WRESTLING WITH THE DARK (photomorph) & IT (mixed format dream poem) by Roswila

IT

as the song lyrics
go: “Hello, darkness, my old friend…”*
seems nothing’s ever
completely done with, well, at least not
the things we most wish would be

and “friend”? by now, yes,
in that sense that its parameters
offer few if any
hitches or trip wires anymore, beyond those
built into it when first bursting on the scene

and singing this sad, beautiful old song? maybe an
attempt to take a bit of the hair of the dog that bit me

ah, I get it now,
that urge to sing to calm the savage breast
has as much to do
with soothing the singer as the sobbing
in the dark (or growling, as the case may be)

and so, I sing old
songs; maybe nothing can be done
to lay this dark down
to a final rest, but I can love us both, out
into the demands of the day, with song


[tanka series with one two-liner, inspired by hearing/singing “The Sounds of Silence” throughout my dreams of 6-19-19. If you’d like to hear an intense version (by the band Disturbed) that reflects my overall dream mood last night click here. Photomorph "Wrestling with the Dark" (6-28-09 29882[4]) 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.

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.

THE ROAD TO HELL (photomorph) & NO WONDER (non-dream free verse poem) by Roswila

NO WONDER

no wonder a spirit, dumped
down the unconscious line
of generations, ultimately burns
with vengeance: locked away
as it always is in the core of each
subsequent human zygote it lands in;
yet, far better this forever in a
solitary prison cell after cell, than
its release when a rare grown human
host stumbles across its shivering,
malnourished form and mistaking
it for a lost fragment of itself,
frees it into consciousness, ignorant
of the all-consuming remedial care
such an endlessly abused spirit
requires to be gentled, much less
humanized; this ill-conceived
attempt to care leaving the host’s
carefully constructed life burning
to the ground, no more than fodder
for the fire of the ancient spirit’s
horrific compounded vengeance


[non-dream free verse poem written 6-13-19. I’d have to write a novella to even partially explain this one. Suffice it to say, it was initially precipitated by a horror movie about the persistence and ultimate victory of endlessly vengeful spirits. BTW, for all my constant self-examination, I do occasionally wonder if some things should be left unconscious. If not everything should “see the light of day,” so to speak. I'm very hesitant to post this. But it's been hanging around for a few days and I've been picking at it. Don't know if I can ever express to my satisfaction, that ambiguity at the heart of what I'm trying to do in this poem. And I don't have anything else to post today, so why not. I've posted pieces here I felt far less certain about. :-) Lastly, I just had the thought that a different title for this poem could be “Sympathy for the Devil.” Photomorph “The Road to Hell” (2-4-19[5]) 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.