LIFE GOES ON (photo) & IN THE END (dreamku series) by Roswila

IN THE END

the six adults leave
the conference room their breaths
smelling of almonds
their suicide pact fully
acknowledged and enacted

this is better than
the long drawn-out deaths they’d
otherwise suffer
they start sharing memories
from their soon to end lives

the first one talks of
his life-long employment:
acting like a child
his small stature allowing
him to entertain endlessly

others speak -- the past more alive than they

the final adult
shares not a memory but
what he’d always wished:
at the last to dive into
a wild jungle river,

an adventurer to the end by an alligator’s bite
but now he sees that ‘gators wear many guises


[three tanka, a monoku, a tanka, and a capping two-liner on a dream of 3-21-13. Just in case I haven’t made the underlying point (at least the most important one for me) to this dream clear, it’s not about suicide. It’s about not really living while we’re alive; that there are many forms of death, not just of the body. Staying stuck in the past is the “death” being highlighted in the dream. The last tanka and capping two-liner put me in mind of that Shakespeare quote: Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of course, there’s also Hemingway’s response to that idea: The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them. Photo “Life Goes On” by Roswila, but I still hold you in my heart, Matthew, harbinger of spring.]

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:

-- very brief comparison of dreamku and haiku: DREAMKU ARE NOT HAIKU

-- 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 short 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.