SINGING FOR THE MOON (photo art) & "more explanation..." (dream tanka) by Roswila

more explanation:
nor is she a trained musician
she can't read music
yet works to turn the tone deaf
into opera singers


[tanka on a dream of 7-3-14. My most immediate and persistent association to this image is how I keep trying to make poetry out of my writing efforts, and art out of my photos. Much in the vein of that expression "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." There are other, more positive psychological associations, but too many to go into here. Photo art "Singing for the Moon" (8-30-09 6217ev7) 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.

DYING OF THIRST (photo art) & "a nourishing tea..." (dreamku) by Roswial

a nourishing tea
could be wrung from this dry lawn ...
an infant's portion


[dreamku on a dream of 7-3-14. Clearly another drought influenced dream. One of the lawns in our retirement community has been allowed to go brown as part of the water conservation effort. It was that one I saw in the dream. Photo art "Dying of Thirst" (6-3-14 004v5) by Roswila; fortunately, the gardeners have since resuscitated this fiddle head fern.]

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.

THE BIG HITCH (photo art) & WHEN THE SILENCE CHANGED (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

WHEN THE SILENCE CHANGED

she'd somehow known this was to be
the summer when everything would change
that she and her family would return
from their yearly escape to the ocean
as tanned and ready for fall as always
and even acting pretty much the same
but that there would be this deep sea change

she'd even asked her mother if she'd sensed
what was coming, "You know, Mama,
like in that movie 'A Pleasure So Silent,
An Ivory So Painful' ..." but her mother
brushed off the question only letting slip
her surprise that her daughter even knew
about that old, French Art House film

yes, she'd always known a lot no one
cared to hear about much less
take seriously and had even grown
to enjoy holding her tongue back
like a headstrong puppy
but this time her question
had broken through,
an overpowering ocean surge

it was in the slowly ebbing aftermath
as her mother ambled away
shaking her head to the rhythm
of a feeling she would not share
that her daughter had felt that awful twist
in her gut, as if there'd been a shift
in time and space, a rent
by something so cutting
so dense there'd be no mending,
nor even any camouflaging

and that its scar would run through
their small family, knotting them together
with a sharp thread of silvery silence


[free verse poem on a dream of 7-2-14. That film name is verbatim from the dream. I'll keep my silence about anything else. There are no words for some it, and too many for the rest. Photo art "The Big Hitch" (6-2-14 004v5) 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,

[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.

TWILIGHT TAKE OFF (photo art) & THE RUMBLE SEAT (dream tanka series) by Roswila

THE RUMBLE SEAT

that hoary hero,
Hercules, a god now since
his death of old age,
flies through the sky driving
his vintage convertible

he's youthful and buff
(more proof he's a deity)
in the rumble seat
two young women sit laughing
enjoying the sky high view

but why this distance
between Herc and these ladies
why doesn't he just
magic them to the front seat
next to his massive thigh

Herc drives on grinning,
while the ladies titter
and gossip away
keeping their distance like birds
uncertain of their new perch


[four tanka on a dream of 7-1-14. This was one of several dreams last night about old men suddenly being more youthful. It was the only one I felt drawn to write about as I like that flying car (BTW, it was an Oldsmobile ... another "old" thing. :-D) This dream has both forward looking and backward elements. A rather dizzying view, just as it must have been from that flying car. Photo art "Twilight Take Off" (6-24-14 005 v4) 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.

SIRIUS RISING (photo art) & ACE OF SIRIUS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

ACE OF SIRIUS

in the dream the Tarot cards
of the reading turn over
one after another into clarity,
blank white backs plowed under
by serial curiosity,
intricate familiar faces
glowing colorfully
in light of comprehension

but that knowing fractures
with the morning rush
of vehicles below the open window,
as dream memory dribbles in
on a cloud of dust motes,
the only intact card:
the Ace of Sirius

serious, indeed, this urge to reassemble
the message from the dust,
and as far from graspable
as the star for which the lone
survivor's named

its neat black italics proclaiming
"Ace of Sirius" fading in the distance
as it lopes after the long gone stars
like a faithful dog
after its family of night


