SINK HOLE (photomorph) & OF HORSES AND BLACK HOLES (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

OF HORSES AND BLACK HOLES

he reminds me of that super-smart but socially dumb
Sheldon on T.V., but unlike that character who says:
“I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested,”*
this friend of ours is mentally ill, as they say
“high coping,” but suffering deeply nevertheless

as he and I, and the others of our small crew, try
to determine a place to hang out for the evening
(we’d settled on this empty apartment
but it won’t stay that way long, the residents
will be coming back from dinner very soon),
I trail him around the living room responding
to his personal agony that has nothing to do
with the search underway for a place to hang

hoping to offer him some gentle help, I tell him
I’ve been disciplining myself not to think of things
that I know will disturb me (all that stuff I'm well
aware of that will heat my thinking to a scalding boil),
and that this actually works sometimes

even as the last words fly irretrievably
out of my mouth I recall with whom I’m talking,
my cheeks flush with embarrassment,
and I'm more than a little bit sad

though my mind might often be like a runaway
horse that’s taken the bit in its teeth, his plummets
time and again, into new suffering as through
a random, rapidly spinning black hole, that dumps
him summarily into shifting, alien universes
where none of us can reach with our naive advice,
nor follow, not even in our vaunted imaginations


[free verse poem on a dream of 3-21-16. *Actually said by Sheldon of T.V.'s "The Big Bang Theory." "Sheldon" here is both a specific person, and a composite of others in my life (mostly from the past). In a way the dream is a lesson in being fully present for someone, letting go of believing I know what another's inner life is like. More importantly, it suggests that I let go of the need to help, and instead be a loving witness. I know how to do this, have done it. But I'd forgotten it, buried as it was beneath my own recently intensifying sturm und drang. I'm grateful the dream unearthed it as a response to a question I'd asked my dream world before I went to sleep last night. It's a surprising but very helpful answer. Photomorph "Sink Hole" (5-18-11 10998v3d) 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 other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post); TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.