LOOKING TO THE DAY (photo) & LOOKING FOR ANGELS (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

LOOKING FOR ANGELS

the ailing Tarot
expert lies down on the bed
eschewing the chair
our host had offered her
in a place of honor

I am delighted
to meet her and comment
that her deep blue cap
reminds me of the high Priestess
to which she says nothing

normally silence
would discourage my saying
anything more
but I feel invited by her
at some nonverbal level to share

I show her my newest drawings of Tarot cards,
the first my sketch of The Chariot-cum-Magician

it's done in golden brown shades on black
and is of only those aspects that strike me most:

a face with short frothy hair surrounding it and
hands that reach surely from the dark background

again she says nothing
and again I somehow know
she's fully engaged
in what I'm sharing so I pull
another from the stack I have

"I learned a great deal
about this one, The Lovers,"
I say, "as I made
the sketch -- its triplicity
is preceded by duality,

as if this naked
human pair, standing apart
beneath the clear sky,
were like a fan belt seeking
a fulcrum to rotate around"

I see a question
rise in her eyes like a midnight fog:
but where's the angel?

I answer the unspoken: maybe angels aren't
earned or even stumbled upon, but released,

let out into the world by our all too human
struggle to truly honor and love one another


[tanka series with several two-liners and one dreamku interspersed on a dream of 6-4-15. This was a welcome and surprising gift after an hellacious day. (A few hellacious days, actually.) For folk who don't know Tarot, the color blue is often attributed to The High Priestess. And The Lovers card traditionally pictures a naked woman and man with an angel in the sky above/between them. Of course, there's a lot more in its imagery. I'm only listing what of its imagery was in the dream. In any case, the upshot of remembering this dream was that some very hard and bitter feelings that I went to sleep with have begun to soften considerably. Photo "Looking to the Day" (1-20-11 10448e) 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....".

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‘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.