DEFLATION (photomorph) & PUNCTURED (a dream) by Roswila

PUNCTURED

he doesn't know how to use a telephone book
and as I teach him about alphabetization
I lightly tease, saying how much bigger
New York City phone books are, and however
would he handle one of them

although he says nothing, I still feel jazzed
about helping him find a musical show or act
for which to audition, though here, too, he's
surprisingly unknowledgeable, even his
girlfriend hasn't a clue, yet they came
to this city precisely to pursue
his show biz dream

then when, to my happy but huge surprise,
he's accepted in the chorus of a show,
it's clear he doesn't even know how to sing,
how to support his breath in order
to project, or use the caverns of his mouth
and sinuses to round out the tone

as usual I can't really tell what he thinks or feels
about all he must learn, only a vague questioning
look flits across his carefully blank face,
but I take a shot and quickly reassure him
that technique becomes second nature after a while

and I can only hope so, because his "first nature"
is a puzzling one, rapidly becoming off-putting,
for even when he does say something in his
radically minimalist way, his affect is totally flat
offering no additional purchase on what
is going on, leaving me to wonder sadly
what punctured it so badly


[on a dream of 2-27-16. Beyond more fully taking in my own ignorance, I'm really going to be mulling over that ending image today. It was only implied by the dream, not explicit. But when it came up in the writing of this piece I felt more than a bit punctured/deflated by painful empathy. BTW, the dream scenario itself holds at least a couple of generations of history from my father's side as he and his parents were theatre people. I haven't yet begun to search on ancestry.com for info on his side of my family. I have next to nothing on my mother, so have been focusing on her line. But I suspect my father's side will be a rich one once I get to it. Photomorph "Deflation" (1-23-16 8522vb1) 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 other blogs: ROSWILA'S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA'S TAIGA TAROT; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT; and THE MARKER TAROT.