COME INTO MY PARLOR (photo) & THE SPELUNKER (dream tanka series) by Roswila

THE SPELUNKER

we carry her eggs
to the lab, though it’s doubtful
that we can save them –
we slip them in a petri dish
and put on the clear cover

the mother cries out
from a corner where she’s been
watching and waiting –
before our eyes she rapidly
morphs into a huge spider

her black legs so long
they bring her head way above
the formica table –
“Don’t shut the door” she commands,
“it’ll scare the plants,” so we don’t

as the baskets of
hanging spider plants relax
she checks on her eggs
“Pick them up, dish and all,
and follow me out” she orders

in the hallway a
dark filing cabinet hulks –
she stands before it
and looking toward her dish of
eggs begins morphing again

still mama spider
but now as thin as a sheet
of inky paper,
she proclaims her intent to
slip into the file cabinet

“You see,” she says
“few problems are as big as
they appear to be
and it’s a rare solution
that’s not been filed away”

like a spelunker
she slides into the deep
crevice of a folder –
somehow we know she’ll surface
having snared a way to save her eggs


[tanka series on a dream of 5-11-13. That visual pun of the spider plants made me giggle. However, I did not think of the name of the plants in the actual dream; I just saw them. Naming the plants in the dreamku deflates the fun of the sudden punning connection I felt on recalling the name of the plants while drafting the dreamku. (The same often happens when explaining a joke or an imagistic poem.) But what is one to do? Writing more of a set up to the pun would still be explaining the joke. ‘tis a challenge I may never find a way to handle in dreamku writing. And it’s more common in my dreams than I tend to reference here. I also think I miss a lot of the puns in dreams. Some of the connections may very well be finer than spider webs and snap at the first motions of wakefulness. BTW, the spider here is for me (among other things) a concrete image of the type of computer program called a spider or web crawler. Another visual pun I only got during the writing. Photo “Come Into My Parlor” 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 relate to 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.

Also please note that a dreamku is not intended as an interpretation of a dream, or even a complete and accurate rendering of one. A dreamku is my attempt to get down dream imagery/action that grabs me and, as I write about it, elicits my conscious written association and response. Nor do I believe that one has to remember dreams in order for them to do their work. In my understanding, we are much more than our conscious selves.

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.