BESTOWAL (photo) & MOON WALTZ (dreamku series ) by Roswila

MOON WALTZ

my intriguing new
beau naps beside me under
the clear night sky
I sleepily lift my head
and spot the stunning moon

it glitters like white gold,
so full its edges strain against
the defining night
I gape as it slides low across
the sky brushed by tree branches

without taking my
eyes off the moon I elbow
my beau “Do you see it?
he moves and whispers a small
“yes” that radiates awe

as if normal speech
would scare this wild moon away
we contain our joy,
whispering our amazement
as the shy moon waltzes

suddenly it twins
itself, one pale dubloon face
directly above
and to the left of the other,
vibrating into the night

and then, where there were
twins, a tumbling panoply
of moons bursts out to
spread across the sky like silent
fireworks or a cosmos birthing

between my beau and I we may have one breath left


[six tanka and a monoku on a dream of 6-12-12. This dream is explicitly about the moon. However, by the time I’d finished drafting this series I was fully aware of the sexual content. True, there’s other levels to it, but I do have to ‘fess up to the sexual yearning. I say yearning, because the moon is far away and unobtainable. Then, too, there’s the romantic desire the dream carries. There’s also a spiritual yearning, however, I don’t have the time now to go into how I know that (it has to do with that final image of “a cosmos birthing”). But ultimately and most importantly, my dream world gifted me with an awe-filled respite from all the emotional “sturm un drang” of my waking life. Photo “Bestowal” 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 ****