ESCAPEES (photo) & ON BEING IMPRISONED (dream based prose poem) by Roswila

ON BEING IMPRISONED

she and I are prisoners of terrorists
in a large rat's warren of small white
under furnished offices,
where we're locked in separate rooms
across the building from each other

I become acutely aware of their "oversight"
computer program that not only runs
the terrorists' entire compound
but acts as a spying mechanism

this nigh on to A.I. has the ability to act
in physical space on what it's programmed
to censor or delete, even "disappearing"
any fractious prisoner or traitor in a blink

I must warn my friend about this
and for some reason I cannot fathom,
I'm given liberty by our captors:
I can take a walk around
the maze-like corridor once a day

and so it is I find myself
standing in my friend's room while she's
off who knows where or why -- I refuse
to believe she's been "disappeared,"
maybe she, too, has been given liberty

I can sense the computer program
like an itch to get moving or else,
I take a chance and start scribbling
a quick warning note for my friend,
but I can't figure out a code to write it in
that she would know and that the program
could not all too readily break

then I boldly start to write the flat out truth:
we are both in the grip of a larger,
more powerful, and terrifying past
than she knows, but my words are erased
as soon as I write each succeeding one down

and the program won't even permit
my putting a new photo of mine on her desk
as evidence of my visit,
it fades the bright spring greens and
fudges it entirely out of focus

all I can leave behind at last is "I was here,"
the words trailing from my pen
like a hugely sad memory
caught only by the tip
of its very long tail


[prose poem (or maybe dream narrative?) on a dream of 5-5-15, written during my blog break earlier in May. I've started several times to type in some explication. But it's so involved, and goes so far back in my life and that of the (actual) woman, that I will simply have to let this piece speak for itself, in whatever way it can. I'll only add that it's as much about the present as the past. Photo "Escapees" (5-18-15 024v3) 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.