DON'T FADE AWAY (photo) & RECALLING THE QUEENS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

RECALLING THE QUEENS

four women, Queens if you will
(and even if you won't), present
one by one for viewing

the first Queen I no longer recall after
the intense impact of the second, and then
after waiting endlessly for the third ...
but I digress ...

the second Queen is dark-haired,
middle-aged, and somehow I know
wields the most independent and bloody
mind of the four

the third wears an intricate layering
of white seed pearls covering her chest
from throat to the swell of her breasts,
by far the most Queenly of them all

the fourth almost eludes recall along
with the first but I catch Her Majesty
by a brief glimpse of her small waist,
pinched even smaller by a Tudor style
gown of sleek gray silk

now, pray tell, what am I supposed to do
with these images? am I to believe that I,
like Henry the 8th before me, beheaded
Queen after Queen as she rose
to an inconvenient prominence

or more likely, that each just faded away
for lack of support into the amorphous
deep, there to await a chance to resurface
and finally live out a life in the light


[free verse poem on a dream of 6-25-13. Since I almost always write about dreams in some formal way (either dreamku, monoku, tanka, two-liner or some combination thereof) I thought I should comment on why I once in a while choose to write in free verse form. Well, I can't really say why. It's just a gut feeling as I first set pen to paper. (I rarely write my first draft on the computer.) Something urges a less formally structured approach. Note that I say "less...structured." I know some folk think of free verse as totally without formal requirements. Not so for me. Any poem, free verse or even the most stream of consciousness type of writing, urges some sort of organization as I go along. In free verse writing, a rhythm will suggest itself and demand to be honored, line length will push for balancing by eye, a desire to break lines where they encourage the flow of a reader's attention in a particular way will rise, and so on. In fact, I find free verse harder to write in than any of the forms I use when writing dreamku. I have fewer choices to make in the more structured dreamku forms. The form, line length, etc., are already determined. But in free verse, I'm faced with many, many choices that have to be tried out, then accepted or rejected, and worked on some more. Maybe it's exactly that plethora of possibilities that were necessary to bring this dream poem through in a satisfactory way. Or maybe I simply needed to work in a different way when I drafted this dream poem yesterday. Hm, it may just be that I needed to taste the freedom of making those choices. One more thing: The Queen of Swords in The Tarot deck has been an important card to me for some time now. I have a Queen of Swords from four different decks on a sheet on my wall right now. What's interesting to note is that in Tarot lore the Queen of Swords is one who can do some beheading. She's said at one level to "behead over rational thought." She's also been compared to Judith in the Bible, who beheaded the evil invader Holofernes. So although I chose to leave out these associations to the dream as the by far stronger one is to Henry the 8th's wives, they are there informing this dream/poem, and especially the second Queen. Photo "Don't Fade Away" 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.

You may also note in any further reading on dreamku you may do, that in the beginning I stressed "showing, not telling." However, that has been changing for some time now. I now tend to "show" (the dream narrative) and cap if off with a "tell" (some reaction and/or insight I've had to the dream as I was writing about it).

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.