Roswila's Dream & Poetry Realm

SEE ALSO: TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT (photos, realistic to abstract)

Saturday, March 29, 2014

READING BETWEEN THE LINES (photo) & FORM AND CONTENT (free verse dream poem) by Roswila


FORM AND CONTENT

her published poem's
quite lovely to look at:
the black words stacked
on left and right in columns
of only two with a wide
blank blue space between
like a cloudless California sky,
the bracketing words
like silhouetted palms

but the poem's nigh on to impossible
to track, long before the eye
embraces the words on the right
the words on the left fade
from comprehension
into the deep blue

this grasping then losing of words
develops a life of its own
(does one breath understand the next?)
but the subsuming of meaning
to the moment remains uncomfortable:
there's still something to be said
for compatible form and content


[free verse poem on a dream of 3-28-14. Photo "Reading Between the Lines" (3-14-14 v11) 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 “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.

Friday, March 28, 2014

PERPETUAL MOTION (photo art) & NO UNDERSTANDING (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila


NO UNDERSTANDING

there may be thousands
of miles between
and years of changes,
but nothing's truly new at all:
the same eyes, the same ears
perceive and paste the same stifling
patterns onto the world again and again
yet chances for freshness still rise
with every breath and rest
between systole and diastole,
interstices winking into
and out of existence
beneath the radar of labels,
begging no understanding
nor even any question


[non-dream free verse poem written late March 2014. Photo art "Perpetual Motion" (3-26-14 002v7) 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 “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.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

FADE TO BLACK (photo art) & MAYBE THERE'S ANOTHER (dream narrative) by Roswila


MAYBE THERE'S ANOTHER

... maybe there's another outfit
in my closet that's both clean
and fits, I'd really rather
not put on this old black one,
it's boring and I've worn it
so many times before ... but dang it!
the hazards of meeting one's
budget by shopping in Thrift Stores,
or rather, of being too impatient to
check out what one buys there!
look at all the rips and stains
in odd places on these clothes
that I'd have seen had I been less
concerned with time and achy knees,
oh, pishwah, if I were more willing
to take the time ... sigh ...
nothing else suits my suddenly
thorough eye ... I'll have to wear
these old black clothes ... well,
at least now I've got the message:
it's long past time to give
how I present myself
a careful overhaul


[narrative on a dream of 3-26-14. I immediately associated clothing to the psychological term of "persona." I.e., "The persona, for Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, was the social face the individual presented to the world—a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual." (Wikipedia) And being stuck with only a black outfit gave me the clue to the idea of an overhaul. As black in a dream can sometimes represent "parts of a new personality emerging" (Hoss Color Questionnaire for Dreamwork). May it be so! I hasten to add that in the past black has also represented mourning in my dreams. This is certainly consistent not only with the "death" of a personality or parts thereof, but with the recent actual death of my younger brother. (That latter loss is still not unexpectedly creating intense ripples.) Photo art "Fade to Black" (3-26-14 021v4) 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 “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.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

THE EMPEROR (Tarot card) & A HOUSE DECLARES (dream narrative) by Roswila


A HOUSE DECLARES

clearly more organized and skilled
than ours a house declares war
against our own, armed with an acre
of fire brands the bellicose threat
at first freezes us in terror
then stirs us into a flurry
of action to keep from becoming
only a memory in flames

we gather all Goddess figurines
and statues from the dusty shelves
and closets of our large old Victorian
style house, placing them as guards
against a secret break in: one
at every door and window they glow
in the dark, ancient sentinels

then we empty all the large boxes
and suitcases in the house,
an impressive hoard, and fill them
with crumpled newspapers
so they'll be light to heft
but maintain their shape

we open all drapes and pile these
puffed up squares in front of each
window where our enemy
can readily see them, handling
them as if each weighs a ton
and will squash anyone flat
beneath it when tossed
through a window

better any day that we bluff
our way out of this soon
to be fiery pit, than that they
burn their way in


[narrative on a dream of 3-25-14. Well, so much for embracing the "cleansing fire" of the breath of those dragons in an earlier dream I posted here. Actually, at a rather too complicated level to explain here, the fire in this dream, too, has a positive aspect. Then there's the implied relationship to the Tarot's Emperor card in this dream. He's often associated with a square or cube, depicted seated on a cube (as opposed to a throne) in some of the oldest decks and his number is IV. Rather than go on about this card I'll go straight to the point, these dream cubes/squares are protection (of a sort) -- one of The Emperor's qualities. I'd better stop here. The narrative is long enough on it's own and I could go on and on about this complicated dream. IMAGE: "The Emperor" in a Tarot deck I've been developing, "The Taiga Tarot" (designing and producing the complete image for each card, including writing the non-traditional tanka).]

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 “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.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

CAUGHT IN THE CRUSH (photo) & BELOW (dream tanka w/two liner) by Roswila


BELOW

too old for them now:
the job, the man, the singing
I hobble on by
headed for the subway hoping
this time I won't get lost below

I hunch my shoulders against unwelcome touch,
little energy left to struggle home through the crowds


[a tanka capped by a two-liner on a dream of 3-24-14. Hm, guess this dream holds some of the (no longer) sleeping dragons in yesterday's dream post. Actually, I had vague conscious symptoms of dragons a couple of days before yesterday's dream. And given some of the details (which I left out) and associations to the above dream I'm beginning to get a sense of what a couple of the big dragons are. And they're so familiar they could almost be called friends; their flaming breath more a cleansing fire. Photo "Caught in the Crush" (3-17-14 057v3) 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.

Monday, March 24, 2014

THE GREENING (photo art) & DRAGONS LIE SLEEPING (dream tanka w/two 2-liners) by Roswila


DRAGONS LIE SLEEPING

their long awaited
CD, called "Dragons Lie Sleeping,"
proves an instant hit
but it's made of pale green glass,
soft and bendable but still glass

the group's name hooks my eye again: The Pericles,*
each member an artist ruling in their own right

I put the album carefully back in its jacket,
this dark folk music requires gentle handling


[a tanka and two 2-liners on a dream of 3-23-14. *Pericles, from Wikipedia. I had to Google about Pericles because I did not consciously recall who he was. Yet once I started reading I remembered having read about the ancient Greek ruler somewhere before. Upshot of this dream (at least as far as I have gone in relating to it at this point)? I have plenty of dragons to wrestle with (and will probably always have plenty). And that poetry and photography are two of my ways of coping with and even transforming/transmuting them. As to the glass? Yes, it's translucent but it's also fragile. However, this glass has a little bit of "give and take" which is encouraging. Photo art "The Greening" (1-15-11 10368ev2) 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.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

AT THE BOTTOM (photo) & EXEMPLARS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila


EXEMPLARS

she's almost literally half my height
and twice my age, this spry old woman
who passes me in the hall hurrying
the other way and using only a cane

and that much younger friend?
well, she says she will be at the foot
of the long narrow stairs down
and finally explain
what happened between us,
once I am able to get there

aged and youthful, they both
put me to shame with their energy
and sense of direction

but the shame is mine, not anything they extend
better I should be grateful for these exemplars


[free verse poem on a dream of 3-22-14. Photo "At the Bottom" (3-13-14 003) by Roswila -- This was taken at the foot of the stairs down into our dining room. We also have an ART WALL just on the other side of those stairs at a hallway's end. Both these walls have rotating exhibits of residents' work.]

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 “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.