BASHFUL (photo) & MAYBE (dream tanka series) by Roswila

MAYBE

splat! a humongous wad
of chewed pink bubblegum
lands on the office floor
the young clerk whose foot it's near
looks down at it, then to me,

and splat! again,
she casually lobs it to
my cubicle floor
quickly saying it's fake,
a running office joke

as I'm a newbie
on the job she fills me in
I can toss it on
or take it to its "home base"
in the library room

well, this newbie's
not sure the real joke's revealed
should I believe her
and fling it away, risking
a co-worker's anger

or take it over
to the library and maybe
suffer ridicule?
yet leaving it for the clean-
up staff risks even more:

maybe I've just been
brought on board, included
in their group's joke,
and not made its butt in that
old, all too familiar way


[six tanka on a dream of 8-27-13. OK, all that talk in my comments to yesterday's post and here I am back to the dreamku form. What can I say? No rhyme, no reason (both literally and figuratively speaking). However, the form it's written in is not my concern here. It's the dream itself. I have mixed feelings. Although it questions my understanding in a good way, there's something so adolescent about it (blush). Yet someone said that entering old age is in many ways like a second adolescence. I hope I have time enough left to mature! Photo "Bashful" (6-17-13) by Roswila]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS): The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, monoku, free verse, etc. -- 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 dream poem is not intended as an interpretation of a dream, or even a complete and accurate rendering of one. It 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 (the specific forms of dreamku, tanka, two-liners and monoku) you may do here, that in the beginning I stressed "showing, not telling." However, this 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). This pretty much applies to free verse dream poems as well.

For more in-depth exploration of the dreamku forms specifically (and one post in which I also address my photo choices):

-- 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....".

* * * *

‘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 connections & other blogs: Charter Member of the United Haiku and Tanka Society (UHTS); ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.