ROCK ROSE (photo) & [untitled] (old non-dream poem) by Roswila

[untitled]

my skull seems lined with a thousand eyes
each inward turned to route and see
the ever self-derided me
whose every breath is drawn
amongst the misery of inward hate and condemnity

and yet far worse since balanced by
surfaces smooth which lie in false serenity
the tails of scorn whip cruelly
while I survive to write again about the misery
of inward hate and condemnity


[This is a regular poem, not dream based. It’s the first poem I ever wrote, back in my teens which means it was written in the late 1950’s, or early 1960s’s at most. I wrote it before I’d ever started reading other poets work (other than the few poems by my deceased mother) or going to open readings (which I started doing in my middle 20’s). I can only date this poem by visual memories of working on it while in my bedroom in the particular house my family lived in at that time. I pulled it up from memory this morning, all too painfully aware that my inner world had not really changed in all these years. When I got on my computer, I found I’d recalled this poem several years back and entered it, though I find no indication I’ve ever posted it here on this blog. Should I ever need evidence that my emotional/mental issues go way back, this poem is it. It was not hyperbole at the time, nor has it been on and off, over and over, throughout the intervening years, nor is it now. As writing? Well, that’s a different kettle of fish. I do really like that opening line and I think the images I was drawn to work with have life to them. I also like the “music.” But that neologism of “condemnity”? … blush. I even knew at the time that I was making it up. Yes, it fits the rhythm and provides the end rhyme of the lines it's in (which is why I stubbornly held on to it), but it’s not a word. And I’ve never been sure of that second stanza. Not what is says, but as I looked at it this morning I think it’s really two stanzas squashed into one. However, I’m not changing a “hair” (eye? :-D) on this poem. It’s a matter of my personal history now, long since petrified and revealing a certain harsh symmetry. Photo "Rock Rose" 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 ****