There are poems where I sit down with a very serious idea and carefully shape every word.
This isn’t one of those poems.
Draggin’ (Ignis) is me letting the pen run loose, throwing references at the page, flexing a little, and then immediately making fun of myself for doing it. It’s playful bravado with a gothic streak, a little battle-rap energy, and absolutely no intention of pretending I’m cooler than I am.
Twenty-three years of writing will do strange things to a poet.
Apparently, it makes them compare themselves to dragons, superheroes, and Pokémon-level fire hazards.
Enjoy the chaos.
— Rowan Evans
Twenty-three years of writing and this is what the pen decided to do with all that experience.
Draggin’ (Ignis) Poetry by Rowan Evans
Twenty-three years, I’ve been doing this
with craft in my veins and trauma in my brain—
I’ve really been through some shit.
Maybe that’s why I write so ruthless—
if I spit a diss, it’d be ignis—I’d be draggin’ you,
but I’m nice, so I’m a dragon like Toothless.
This is stupid, silly, dumb—
I can’t take me serious, and this is how come.
Yeah, these might be jokes—
but I’m cold, Bobby Drake,
so shut your mouth
before I turn your girl into a—
Dragon Rider…
That kind of killed the rhyme,
that’s fine—
here’s a few more lines…
I’m too quick-witted—
pen faster than Flash,
I’m too quick wit’ it
when I write lines
to silence critics.
I’ve been writing for years,
double digits—
two followed by the number
that comes next—
I’m not even trying to flex,
this is just me writing facts.
Journey into the Hexverse
[Behind These Bars (Idol Chatter)] A playful battle-poetry piece where confidence, wordplay, pop-culture references, and a sharp pen collide. Behind These Bars (Idol Chatter) turns verbal sparring into a ridiculous little poetry showdown.
[Kaio-ken/Zenkai] Two Dragon Ball-inspired battle poems about creative power, survival, and coming back stronger. Kaio-ken with a Pen brings the attack, while Zenkai (Stronger Now) delivers the aftermath: push me to the edge, and I’ll return stronger than before.
[Don’t Push Me] A playful battle-poetry piece about turning insults into punchlines, standing your ground, and refusing to be intimidated. Don’t Push Me mixes swagger, humor, rhyme, and Rowan Evans’ signature self-aware interruptions.
[B.S.T.F.U.] A playful battle-poetry exercise packed with insults, internal rhymes, punchlines, wordplay, and literary swagger. B.S.T.F.U. is Rowan Evans flexing the verbal muscles—not calling out anyone in particular.
Rain has a strange way of making the world feel quieter.
Sometimes that quiet gives the mind room to speak.
And sometimes the mind doesn’t whisper.
Louder Than the Rain is a small piece about one of those moments—when everything outside is making noise, yet somehow the loudest thing in the room is what’s happening inside your own head.
So listen closely.
— Rowan Evans
When the world gets quiet, sometimes the thoughts get louder.
Louder Than the Rain Poetry by Rowan Evans
I sat listening to the rainfall,
watching it hit and splash upon the ground—
the way my tears fell,
I was surrounded, but it felt like nobody was around.
I was alone in a packed house—
why was the silence so fucking…
my thoughts were loud,
they were drowning my thoughts out.
I was so damn nervous,
hands in my hair, I was pulling it—
just wanted to scream and shout,
it was the only way to get my feelings out.
But I couldn’t shout loud, so I rode it out—
translated the pain to the page.
Yeah, I wrote it out…
Journey into the Hexverse
[My Nightmare] A poem about the nightmare of loving someone across distance, seeing the world from different perspectives, and holding onto the hope that the cracks can still be repaired—and that someday two separate shores might become one.
[Nobody² (No Body)] A minimalist poem playing with the double meaning of “nobody”—exploring loneliness, isolation, absence, and the feeling of becoming a ghost within your own life.
[Rose & Ruin] Two minimalist poems exploring the opposing forces within creativity: the thoughts we cultivate into something beautiful and the darker thoughts we transform before they have a chance to decay.
There are some places that become more than places.
An ocean can be a physical distance, a horizon, a body of water stretching farther than the eye can follow. But sometimes it becomes something else entirely—a canvas, a metaphor, a meeting place between two people who happen to be standing on opposite sides of the world.
Let Me Be Pacific began with a simple invitation: let me show you the ocean the way I see it.
From there, the words wandered where they wanted to go.
Purple skies. Silver moons. Dark water. Rhymes. Trees. Wordplay.
And eventually, the Pacific became more than scenery.
It became the space between here and there—and the reminder that something can cross an enormous distance without ever needing to disappear.
