A CLEAN SLATE (photo) & IN THE FLOWERING BOWER (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

IN THE FLOWERING BOWER

and so, the thinking dream continues,
there's no fixed self at all, no "I"
of predictable edges and totally known
depths and heights and duration

it's like The Magician in The Tarot,
one's self being a constantly emptying
and filling table in the midst
of the ongoing seasons
of a flowering bower

and opening to this changeability,
embracing whatever it puts
on the table, is an act of magic,
of simultaneous creation and destruction
and creation again, and ever again

a mysterious alchemy
afroth with the glitter
and shadows we once
would have reified


[free verse poem on a dream of 11-3-13. Here's the link to my Found Tarot post describing why I see the above photo as a version of The Magician card. (You may note that I have managed since posting it back then to my Tarot blog, to bring out that rainbow effect a bit.) And here's a more traditional version of The Magician (from the Rider/Waite/Smith deck):

As to the dream: It was not an over-voice talking (as I do occasionally experience in dreams) or some other character/object speaking, it was "I" thinking this all out in my sleep. The dream had no sense of location or visual content, other than an endless darkness, and "I" had no sense of body or emotion. An emotional thought of "Oh, wow, a Tarot dream!" only entered as I fully woke and recalled the dream. I have had a totally thinking dream or two in the past. But usually any sense "I" am thinking in a dream is within the context of a larger more detailed dream (such as when I have written a haiku in a dream coming out of the dream's images). A last point, in the dream it was on "seeing" the word "I" that I thought of The Magician card, whose number is a roman numeral one, or I. Photo "A Clean Slate" (8-2-10), a/k/a The Magician, 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....".

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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 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.