DISCLOSURE (photo) & STRIPPED (tanka dream series) by Roswila

STRIPPED

she wants to get close
so close that we're naked
emotionally,
I suppose I should be grateful
to find she still cares, and I am

but I feel threatened
by this surge toward exposure
for what if others
see me through that open door,
stripped clean of all denial

it's one thing to stand
shivering before this friend
another to bare all
to anyone casually feeding
their curiosity as they pass

but naked ... is naked ...
is naked ... there's no magical
in between state, no
way to reap its benefit of closeness
while still clinging to camouflage


[tanka series on a dream of 4-21-15 & written right after during my blog break in late spring. Photo "Disclosure " (1-19-11 10437e) 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.

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....".

* * * *

‘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.

ONE EYE ON THE PAST (photomorph) & A MONUMENTAL QUESTION (dream narrative) by Roswila

A MONUMENTAL QUESTION

it's not as hard to hold people hostage at gun point
as one might think, but then again, maybe the hostages'
own fear is doing most of the work for me

and that reminds me, I'd better get more bullets
for this little 22, but how to do this without letting on
I've actually been unarmed since I shot my last bullet off
to check out my aim ... ah! I'll take one hostage with me
at (albeit secretly empty) gun point to get more ammo ...

now why are these two sneaking around against the walls
of the bedroom? from their trajectory I'd say they've just
come out of the closet -- sigh, in the middle of this life
and death drama of mine and they're having a tawdry affair!

my little gun never wavers as I reassure them I'll not
out them, after all it's exceedingly small potatoes in light
of what might go down when a gun is in play, and I
sincerely encourage them to take care of each other

not that I intend to hurt anyone, I say, that's never been
my way, but who knows what might become necessary,
I add, as I gently motion them out of the bedroom
with a gesture from my gun, the light glinting
off it's silvery blue-grey

not moving, they very cautiously hand me the old lease
for this house I've been living in for so many years,
it seems this two family home's going to be
turned into a small community church

remembering how the same thing happened
to my childhood home, and that my brother who'd
grown from infancy through toddlerhood there
is now dead, I gesture more sharply
with the gun to move them along,

and I wonder, getting rather annoyed as I do, if we
really need another monument to all that's passed away


[narrative on a dream from 5-6-15. Decades before my brother died (in December of 2013), he and I went in search of that childhood home. And it was actually then housing a Korean church. I've been putting off posting this dream narrative (dreamed/written during my blog break in early May) for a month now. I kept feeling I was missing an additional essential point to it, beyond the one it comes to at the end. Long story short, I realized this morning that the "I' of this dream (my more conscious self) is and has been for quite some time, holding more loving aspects of myself hostage. (Nothing new, it's been my go-to defense mechanism all my life, since early childhood.) Loving in the larger, inclusive, connecting sense, i.e. not just romantic. And there's much else to be mined here (especially in that changing home image) that there's no time and space to go into. This narrative came to mind today because of the angry/hurt mood I woke up in this morning, after a very painful interaction yesterday. BTW, I can't even count the number of times I've re-written these comments, not really wanting to go into all this. But it's the sort of dream imagery that can be so terribly misinterpreted by anyone who might not be used to working with dreams and/or metaphor, that some clarification seemed wise. Photomorph "One Eye on the Past" (10437v3f) 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.

DO YOU GET THE YOLK? (photo) & SOMETIMES YOU'RE JUST GONNA GO HUNGRY (tanka series dream poem) by Roswila

SOMETIMES YOU'RE JUST GONNA GO HUNGRY

good gracious! why's it
taking so long to cook up
my breakfast order?
my butt's getting numb waiting
on this stool at the counter

people ordering
after I did have already
gotten their breakfasts
I'm tying to be patient
but this is becoming absurd

when the young waitress
adds insult to injury
with a patently
untrue explanation
I hoist my purse and leave

passing the open
kitchen door I see the problem:
they make everything
from scratch; well, they must be
raising the chick that'll lay my eggs

once home I flop
down on my couch to complain
to my new roommate,
before I can start kvetching
I feel an itch on my neck

yikes! a small dark snake
has begun to wend its way
down to my blouse front
I leap up and toss it off, grumbling
"what! and without even an apple?"


