REMNANTS (photo art) & THE LAST OF HER KIND (dream tanka trio w/two-liner) by Roswila

THE LAST OF HER KIND

the last of her kind
she seeks out and finds the brink
of the known world
while ancient hungers promise
comfort if only she'll eat

the fruits of her kind's
convoluted deaths ripen
heavily above,
some already fallen
challenging her caution

but eating will bring
only more sorrow and pain
and so she stands tall --
best she wait here at the edge
and bear these seductive hungers

the freedom of solitude suffuses the brink
perhaps seeding a more nourishing world


[three tanka capped by a two-liner on a dream of 1-24-14. Clearly about my eating issues, but also so much more. Photo art "Remnants" (9-15-13 007v13) 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....".

* * * *

‘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.

BLOWN AWAY (photo art) & "wind through branches..." (dreamku) by Roswila

wind through branches
ripe with purple glass fruit
broken birthday


[dreamku written on my birthday January 4, 2009 and revised January 23, 2014. This is about a dream I had when I was 14 years old that I can still see clearly in memory's eye today. I hasten to add that this year's birthday (my 70th) was -- if tinged with sadness -- rather lovely. Probably in part due to folk's awareness of my brother's recent passing and their desire to be supportive. And it's just that combination of lovely and sad that permeated the dream. Photo art "Blown Away" (12-24-14 004v3) 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....".

* * * *

‘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.

COLORED BY MEMORY (photo art) & "twisty trees finger..." (non-dream poem) by Roswila

twisty trees finger
the twin edges of ocean
cliff and arriving night
blooms whose name I do not know
scent every nook and cranny

an art class awaits
inside the old school building --
I'm barely on time
but pause just a bit longer
outside the lines and lessons ...

perhaps it's the yearning to stand again undefined
at fringes that suffuses this memory with tears


[two tanka capped by a two-liner on a memory from when I lived briefly in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1969, poem written 1-21-14. Photo art "Colored by Memory" (3-9-10 10001v3) 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.

* * * *

until next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under AView my complete profile@) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA'S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA'S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT, digital photos. ****

THAT WON'T FLY (photo art) & "grounded in my earth-bound sign..." (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila

grounded in my earth-bound sign
I stretch my soul to float along
the soaring wind your russet
flight diffuses

but illusion hurts and I
to solid form return

and leaning up I loose my brimming
threads of sight to touch the candle's
wings reflected in your eyes
that speak to me of flight
I fear I cannot take


[non-dream free verse poem written in 1974. This was published in a chapbook in 1975, with two other poems of mine from that same time period, by Bard Press. I recall this poem having a title with Icarus (he of the melted wax wings) in it, but can't find the exact title anywhere in my files. The Bard Press chapbook, that the publisher titled "Lilith," has all three poems of mine strung together as if they were one, without titles. (Which was an ingenious approach by the publisher, making connections I'd not been aware of.) In a way, though, not having the title now and that particular mythological reference to deal with freed me to further change how this poem appears. Written 40 years ago, I used lots of capital letters and some punctuation, very short lines, and left justified it. It fairly screamed "old fashioned!" at me this morning. But I think the short, choppy lines were the worst of it. All of which is a lot of fuss over a small, old, ordinary poem. Yet there's clearly something about it that draws me today to post it in this reorganized form. Probably just because it brings up memories of the years I would read it in poetry readings that both my brother, Russ, and I regularly attended. The brother (as I've noted here before) that just passed away. Photo art "That Won't Fly" (9-15-13 001v5) 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.

* * * *

until next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under AView my complete profile@) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA'S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA'S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT, digital photos. ****

TIGER, TIGER BURNING BRIGHT (photo) & THE WILD COUPLE (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THE WILD COUPLE

the tiger pair we've hired escapes
to a lush green glen split by a clear stream

the large male cat kills a wandering pet
dragging it through rustling brush
by its throat

we must get these two wild cats back
to the trailer on the movie lot
locked away and under our control again

the female begins to stalk a large
black dog downstream

I call out the character names of this wild
tiger pair, hoping they will not only
recall them but respond and follow
me away from the glen back to the lot

the dense greenery overhanging
the stream muffles my shouts
but their twitching ears
reveal they hear me

once back in the movie lot trailer
the tigers resume their hominid form
handsome and stark naked
like idealized primal humans

as the female paces just behind me
I talk firmly to the male putting him
on notice: a termination contract
is being prepared even as I speak

we cannot tolerate their hunting
and killing even if it is their nature
after all they'd gone totally off script
abandoning their characters
and we are filming a movie


[free verse poem on a dream of 1-19-14. I'm not fully clear on this dream yet. Especially as the tiger is one of my "power animals." Though as I typed that, I realized it's probably mostly addressing a struggle I've been having with food issues. Some part of me that I perceive as wild and powerful is giving me grief in other words. Yet by the end of this dream it's more humanized. And that this is all in the context of a movie being filmed seems to suggest I work to re-attain some detachment. I just recalled that I actually incubated this dream, asking my dreams for help with my food struggle before I fell asleep last night. And as I've said about other issues, this struggle is being stirred up by the fallout from my brother's recent death. I.e., it would be all too easy to fall back into an old pattern and eat wrong in an attempt to dull my difficult emotions. Photo "Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright" (8-5-09 5010e) 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....".

* * * *

‘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.

WINDING DOWN (photo art) & WE'VE GOT THE SONGS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

WE'VE GOT THE SONGS

as she repacks the Beatles LP album
she notes a strange production company
listed on its stained slip jacket
not Apple or Abbey Road or any
of the other familiar monikers

this simply won't do, she must get clear
on how and where these songs
were produced! and so she writes
to the fading address
on the mysterious slip jacket

when Paul and John arrive for dinner
she tells them of her determined quest
hoping they have the answers
after all they were there

but neither of her Beatles friends
seems at all surprised, nor even
the least bit concerned

the news even seems to effect
them more like a warm glass
of milk: snore!

sigh, nothing new there,
she's usually found accuracy
and clarity of history -- even
by those involved --
not to be cared that much about

well, then again, maybe it's true
that sometimes spilt milk's
not all that missed nor does it
leave a stain worthy of all this fuss

and as Paul just mumbled
through a sweet sleepy smile
"No matter, luv, we've got the songs"


[free verse poem on a dream of 1-17-14. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, of course, but in their youth. I have a card deck that has a Beatles album cover on each one, that I often play solitaire with in the evenings to wind down. So that's an obvious source of the Beatles in this dream. More importantly, their music is like the single most memorable "soundtrack" of my entire life. There's a lot to this dream (precipitated by my brother's recent death) but I'll leave it at this. Photo art "Winding Down" (5-9-12 11935v3) 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....".

* * * *

‘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.