[free verse poem on a dream of 6-30-14. Phew! This started out as one of those "I forgot the dream" poems. But once that memory of Sirius and awareness that it's known as the dog star entered, I was off and running (just like that dog). Here's a link if you're curious about the masses of mythology trailing after Sirius, much of which was a synchronistic experience for me to read this morning: Sirius, a/k/a The Dog Star. (E.g., it's also known as the Rain Star and Nile Star, intriguing given our drought here in CA. ) I'm also struck by that homophone of "serious." BTW, aces in the Tarot are (very simply put) about tremendous potential. And often seen as the sources of all the powers of their suit. Much to ponder in this largely unrecalled dream. Actually, that's not unusual; as if even one tiny detail brought into waking consciousness can act as a key. (And "keys" is another word for the Major Arcana of The Tarot deck.) Photo art "Sirius Rising" (6-26-14 026v2) by Roswila; different cultures have attributed different colors to Sirius, however, red most often.]

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,







[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.

AhHAH! (photo art) & THIS HUNGRY SYMBOL (dream-precipitated short story) by Roswila

THIS HUNGRY SYMBOL:
A Story Of Origins (dream-precipitated)

She squats before the skull on a branch. The pupils of her gold eyes expand slowly like galaxies. Her long yellow hair hangs untended in hanks, dead flowers curled in its knots. She has come here to remember, to make the skull's brooding power pull the answers she seeks from their fitful sleep beneath her skin. Her black skin that glows ruddy even in the jungle shadows.

They had not counted on this. None of them. They had not been prepared for this life like an on-going sleep. It was getting more and more difficult to reconnect to true wakefulness. She, of all her tribe, was the only one who now remembered, ever made this trip to the heart of the jungle. And it was getting harder and harder to remember on her own, with none of her companions adding their strengths to hers until they bridged the stars, a rainbow of souls.

Even now, the Elders of the tribe would be telling the children long sunset stories of this new earth, giving its rocks and trees and animals, powers that were really The People's. Pouring the tribe's natural star-traveling talents into the hungry symbol of this young planet. She alone among The People now, knew that even this ancient skull with its long orange hair had no power but what she gave it.

And the dreams, that silver pooling through which they dove when they landed here, exhausted after their long star journey. The dreams, too, were changing. Invaded more and more by what they could not, would not use in this simple world. The dreams were more like burial caves -- littered with the forgotten, the feared, the unwanted -- than the doorways they had once been.

She stares harder at the skull, and shakes a bone rattle. With her other hand she grasps a necklace of fangs that rests on her bare breast. Her belly swells and recedes as her breathing deepens. Her chant stirs the jungle clearing. The answers itch beneath her sweat slick skin. The moon white skull before her sways, the empty eye sockets expanding and sparkling like rising memory.

"Yes, yes," she hisses from between her blackened teeth, and shakes the rattle, her reed thin body perched tentatively like a house of sticks. The orange hair on the skull crackles like flame, as the jungle hums.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, they had known the connection might be drawn too thin by the abyss of space and their new homes of fleshly bodies. They had known. And now they were storing their star guides beneath their dreams, and their powers in the stones, in the things of this new earth, until these hybrid creatures they had become were ready.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, memory receding as the orange hair on the skull settles around the branch like a friendly embrace.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, collapsing at last onto the damp jungle earth into a dream of dancing iridescent fish returning to their home in the stars.

* * * *

[dream-precipitated short story written decades back, best guest would be the early 1980's. The image in the first paragraph, and the fish image in the last sentence were from two separate dreams, on two different nights. I felt challenged, for what reason I never knew, to write a connecting story. So I re-entered, that is, consciously got back into, that first dream image to do so. Photo art "AhHAH!" (4-4-13 12401v2) 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,

[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.

STAIRS IN BLACK & WHITE (photo) & TOO MUCH (3 tanka w/1 dreamku) by Roswila

TOO MUCH

omigosh! it's time
to go or we'll miss our train,
she suddenly says,
leading her back up the stairs
of the basement, to the trains

the warren of tracks
in the echoing station's
endless, and her friend's
disappeared leaving her with
no idea of which train to board

she'd really rather
be back down in the basement,
she's well accustomed
to feeling her way around
in the dark of those four walls

up here, well, frankly
it's too bright and wide open:
there's just too much choice


[three tanka capped by a dreamku on a dream of 6-28-14. Photo "Stairs in Black & White" (6-26-14 009v7) 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.