ALL ROADS LEAD TO OMPHALOS (photo) & THE TWO MARYS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THE TWO MARYS

her Mary poems, like all her writing,
shine as much for their craft as content
while her experience and persistence
call the saintly Mary of religion to task
as if she were an ordinary woman

as if hours had been spent
on an analyst's couch outing shadows
and complexes, lining them up in poem
after poem like young children
being lovingly scolded, who ultimately
get patted on their butts, and sent
back to their games

while my own poems about Mary
lay claim only to being deeply felt
and honestly come by, their craft
a bit wobbly and thin,
their self-consciousness hard to bear,
their numbers thankfully fewer

each flawed child of mine crying alone
in the middle of its stark white page,
clearly mourning the early death
of my mother, Mary

a few of these orphaned poems
wend their lonely ways through
loss and grief in unexceptional images
to a closure of sorts,
that like poorly sealed packages
only break open again, to spill their pain
into subsequent poems

I am both honored and scared
when the other poet suggests
that our Marys together would make
a whole book, a complete
and satisfying read

how can my poems of on-going grief,
crafted by this wannabe poet,
carry their fair share of the load?
might they not sink any book they're in
like a silk purse filled with stones

but maybe its time I release my poems
and my thoughts about them,
let them drop into the unknown that lies
beneath all surfaces, let them slip
like that weight I fear they are
into the unplumbed deeps


[free verse poem on a dream of 12-25-14. My mother Mary died when I was ten. In the dream I saw some of the actual poems I have written about her and even began organizing them for the book suggested by that other poet in the dream. I'm not surprised letting go of writing is the metaphor this dream chose. I spent hours last night going through very old poems of mine, deciding which to continue to work on and which to finally lay to rest with the delete button. And I actually managed to delete quite a few from an over-crowded "to be worked on" folder. It hit me last night that there's only so much work one can do on anything, before it becomes painfully counter-productive. The problem then being how to identify when that point of too much working on has been reached. With those actual poems -- and this might very well apply in other ways, as in this dream -- the decision point was a gut feeling. A sense that taking the risk to let go would be worth it. Photo "All Roads Lead to Omphalos" (12-23-14 008) 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.