So, for a moment, come sit beside me on the shoreline.
Let me paint you a picture.
— Rowan Evans
The Pacific may separate two shores, but poetry has never been particularly good at respecting distance.
Let Me Be Pacific Poetry by Rowan Evans
Here let me take my words
and paint a picture for you—
the sky in shades of purple and blue,
lit by the silver moon—
it lingers over the bay,
that’s where it stays—
watching over the tide,
and I sit on the shoreline—
watching the ocean’s waves.
Which ocean? Okay,
here let me try and spell it out,
let me be Pacific—
it’s off the California coast,
it touches the Philippine Sea,
sits between Japan and Me.
Now back to the imagery—
there was me, next to a happy little tree,
and the moon was shimmering,
trembling across dark water—
back on the shoreline,
having written more lines,
not less, but more rhymes.
So let me stay Pacific—
specific in the way I see the sea,
how every wave feels like a message
sent across the world to me.
I sit, I rhyme, I watch the tide—
the ocean’s big, but so’s my mind.
And if you ask me why I write
beside this ocean every night—
it’s because the tide keeps teaching me
how distance isn’t always far,
how even the Pacific can carry a heart
from California to wherever you are.
Journey into the Hexverse…
[My Nightmare] A poem about the nightmare of loving someone across distance, seeing the world from different perspectives, and holding onto the hope that the cracks can still be repaired—and that someday two separate shores might become one.
[Rose & Ruin] Two minimalist poems exploring the opposing forces within creativity: the thoughts we cultivate into something beautiful and the darker thoughts we transform before they have a chance to decay.
[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.
Sometimes the nightmare is waking up and realizing that the person you want beside you is standing beneath a completely different sky.
My Nightmare comes from that place—the uneasy space between memory and hope, between what once felt shared and what now feels impossibly far away. It is a poem about distance, but not only the physical kind. There is distance between perspectives, between hearts, between the lives we imagine and the lives we are actually living.
Still, even nightmares have endings.
Sometimes you wake up before they become permanent.
And sometimes, even while dreaming, you can still see a little gold threaded through the cracks.
— Rowan Evans
Two shores. Two skies. One horizon—and enough gold left to believe they might meet there.
My Nightmare Poetry by Rowan Evans
This is my nightmare.
You and I across the distance,
the view that we see is different—
your moon from my sky
is missing—
the sun no longer shines,
it’s dimming—
I don’t see the spark anymore—
don’t see the light in the dark anymore.
What do I even I write for?
I lost my purpose—think I did it on purpose,
it’s like I can’t rhyme anymore,
no clock, no watch, can’t tell time anymore.
This is my nightmare.
You and I across the distance,
the view that we see is different—
my moon is sickly pale,
but yours seems fine though—
the sun doesn’t provide light,
it’s gotten real low—
in times before, this is when
I would Kintsugi the heart—
but there’s not much heart left,
it’s all gold—soft metal,
softer soul—stayed warm,
when the world grew cold.
This is my nightmare.
You and I across the distance,
the view that we see is different—
when we used to be,
two pieces the puzzle
was missing—
the sun in the sky was fine,
but it dimmed in our shine—
I’ve spent time doing Kintsugi
on your heart too—it was hard not to,
gold and platinum weaved through—
I really did see you, flaws and all—
and all I saw was a gift from God.
I still don’t think—
I was wrong.
But that was my nightmare…
You and I across the distance,
the view that we saw was different—
but I still see the gold threads that connect,
the platinum hope on the horizon,
that one day the distance will close—
and we’ll walk the same shore,
it won’t be—
mine and yours.
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Dreaming Wrong] A familiar dream becomes unsettling when the ocean becomes a pond, the tide disappears, the moon loses its reflection, and nothing feels quite like it belongs. Dreaming Wrong explores the uncanny feeling of finding yourself inside a dream that looks familiar—but feels like someone else’s.
[Poet’s Curse] Poet’s Curse explores the painful side of falling too deeply: giving pieces of yourself away freely, taking accountability for your own heartbreak, and realizing that learning to let go can be harder than learning to love.
[Beach to Beach] 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.
Sometimes absence isn’t just being alone. Sometimes it feels like having no body at all.
Nobody² (No Body) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’m a nobody,
I’ve got nobody.
I’m just a ghost—
I’ve got no body.
[Rose & Ruin] Two minimalist poems exploring the opposing forces within creativity: the thoughts we cultivate into something beautiful and the darker thoughts we transform before they have a chance to decay.
[Conductor] A dark, intimate poem about the strange power words can have over the reader—where rhythm, rhyme, and line breaks become instruments capable of reaching beyond the page.
