ON A ROLL (photo art) & WITNESS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

WITNESS

it's bad enough to see that couple
meeting to betray their spouses
but now here's the long beautiful
dark wood board walk being ruined

it can't handle truck and car traffic,
even though it's natural slant down
puts gravity at the vehicles service
making passage swift

it's extremely painful
to witness this rolling destruction
but as the eye of the dreamer only,
what can I do, my lucid skills*
are not strong enough

and following all the wheels
a large mechanical serpent
lurches down, not a lovely
weathered dark like the crumbling
board walk but a metallic black,
its only light harsh reflections

trailing this disruptive parade
a small but no less dark
herd of metal robot bulls
stumbles blindly down
over the splintering remains
of the boardwalk

long after their trampling
the wooden planks continue
to collapse, rumbling deeply
as if in pain and raising
burst after burst of dust

would that bearing witness
could make a difference
in the scheme of things

that seeing clearly
could matter at all


[free verse poem on a dream of 5-12-14. *"Lucid skills..." refers to my semi-lucid awareness that I was dreaming but incapable of changing anything. Skilled lucid dreamers can change and/or control a dream. Although more and more I find I'm vaguely lucid in dreams, I still have no control other than to wake myself up -- which I rarely choose to do. And, quite honestly, I have no desire to control a dream. I like that they do as they will. Even painful ones like this. Beyond definite personal resonance, I think this dream may also reference humanity as a whole and what we are doing to our earth. A note on the imagery in this dream: I'm sure it was heavily influenced by all the morning traffic sounds. Usually, I keep my bedroom window shut as that muffles the noise. But in heat waves like the one we're having, that's not a viable option. I had this dream the first night the window was open this year. However, this does not in any way mitigate what I see in this dream. My dreaming mind did choose to make these particular symbolic associations to all that traffic noise. Photo art "On a Roll" 5-3-14 6646ev5) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

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until next time, keep dreaming,

[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** 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.