JOSTLING FOR POSITION (photo) & THE MONTAGE (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

THE MONTAGE

the scene:

a photo montage
of old family pix going back
to her teenage years,
those small square ones with ruffled
white edges, and all in black and white

the action:

they keep arranging
themselves, slowly, and over and over,
as if they’re sentient,
and looking for the most meaningful
placement within the larger picture

and this one, down here,
in the current next-to-bottom row:
who can this man be?
his is the least faded in the gradually
morphing photo composition

and he looks so much
like her father in those long-gone years:
handsome, and all too
aware of how to smile and tilt his
young, dark-haired head for the camera

but she knows it’s not
her dad; could it be her half-uncle?
they never did look
a lot alike, but it could be a trick
of the light, or the angle of the shot

she focuses on
the man’s smiling face, maybe learning
his identity
will finally solve the riddle still rankling from
when she was so young and pretty and miserable

but staring only makes
her eyes water when a clearly painful stance
in a photo above
draws her attention away from
the man’s carefully posed visage

and even as the girl in the pic winces and stretches,
she wakes to turn clumsily away from the dream


[series of tanka capped by a two-liner on a dream of 6-17-19. Photo “Jostling for Position” (screen shots 1, 1-25-19[41]) 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.