[tanka series on a dream of 6-2-15. Although at an obvious level this is about my food/eating issues, it has a deeper level. Sometimes the hunger to know, to understand will go unsatisfied. (Via an association to the apple from the tree of knowledge at the end. Which in itself takes me to yet another level to this dream that I won't go in to here.) In fact, a lot of the time we can't know. We only convince ourselves that we do. LOL, I just thought that a lot of what I believe about situations and people is just like cramming myself with empty calories. Omigosh, that reminds me of something I underlined in a new book I've just started: "Distractibility might be regarded as the mental equivalent of obesity" ("The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual In An Age of Distraction," by Matthew B. Crawford). As I was reading this book last night I wondered when it would show up in some way in my dreams. (Most challenging non-fictional books I read do.) Photo "Do You Get the Yolk?" (1-19-11 10429e2) 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.

CAN YOU SEE ME NOW? (photomorph) & GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT

once a Bachlorette*
and now coupled with a handsome
but quite quirky man,
she barges into
my dream without a care
for what might be going on

please, she urges,
can you help me find a job?
I've been unemployed
for way too long, I simply
must find any sort of work

I quell my pique
at her rudeness, after all
I endured the same
dearth of work for two years
in New York City after 9/11**

even as I think
to reassure her that she will
find a job, I grouse:
and what about her handsome man?
isn't he both work and reward enough?

however, it does
seem she's at a crossroads,
yet isn't that just
what each minute holds, choices
for which next step to take?

and my next step might best be away from envy
that she's found a coupling that works for her,

toward gainfully employing my own next
breaths embracing compassion for us both

might she and I work together sisters under the skin


[tanka series capped by two two-liners and a (rather long) monoku on a dream of 5-30-15. *I just knew she'd recently been on that T.V. show of the same name (that I never watch, not my cup of tea). **I did actually live in NYC at that time and was unemployed along with a lot of other folk as the city's economy took a huge hit, too. As to the rest of the dream, I do think there's a genuine plea from at least two different aspects of myself that are feeling ignored or underutilized. Beyond that, it's one of those chock full dreams that unfolds in a new direction with every associative tug. Photomorph "Can You See Me Now?" (9-1310 10014v4) 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.

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH (photomorph) & THE STINK (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THE STINK

the time of painful back up leading to
an explosive overflow is past,
this is the time of cleaning up

and that's not as simple as it may sound
for her entire bathroom -- floor to ceiling,
and wall to wall -- got heavily grimed
by the effluent's passage

but it's all up and out at last,
which was the harder challenge,
being the scariest part
of this seemingly endless transition

she's even begun
to wrestle with the doubt
if it's her mess to clean up at all,
as how much of that crap did she
actually create to begin with or was she
dumped on from before build up
all the way through to the blow

but whether the real culprit
has flown or is right here doing
all this avoidant ruminating,
matters little, as this is her bathroom,
in her home, and the clean up
still needs to be done

not to mention that shoveling out blame
will only add more to the stink
with which she's already having to cope


[free verse poem on a dream of 4-29-15, & written during my blog break in early May. In a way, posting this today is like wishful thinking. I.e., that my PMS (pre-moon syndrome) would be over already. The moon will finally be full tomorrow and I'll start feeling a bit better. (Well, at least somewhat less crazy.) BTW, last month's PMS contributed only a little to this dream. It was more deeply referencing inner issues that have been and are being stirred up by my weight loss/dietary changes. Actually, I've been meaning to mention that to refer to what I'm going through as weight loss is not accurate. Especially now that I've made exercise of equal importance. I'm really involved in a total life-style change. And not only at the physical level, but at the the emotional and so on. Photomorph "It All Comes Out in the Wash" (6-2-14 016v8) 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.

JUST HANGIN' ON (photo) & THERE'S NO ACCOUNTING (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

THERE'S NO ACCOUNTING

look! a small monkey's
chewing my big glass vase
stored on that high shelf,
and smiling all the while as if
it's the most fabulous of all meals!

what the frack?! seems there's no accounting for taste
or for the ability to survive what gets swallowed


[a tanka and a two-liner on a dream image of 5-29-15. I think this image is basically due to my PMS (pre-moon syndrome, during which time I get cranky and crazed, and it's full in a couple of days). Of course as I typed that I began to see the implications with respect to my on-going appetite struggles, as well. Combine PMS with food cravings and I do almost feel like I could chew glass. Then, understanding "what gets swallowed" as referencing what one believes, there are implications for my entire life well beyond food/weight issues. Photo "Just Hangin' On" (5-18-10 10017e) 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.