ROSE CONSTELLATION (photo art) & STORIES (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

STORIES

ah! I didn't know the specifics but I knew
her stories would be this way, dark
and disturbing, filled with latter day snakes
in the garden and littered with rotten apples
both fallen and flung, stories like those
we each learn to keep under wraps
as we struggle to create and display
an ideal self

she continues to open up to this circle
of women, holding tight to the talking stick,
and I am buoyed by a huge empathic wave,
my spirit leaping to welcome her
into this wide open courtyard
beneath the stars we take as real
even as we know they are long gone,
the light of their archetypal journeys
giving lift to an otherwise
crushing emptiness


[free verse poem on a dream of 2-12-14. There's something that occasionally happens when an actual person shows up in a dream. It changes my understanding of and therefore actual relationship to that person. (Though that is rarely the total "purpose" for that person's appearance in the dream. Actual people tend to be as metaphoric in my dreams as anything else.) And that's what this dream has started to do with the waking life "she." I just started to type that I doubt it will be a very deep change, but how can I know until some time has gone by? I'm already feeling less judgmental of her. Who knows how that will affect any future interactions between us? I hasten to add that there are additional relationships and issues layering this dream. But I'd have to go on at length; this will suffice. Well, tell a lie, I should say I realize that the second stanza is not only a rather lengthy sentence but dense with images/information. However, I like how it moves so I'm leaving it as such. And I should also say that a talking stick is an American Indian tradition (and of other indigenous peoples, too, I gather). It gets passed around in a meeting and whoever holds it is the one who can speak. Photo art "Rose Constellation" (11-19-09 8258ev3) by Roswila]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS):

But first, a request: please let me know of any typos or other sorts of blunders in my posts. As my eyes age I'm finding more mistakes are creeping into what I put up here no matter how many times I proof it all. Thanks for any help!

The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, monoku, free verse, dream narratives -- 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. (This all applies to any of the non-dream poems posted here, too.)

Also please note that a dream poem or narrative 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. I now tend to "show" (the dream story) 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 also pretty much applies to my free verse dream poems as well. As to what I have begun calling dream narratives, they are a different animal, probably most akin to prose poems.

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.