ROOTS OF THE MOMENT (photomorph) & "I can't write..." (non-dream tanka) by Roswila

I cannot write
a haiku about this moment
its twinkling juncture
gets punctured each time I lift
the pen of intent to the page


[non-dream tanka written 11-23-16 & revised 1-27-18. This might be a bit self-consciously artsy for a tanka. But, what the hey, I like it for some reason. Photomorph "Roots of the Moment" (1-2-18 007vf) by Roswila; click on the pic for a larger version if you'd like to see the details]

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), 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.

PERPETUAL MOTION (photomorph) & "LET THINGS COME TO YOU" (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila

"LET THINGS COME TO YOU"

from it's taped down perch on the base
of a desk lamp, the little tag her friend sent
her, inserted in her birthday card,
declares clearly, if in very tiny print:
"Let things come to you"

it seemed an easy command to follow
that month ago, having all but given up
on going after anything, as she became more
and more exhausted by chasing after what
only proved to be a tease, or of having it slip
from what she'd thought was her solid grip

and so she stood still inside herself, stiller
than she'd ever been in her life, a vague worry
whispering like a little devil over her shoulder,
that maybe she should also camouflage herself
since such stillness has always been somewhat
dangerous, as if a lack of action were a flag
saying "Here I am, take any shot you want!"

then as the stillness settled in, the little gifts
started arriving, in some instances brought
right to her front door, and at others offered
at random times in her daily journey out into
the wider world beyond her rooms, and some
weren't any sort of gift she would have imagined
would have manifested in response to stillness,
but arrive they all did

not everything aimed at a target at rest at last
is intended to wound


[non-dream free verse poem written 1-26-18. That's an actual little tag sent to me in a birthday card. The entire poem's waking reality-based. Not sure how well it works as a poem. But there's something I've been meaning to mention here and keep forgetting to. There's truly extremely few of my poems I think of a successful. However, I post them anyway, usually because there's something about them I do like, and always they are a piece of my life. My main reason for blogging all along has been to record/share my life. Each poem/post acting as one piece of a far from complete, barely assembled mosaic. Photomorph "Perpetual Motion" (11-26-17 002v5a) 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), 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.

DRAWN TO THE HEART (photomorph) & FROM THE JUNGLE (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila

FROM THE JUNGLE

will you ever go away?
ever leave me alone inside
this familiar jungle of myself?
and I've almost forgotten what it's like
to go through a day without being
very high or extremely low
on your presence or lack
thereof outside myself
in the (so-called)
civilized world

talk about being totally wrapped up in
someone ... sigh ... what a joke that is, do I
even know you enough to be sure the man
so tightly wound throughout my outward,
deceptive calm and organization is the man
you are? much less that the man in various
states of radiant dishabille whom I carry
around inside me, is anything
like you either?

ah, well, maybe it doesn't matter at all,
maybe this is what love's early explorations
are about, this comparing of the various
pieces of external and internal perceptions
and spontaneous images, with the intensely
longed for person who's their focus,
finding out what's a fit
and what's not

even as one yearns for enough hands-on
connection to take the knowing deeper yet,
where eyes and ears and imagination
cannot reach: through to the very
heart of darkness


[non-dream free verse poem written 1-24-18. Yeah, Joseph Conrad's novella "The Heart of Darkness" is a rather intense image for love. But given how I too often feel, I'm embarrassed to admit it just might be a fitting one. (Please pardon that whiff of self-pity; I'm having a particularly hard time today; nasty cough; arthritis acting up ... excuses, excuses. :-D) I hasten to add, I've not read the novel. I base my slight reference to it on all I've heard about it over the years, along with summaries I've read of it online. I also think I may have seen a T.V. movie based on it, in the late 1990's. As I read one summary just now, I kept getting extremely clear visual images, much more like memory than imagination. Photomorph "Drawn to the Heart" (1-18-18 006v4c) by Roswila; click on the image for a larger version, if you'd like to see the details]

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), 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.

