←

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: dream imagery

  • Dreaming Wrong | A Surreal Poem About Dreams, Disorientation, and the Uncanny

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Dreaming Wrong came from the strange feeling of being inside a dream that looks familiar but somehow isn’t yours. The moon is still there. The path is still recognizable. The water is still waiting—but everything has been rearranged just enough to make the entire landscape feel wrong.

    I wanted to play with that feeling of dream logic: the moment when your mind recognizes the pieces but realizes they no longer fit together. The ocean becomes a pond, the tide disappears, the moon loses its reflection, and even the heavens become impossible to navigate.

    For me, the unsettling part isn’t that the dream is frightening. It’s that it feels incorrect. Like waking life has been reconstructed by someone who knows what everything is supposed to look like—but doesn’t quite understand what it means.

    Sometimes the strangest dreams aren’t nightmares.

    Sometimes they’re simply dreaming wrong.

    — Rowan Evans

    A surreal nighttime landscape where a person kneels beside a dark pond beneath a pale moon with no reflection in the water.
    Sometimes the nightmare isn’t frightening—it is simply familiar enough to feel wrong.

    Dreaming Wrong
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I slipped from waking life,
    drifted into night—
    but it felt different,
    like the imagery wasn’t right.

    The moon looked paler than usual,
    so I asked if she was sick—
    of course, she didn’t answer back.
    But I followed the same paths
    that I had many nights before.

    I walked along
    until I hit the edge of the—

    pond?

    Where was the ocean at,
    where was the shore—
    and why couldn’t I
    feel the tide anymore?

    Everything felt off there.

    I was on my knees,
    staring at the water—
    where was the shimmer,
    I couldn’t see the reflection
    of the moon—

    I looked straight ahead,
    and the silence seemed
    to stretch further.

    Then my eyes looked to the sky
    and I realized that I couldn’t
    map the path across the heavens.

    It’s like as soon my head hit the pillow—
    I entered somebody else’s mind,
    because nothing about this
    felt like mine—

    I was dreaming wrong.

    That’s the only thing
    that can explain,
    what was going on.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Beach to Beach (How I Get There)]
    A dream becomes a journey between familiar shores and unfamiliar cities in Beach to Beach (How I Get There), a poem about imagined travel, ocean crossings, longing, and the places we hope to someday reach while awake.

    [Where the Metaphors Lead]
    Some truths are easier to write than they are to say aloud. “Where the Metaphors Lead” explores the quiet space between dreams, confession, and the courage it takes to let another person know how deeply they’ve become woven into your inner world.

    [The World Shifted Around Us]
    The world transformed around us—beach, city streets, jungle—but we never moved. Sometimes love isn’t found in words, but in the quiet certainty of someone remaining clear while everything else fades.

    [The Streets I Walk When I Sleep]
    “The Streets I Walk When I Sleep” is a deeply intimate free verse poem about recurring dreams, emotional connection, longing across distance, and the strange feeling of remembering places and moments that have never happened in waking life.

    [Across the Page-cific]
    A playful, autobiographical journey through the strange places poetry can take me—from sandwich heartbreak and pasta diss poems to gothic monsters, mythology, ravens, ghosts, and storms across the page. Beneath the absurdity is something deeply personal: the realization that writing gave me a way to rebuild myself, piece by piece.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • A Rose in the Ashes | A Gothic Poem About Memory, Healing & Hope

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems feel less like they’re written and more like they’re discovered.

    A Rose in the Ashes came from following an image rather than an outline. One symbol led to another until the poem became a journey through memory itself—through forgotten moments, lingering wounds, recurring dreams, and the quiet realization that healing doesn’t happen by avoiding the past.

    The forest in this poem isn’t meant to be a literal place. It’s the landscape of memory, where some experiences remain vivid while others decay with time. The trees, the tunnel, the moon, the bay, and finally the rose all became landmarks within that emotional terrain.

    The final image—a single rose blooming through ashes—reminded me that even after devastation, beauty doesn’t disappear forever. Sometimes it simply waits beneath the surface until we’re ready to notice it.

    — Rowan Evans

    A single red rose grows through gray ashes beneath a misty forest illuminated by moonlight, symbolizing hope emerging from painful memories.
    Sometimes healing doesn’t appear as a blazing light at the end of the tunnel.

