * * *

‘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 ****