ALL WET (photo) & THE LOCKED CABINET (non-dream based poem) by Roswila

THE LOCKED CABINET
(non-dream based poem)

like strips of mending
tape on a wet surface none
of the night’s dreams stick,
each waking flooded by
the same decades old memory:

a male co-worker
and I lunch together
as we often did --
even in those years his bow tie
was viewed as rather up tight

but I found it, well,
just him, as I did his
formality and
his valuable gun collection
displayed in a glass cabinet

I try to recall
what happened to this friendship --
in memory I
stand before that cabinet
as he softly asserts:

"I threatened suicide once but don’t worry
the cabinet’s locked and I don’t have a key"


[four tanka and a capping two-liner on a very old waking memory that kept coming up last night (11-7-12) as I woke between lost dreams. Whatever the relationship may or may not have been between the memory and lost dreams, this old memory itself is totally dream-like in its impact on me. Photo “All Wet” 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....".

* * * *

‘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.