Notice of Blogging Break; WATERLOGGED (photomorph); & THE LAST DREAM OF THE NIGHT (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

Before posting the photo & poem for today (below) I should say that it's my last posting for a while. I'm taking a spring break from blogging. Oh, I'll keep writing dream poems and working on pix, for sure. And reading and answering comments and emails about my blogs or otherwise. I just want to free up some time for other things that are pressing right now. Don't know how long I'll be on a blogging break. Depends on how everything goes. Now to the post:

THE LAST DREAM OF THE NIGHT

...shows my now deceased
brother had been not only
overweight at times
but in the earliest years of our
estrangement, even obese

in a perverse way
this delights me, that he lived with
the same big problem
(you should pardon the pun) I've
struggled with and been so judged for

but, jeeze, like most men
whether fat or otherwise
he'd still had great legs --
envy sours the brew of delight
I've just begun to whip up

comparisons and tipsy understandings
may be sweet, like junk food on the tongue

but like empty calories they ultimately swell
harsh underlying truths to mind numbing sizes

can I then just take pride in being a survivor?
who knows? it could be a fluke or in my genes

bottom line, I'm here
and he and many others are gone --
I'd do much better
to let the dead rest undisturbed
and get up and make my bed


[tanka series with three two liners on a dream of 4-16-15. Rather synchronous that the last dream poem written before considering and deciding to take a spring break from blogging, has a title beginning "The Last Dream..." Seems my dream world was ahead of my conscious one, as usual. Photomorph "Waterlogged" (5-9-12 11913v10a) 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.