ECHOES OF WINTER (photo) & SEWARD'S FOLLY (dreamku series) by Roswila

SEWARD’S FOLLY

the fat man’s belly
perfectly fits and warms
the curve of my back,
what rises below answered
in me with a stirring

he backs off too soon,
before the fire’s fully stoked
and consuming all
my attractions to other
men in these Alaskan wilds

he pouts and postures,
his expectation that we
should be together
now stronger than his desire
to just go for what he wants

ignoring all his
strident background posturing
I start chatting with
others, curious about life
in this beautiful cold country

I tell these tough folk
how I watched my mother
talk herself to death
with “shoulds” and I won’t make
the same deadly mistake

these folk, too, though
burst with expectations, “shoulds’
that make me feel sad –
maybe I will stay here and
maybe I’ll decide to move on

but go or stay, work or go to school again
it’ll simply be because it’s what I want


[six tanka and a two-liner on a dream of 9-21-12. That mother is an all too familiar aspect of myself and the "I" voice a newer one. Though I do wonder how much "shoulds" may have contributed to my own mother's death when I was ten. Even as a very young woman I would think that she must have been living (at the least) a somewhat conflicted life. Extremely simply put, she was a mathematician and artist, who was keeping house and raising two kids. Of course now I wonder if in not wanting to repeat what I perceived to be her mistake, I simply made a different set of entrapping "shoulds" for myself. This dream (in part) is the start of a thoughtful examination of this issue. A sort of cautionary tale. Photo “Echoes of Winter” by Roswila]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS): The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, and monoku -- are offered in the spirit of collaboration. I have done my part. Now it’s your turn to jump in and see what comes up for you. I.e., there is no right or wrong way to understand or interpret any of these dream offerings. Even my own understandings of them change over time. And it gives me joy when a reader sees something in any of them that I have not.

For more in-depth exploration:

-- a brief post about both dreamku and my photos THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING DIGITAL PHOTOS.

-- detailed three-part post about dreamku: "A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams": PART ONE: Introduction & Writing Dreamku as Dream Work; PART TWO: Elements of the Haiku Form Used in Dreamku; and PART THREE: How to Write Dreamku (the second and third parts have some overlap).

-- a brief up-dating post about the three-part "A DREAMKU PRIMER" -- Important Up-date to A DREAMKU PRIMER....".

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‘til next time, keep dreaming,






If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.