    Sometimes it’s a single rose, quietly blooming where you thought only ashes remained.

    A Rose in the Ashes
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I wander through the mist and fog,
    wondering if I’ve gotten myself lost.
    The trees are thick with sickly green leaves,
    and the air is too thick, it’s hard to breathe.
    Every step feels borrowed,
    like the ground isn’t sure
    it wants to hold me.

    It’s like with every step
    the ground shifts a little to the left,
    until nothing feels right.

    It’s like I’ve walked
    to the end of the tunnel,
    but I didn’t find the light.

    I keep walking, stumbling along—
    the dark swallows me whole
    and then spits me out.
    I hit the ground and roll to a stop
    on the edge of a fifty foot drop.

    That’s when I see it,
    something moving between the trees—

    not a creature,
    but a feeling—

    the sense that I’m being asked
    to keep going
    even when I don’t know why.

    Maybe it’s because
    I didn’t find the light
    at the end of the tunnel,
    not because I failed—
    but because the journey isn’t done.

    The light signifies the end.

    No light means the journey continues,
    so I keep moving through—
    the streets that I walk in sleep,
    the moment I return to my bones,
    or a war with gods to ease the pain.

    Yeah, I followed the footprints
    to the water’s edge,
    I stared across at the coast
    on the other side of silence.

    And even from a distance,
    I was able to trace
    the moon across the heavens,
    before it became suspended over the bay—
    its reflection trembling across the dark water,
    a mirror to the tremor in my chest.

    But I couldn’t stay still for long—
    I had to keep moving on.

    So I ran—

    bolted for the tree line,
    tripped and stumbled in
    and my eyes caught the way the light
    pierced the canopy—

    the light—

    that’s what I’d been chasing
    this whole time,
    not at the end of the tunnel—
    but above my head,
    an idea—

    my eyes drift toward the sky,
    and that’s when I see—

    the leaves on these trees
    are not leaves,
    they are memories—
    some bright and vivid,
    others a sickly shade of green.

    Those are memories forgot,
    memories left to rot.
    But here’s the truth of this plot:

    some memories fade—
    whether you hold on or not,
    and some become rooted
    through pain, an environment
    permanently changed.

    And that’s what I saw…

    trees with leaves
    showing things—
    I thought long forgotten.
    I was more surprised by that,
    than the fact that so many trees
    looked rotten.

    I could feel the tears
    touch the corners of my eyes—
    the air was thick again,
    humid and suffocating.
    There was a tremor in my chest,
    and knees were weak—
    with every step my bones were quaking,
    like the earth was shaking.

    I stumbled and fell to my knees,
    head bowed—
    in shame or respect,
    who knows, now?
    I opened my mouth,
    but no jokes came out—
    I couldn’t misdirect from this,
    no sleight of hand.

    I had to face this—
    whatever it is,
    whatever these leaves
    show me,
    I’ve got to take it seriously—
    because maybe it is these memories
    that are keeping me stuck here.

    Maybe they are the memories
    that drive the fear,
    that keeps me from acting—
    that keeps me dragging feet
    and self-sabotaging.

    Slowly I rise—
    like the sun over the horizon.
    Knees shaking from the weight of me,
    I struggle to take one step
    and then another.

    I stumble through the ruins
    of thoughts, dreams and memories—
    my chest rises and falls,
    like oxygen is in short supply.

    Then I see it—
    a single rose in bloom,
    poking through the ashes
    of nights only remembered
    in the spilled ink on silent pages.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [One Honest Sentence]
    It’s easy to write about anything. What’s difficult is writing one completely honest sentence without hiding behind humor, references, or metaphor. One Honest Sentence explores the distance between poetic confidence and emotional vulnerability.

    [Leave No Self Behind]
    What if finding yourself isn’t about discovering someone new, but learning to walk beside every version you’ve ever been? “Leave No Self Behind” is a meditation on memory, healing, and embracing the selves we once abandoned.

    [More Afraid Than the Ink]
    Some confessions are easy to write but impossible to speak. More Afraid Than the Ink explores fear, dreams, recurring symbols, and the quiet realization that the page has always been braver than the poet.

    [Just Human]
    Just Human is a reflective free verse poem about seeing people before borders, choosing empathy over division, and finding home in our shared humanity rather than on a map.

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]