FOOT REST (photomorph) & GRAVITATION (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

GRAVITATION

it's almost as if
the same someone had walked this
way ahead of me,
leaving deep imprints in this same
path that I keep choosing to step in

after all, any
other way of walking would lead
me into untrod
territory, rough and risky, but most
of all, way too exotic, too unknown

I mean, aren't I
old and arthritic, and haven't I a long
laundry list of scars?
better I take this well trodden path ... at least
I can see it clearly, winding lazily ahead of me

so what if it's a repeat of a repeat of a repeat,
there'll be no turned ankles, no strange territory

my stepmother often said to me, with a blue note
to her voice, that we gravitate to the familiar

and the gravitation here is too strong to resist, as I
walk on, sad but at least secure in the next step to take


[three tanka and three two-liners on a dream of 1-22-18. It was odd to recall this dream, as I've actually been taking more risks recently. Maybe it's a strange sort of wish fulfillment dream. One in which I'm wishing I could be like I used to be. A sort of nostalgia, in a way, for the "good old days." Days which, of course, weren't all that good. Though they were far less consciously risky. ... Bazinga! (As Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory" would say.) This dream is more a warning that I'm about to head down an old, old path. One I've been down too many times before, and that I'd better be very conscious about the choices I'm making. Photomorph "Foot Rest" (1-18-18 10001ev4) 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), 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.

TAKING OFF (photomorph) & "like instant replay..." (dream-based tanka) by Roswila

like instant replay
he flashes across the night's dreams,
again and again,
but how to understand these
oh-so-welcome startlings


[tanka written on a dream of 1-21-18. Funny how that goes ... after all that intense, negative stuff about men in many of my recent posts ... well, I guess I can understand these appearances (by a man I actually know and like) as a compensating reaction. Or maybe it's simply a wish fulfillment dream. Then again, I was on a stiff does of cough medicine so that I could sleep. I could have just been "high." :-) Photomorph "Taking Off" (12-2-17 012v2a) 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), 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.

ANGEL OF THE ABYSS (photomorph) & THE ONE-WHO-TOOK-UP-RESIDENCE (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila

THE ONE-WHO-TOOK-UP-RESIDENCE

she'd never have thought it, but
she's actually grateful for that squatter
in her unconscious mind, the one who
must have taken up residence there
more years ago than she'll ever know;
she's never welcomed advice or, worse,
being told what to do so she can assume
that the one-who-took-up-residence
has always been rather perceptive,
knowing to hide where it would not
be discovered, allowing it to run
the show when absolutely necessary
without being outed; and so it's gone
for more years now than she cares to
count: the one-who-took-up-residence
protecting her from her own gullibility
and (blush) innocence by prompting
unconscious rejection of those whom
she only now consciously recognizes
as the liars who pepper the males of
the human species, masking any whiff
of its control from the deep shadows
of her unconscious with an all too
believable doubt: just what is wrong
with her that she doesn't have a mate?
well, it's clear at last that what she's
questioned for so long as being wrong
with her, is the very thing that's been
right: the one-who-took-up-residence
may be a dark angel but, after all,
the operative word here is "angel"


[non-dream free verse poem written 1-20-18. The first draft of this one was an almost immediate response to making yesterday's post. Again, I have mixed feelings about posting it. However, at the very least it (and yesterday's) make an interesting contrast to that lengthy run of poems/dreams about men that I've put up here recently. I'd even venture a guess (which I will explore more fully when I have time later) that the realizations in yesterday's and today's pieces are where all those yearning and angry poems about men were headed all along. You could have bowled me over with that proverbial feather when I realized that what I've been seeing as wrong in myself, has actually been right. It feels like "not me," though, and I imagine it will take a while to stand comfortably, much less walk in these new shoes. Photomorph "Angel of the Abyss" (9-29-09 7174v6) 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), 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.