Category: dreams

Talking To Myself

Tripping over guilt
how I need to make amends

Meanwhile, charity
leaves me vulnerable

Lose credibility,
momentum

No longer a pick up for others
ditched without a lifeline

***

These are but feelings
I’m more comfy couch
than utility vehicle
and credibility –
well that’s earned

Pick myself up
wade through vulnerability
grateful for giving hands
some amends best left
to the lessons gained
guilt not worth the trouble.

(Much of my poetry is derived from dreamwork. Dreams use exaggeration and humour to evoke understanding. In this poem, I am able to see both at play, leading me to the more empowering response. Thanks for reading. Image my own.)

Light of Day

Failures, like eel grass
lurk in slumber’s waters
entangle me in regret

I’m drowning in should’s
and what if’s, until gasping
I awake with a start

The light of consciousness
releases me from emotional bog
illuminates the rational

I am restored, set upon the shores
of revelation, ready to step
forward with forgiveness.

(For Reena’s Exploration Challenge: light. Image my own.)


In Dreams, She Awakens

I dream of a woman
Mother-centred
grey-haired essence
oozing strength –
a vessel, rain focused
decoding political lies.

Leaders are locked
targeting anxiety
selective stances
patriarchal bedmates
ending unsafe

Rioters blow up
martyr consciousness
metamorphosis in throngs
chemicals insignificant
when innocence ignored
temples violated.

What is next?
A future gatekeeper
spouting personal freedom
recalling pleas, charming
ghosts of the past?

We need
discernment,
a woman
Mother-centred
grey-hair wise
leading the way.

(I dreamt of a goddess figure, and attempted to capture her in the pencil drawing featured.  Working on that dream, many things have emerged.  The poem above is just on example.)

 

Childhood Home

The place remains in my dreams
like a movie set preserved…

Have assigned each room
a critique – disclosed the crimes

Yet, it remains, like a beacon
draws me to it, begs reflection

What if I could go back
now that I can breathe

Now that I’ve laid claim to maturity
would I discover a sudden windfall

makeover conditioned motifs
reevaluate ceiling heights

with resources to remodel
heart open, connected

might I uncover abundance
like a personal embrace.

(For Reena’s Exploration Challenge: featured image.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Essence, Human

My faith is goat steady –
surefooted in rocky times –
I keep her within sight,
safely separated.

Store her with potential –
mountain lion persistent –
set them on the other side
of vision – lock myself away.

It’s the tigress in my heart
that unsettles me the most –
certain by her pacing
that she’ll consume me

Tremble at the demands –
self being called to embrace
something higher, deeper –
an assertion of essence.

( “Contemplating Emergence” is the name of the art, that like the poem, found its origins in my dreams.)

Spiritual Tugging

My house is in order!
I shout to a cosmos
intent on ignoring my pleas

chthonic forces insist
on invading dreams
psychic locks ineffectual

no barriers to protect
when soul mocks
purported equilibrium

Order, spirit answers,
is a temporal concept;
continue to grow.

(For Ragtag Community’s prompt: temporal.  Image from personal collection.)

Once a Mermaid

Impulse once drove my plunges –
glorious confidence propelling
fortuitous dives – unknown waters
an adventure to be conquered.

Even with onset of anxiety
I’d stalk shorelines, ignore
whispering of  catastrophe,
hold my breath and submerge.

Doubt would follow determination,
but buoyed by adversity, I’d swim,
force commanding adaptation –
I’d find my mermaid’s breath.

Motherhood introduced constraint
called forth sensibility and caution –
whimsy replacing practicality,
a shedding of iridescent tail.

I only dig in dirt now –
ground my offspring to earthly
forays, forbid capriciousness,
convince myself I’m solid.

Absentminded burrowing –
(corners of compulsion)
reveal abandoned passages –
old waterways exhumed.

Proclaimed pragmatism falters,
spontaneity takes hold, transforms
I am nymph again – free floating
Neptune’s daughter resuscitated.

(This poem, originally entitled Chasing Mermaids, first appeared in September, 2015.  It has been edited.  Image is my own.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empty Vessels

We’ll buy a boat,
he promised,
spend our days adrift
on a sea of possibilities.

So, she waited,
tethered her hopes
with ropes of whimsy
to a future with sails.

But years passed and
time revealed that words
hold no water, and lies
are no vessel for love.

Now, she contemplates
oceans, photographs
sailboats, docked –
possibilities set aside.