ALIEN VIEWPOINT (photo) & CONTAGION (dreamku) by Roswila

CONTAGION

they're anaerobic
but there are so many and they
breed way too quickly
it'll take a lot of breath to
blow their house away

I huff and I puff where's a wolf when you need one


[a tanka on a dream of 10-15-11. Some complaining before going on to the above dreamku -- Blogger (this blog's host system) has finally put up their totally revamped editing system. Ack! I’m so tired of things being fixed that "ain't broke." Now I have to go through contortions as I learn the new system, and may even wind up having to download a new browser (Google Chrome – Google’s taking over the world) in order to access all the functions. And just from putting up this post today I've learned it takes extra steps (clicks) to get many things done. How's that any improvement? Anyway, with all I’ve been going through trying to patch up this old computer until I can afford a new one, this could not be worse timing. I never thought I’d be one of those old people who has trouble with change, but I do. Especially change that seems rather unnecessary -- just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be. Though I hasten to add, I am grateful that blogging here is still free. Anyway, this is an old dream/ku but it seems all too apropos of my blogger complaint today and about as hopeless. Photo “Alien Viewpoint” by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE that I never have nor do I now lay claim to having been the first to suggest writing about our dreams in the haiku form. In fact, the haijin (Haiku Masters of centuries ago) sometimes wrote haiku on dreams. But even more importantly, what I have been developing for several years now on this blog is not even truly haiku or tanka or monoku. The ways in which I have been using and experimenting with these forms makes the results more akin to kissing cousins of these small Eastern poetry forms. Therefore, I mostly use the term "dreamku" to distinguish what I do from those traditional forms. Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION than follows below, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the basic (most haiku-like) dreamku form.

Also, 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.

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 in the sidebar.

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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 ****