NETTING THE NIGHT (photo art) & NIGHT WATCH (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

NIGHT WATCH

a young man in a khaki work shirt
stops at the sill of the door
onto the city night
limned softly
by hallway lights

my friend and I stand and watch
in a lobby across the street stunned
wordless by the sudden beauty

only a Rembrandt could
pin this moment: hovering
shapes and overlapping
shadows like dark angels
about to take flight
and at the center
the young man dancing
without moving

then he breathes deeply once
twice as if taking the first
drafts from a cigarette after
or bracing for what's to come
and ambles away
into the long night

leaving my friend and me
to bear the fading afterglow
of a young man paused reflecting
on the threshold of his next step


[free verse poem on a dream of 6-6-14. I started searching for the metaphors to use in a poem on this dream as the dream was ending. Even noting while still asleep a vague resemblance to the shadows and highlights in the famous painting, The Night Watch, by Rembrandt. (Of course now, having made that connection, any photo of mine I post with this poem will pale awfully by comparison.) I read about this painting many years ago and had consciously forgotten it's about military men about to "march out." But it seems my unconscious still had that info, as my association to this dream overall was immediately to the sadness of early death. Yesterday was D-Day and all I could think of as I watched the news clips was how terribly young those soldiers were. And that takes me to those deaths in my own life that came so awfully young. Yet clearly the beauty of those lives is still with me and for that I am grateful. Photo art "Netting the Night" (9-13-10 10010v4) 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.