LEARNING CURVE (2) (photo) & THE LIE (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THE LIE

you've heard of the Big Lie*
well, it looks like some trifling trespass
next to this huge old dilly

no one even knows how it got put over
so widely and thoroughly to begin with
to become such an eyesore in our hindsight
that we can look at it now only through
an uncertain laughter

not even our father with his lyrically
lying tongue could have dreamed up
this gargantuan lie

nor could he have spread it like a warm
but ultimately suffocating blanket
his penchant for self-mockery keeping
his untruths cutting and close to home

and worse yet we still don't even know
what this Brobdingnagian lie actually was!

we only feel it by its absence, dark like
an empty field where invasive grasses once
strangled their ways to dominance, now
stripped bare awaiting the seeds of native
flora on wind and wing


[free verse poem on a dream of 8-22-13 (re-posted on 3-9-19). Sadly, I’m still waiting for those seeds. Though maybe that’s the current big lie: that nothing new’s been growing all this time since I had this dream in 2013. Also, I think there’s a big lie underlying all of life. Maybe something like the belief that we can really understand anything at all. BTW, the expression the "Big Lie" was coined by Adolf Hitler about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously..." (from Wikipedia online). Photo "Learning Curve (2)" (8-22-09) 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.

ICED OVER (photomorph) & "the heat takes the chill..." (non-dream tanka) by Roswila

the heat takes the chill
out of my rooms, would that it could touch
my frozen spirit
but there’s no vent that can blow enough warmth
to thaw this land of abandoned ice houses


[non-dream tanka written 3-7-19. This one has a self-pitying tone that irks me when I spot it in my writing. However, whenever I note it, I think that maybe expressing it will help. Hah! And the moon’s made of green cheese! BWL (big wry laugh), there I go again. Photomorph “Iced Over” (3-7-19 [22]) 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.

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF COLOR (photomorph) & THAT SMARTS (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

THAT SMARTS

a poster proof sheet
appears suddenly in the air,
dozens of versions
of the same basic design
for a new smart phone campaign:

a woman’s huge fingers,
just the well-manicured tips at
an artsy angle,
hang over the city-scape
as if it were a keyboard

the theme implied by each poster:
the entire city at your fingertips

an unintended
association rises
like a miasma:
King Kong clinging to the top
of the Empire State building

trailing this old movie image the thought:
loss of proportion can be dangerous


[two tanka, a two-liner, another tanka, and a closing two-liner on a dream of 3-14-13. Wandered through my old posts as I have nothing new up my sleeve today. This one jumped out at me at the end as being all too true, and right now scarily so. Proportion? What’s that? That thing that’s really more a matter of perspective that changes all the time? That hangs me up and drags me down, when it isn’t busy giving me false hope? Photo “Fall of the House of Color” (3-22-16 028v3) 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.

DRUM CIRCLE (photomorph) & THOSE WERE THE DAYS (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

THOSE WERE THE DAYS*

“Those were the days …”

burbles at last from the ocarina I’ve been
trying very hard to play with no success;
I’m so surprised that I almost cough out

“my friend, we thought they’d never end…”

before slipping in a fresh breath; then as I
push out the next phrase

“We’d sing and dance forever and a day…”

I notice the hefty terra cotta ocarina I’m
kinda, sorta making sing is only one
of a circle of vaguely egg-shaped (but
of the size an ostrich would lay!)
earthen colored ocarinas

“We’d live the life we choose…”

floats from the one I’m still holding up
to my mouth as I realize I’m meant to play
each instrument in turn

“We’d fight and never lose”

lifting lightly into the air as I put the one
I’ve been holding back in the circle
of clay ocarinas, reaching for the next
one resting in the crowded, closed loop,
nose to tail, as if waiting to have smoke
blown up it’s hard, terra cotta butt, too


[free verse poem on a dream of 3-3-19. *Phrases set apart in quotes are from the lyrics to ”Those Were the Days”. This was a hard poem to format. The ocarina was singing (yes, lyrics and all) those exact phrases in the dream as the dream’s action progressed. I’m not sure if laying it out as I have above works. BTW, I've also been singing (during waking hours) the theme song from "All In The Family," also titled "Those Were the Days," but a different song. However, they both are about memory and the past. Which I've been more than usually haunted by for some time now. Photomorph “Drum Circle” (8-10-14 008v6g[2]) 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.

THE CRUMBLING (photomorph) & SCRATCH THAT (dream-based writing) by Roswila

SCRATCH THAT

she’s pissed that I’ve passed on
the old cut-off jeans she gave me;
I’m agitated, too, if she’d wanted them
to go no further than me she should
have said so; but I hare off after
the mutual friend I’d given them to,
she having no problem with having to mend
the numerous rents and fraying seams;
all the while, wishing I didn’t now have to assert
myself with her to get the worn-out jeans shorts
back: how can accepting a tattered gift and
then paying it forward where it will truly
be appreciated cause such a hassle

just as I’ve caught sight of
the woman I need to reclaim
the mending project from, I sense this
dream is really about that building,
maybe half a block away, lying on the
horizon in pieces after deconstruction;
though deconstruction implies eventual
reconstruction, this old two story
brick building doesn’t look even vaguely
amenable to resurrection at any time,
in any way; as I look over this collapse
carefully, watching my wobbly steps
while I wander among the piles of
broken lumber and bricks and bits
of mortar, I come across one small
section that is already being rebuilt;
it’s warm reddish brown, recycled bricks,
framed where appropriate with shiny dark
wood, leads me to imagine it will make
a nice pocket-size apartment for one
person, even if surrounded by
endless stacks of debris
(sorpresa, sorpresa)

… mending …
… rebuilding …
so much on-going work
and none of it fresh from scratch
no matter how it’s framed; and I
suddenly recall with a briefly
freeing laugh, that saw:
there’s nothing new
under that sun


[written on a dream of 2-27-19. Photomorph “The Crumbling” (9-4-14 004v9) 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.