And then there are poems that quietly reach through the page and take hold of something you thought belonged entirely to you.
Conductor comes from that space—the strange little boundary between writer and reader, where words stop being marks on a page and start becoming something physical.
I wanted to play with that boundary.
So take a breath before you begin.
Then read.
— Rowan Evans
Some conductors lead an orchestra. Others conduct the breath between the lines.
Conductor Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’m a conductor—
watch me
control your breath.
Won’t even
be in the room—
you just have
to read the words
that I’ve left—
you can feel
my influence
in your chest—
I confess—
you breathe the way I tell you to,
this is what I will do—I will extend the lines,
implement some rhymes—show you,
that your breath is not your own,
it is mine to control—
Journey into the Hexverse…
[The Crypt] A mysterious man watches from a crypt as a woman enters the graveyard and kneels before an unnamed grave. In this compact gothic poem, fascination, death, and possession blur together beneath the shadows of the cemetery.
[Dreaming Wrong] A familiar dream becomes unsettling when the ocean becomes a pond, the tide disappears, the moon loses its reflection, and nothing feels quite like it belongs. Dreaming Wrong explores the uncanny feeling of finding yourself inside a dream that looks familiar—but feels like someone else’s.
[Did You Really Think This Was About Trees?] A playful love poem disguised as a forest of terrible tree puns. Beneath the birch, oak, cedar, palms, lumber, and absurdist wordplay is a poem about devotion, loyalty, laughter, and building a life with someone you love.
Some places don’t just hold the dead—they hold the stories, obsessions, and shadows that refuse to leave them.
The Crypt Poetry by Rowan Evans
Don’t you see—
the one where the crypt sleeps?
The crypt is a man with no soul,
a body with no home, left to roam.
He sleeps in his namesake—
watches the graveyard
from the same place.
He sees her when she walks in.
He can see the gates from there.
“She looks radiant as ever—”
he thinks, as she seems to shrink
with eyes down,
not looking at the world.
He wants to—
when she thinks
nobody is looking,
he really sees her—
she kneels before a grave,
he can’t see the name,
but he’s made his claim—
the crypt will keep her.
Author’s Note
The Crypt is a short gothic piece built around the idea of a place becoming a person—and a person becoming inseparable from the place that bears their name.
The crypt is both a physical location and a metaphorical state: a man who feels emptied out, disconnected from the world, watching life pass from the shadows. When he sees her enter the graveyard, his attention gives him something to focus on, but that fascination quickly becomes something darker.
I wanted the poem to feel almost like a fragment of a larger gothic story—something glimpsed through the gates of a graveyard rather than fully explained. We don’t know who she is visiting, what happened to the crypt’s occupant, or what exactly he means when he decides that “the crypt will keep her.”
That’s intentional.
Some gothic stories are frightening because of what they reveal.
Others are frightening because of what they leave hidden.
— Rowan Evans
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix)] Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix) revisits a 2024 poem about heartbreak, broken promises, and falling from an imagined heaven, transforming its original ending into a darker meditation on resilience, self-reclamation, and learning to fly with broken wings.
[Homecoming] Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix) revisits a 2024 poem about heartbreak, broken promises, and falling from an imagined heaven, transforming its original ending into a darker meditation on resilience, self-reclamation, and learning to fly with broken wings.
[The Monster in the Margins II] The Monster in the Margins II transforms Rowan Evans’s Seven Deadly Sins mythology into a horror story written between the lines, where Lust, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Envy, and Gluttony become monsters growing from pain, grudges, and scars.
[Pride] ‘Pride’ towers over all else, a seductive and deceptive force. The seventh of the 7 Deadly Sonnets, exploring hubris, self-importance, and the masks we wear.
[Through the Shattered Glass: Before the Glass Shattered] Before the glass shatters, shadows linger and memories twist. Discover the haunting prelude to B.D. Nightshade’s “Through the Shattered Glass” series—where ordinary moments become portals to fractured realities.
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
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.
Sometimes I genuinely wonder what happens when I give my brain permission to write whatever it wants.
The answer, apparently, is sandwiches, pasta, farmers on Pluto, raccoons in silk pajamas, llamas, trees, cartoon ghosts, monsters, seven deadly sins, and a journey across an ocean that does not technically exist.
And honestly?
I love it.
Across the Page-cific (Chasing Storms) is a celebration of the strange places my writing can go when I stop trying to force it into a single shape.
This poem deliberately references several of my recent pieces and recurring worlds. The sandwich wordplay comes from Lost in the Sauce. The pasta-based literary assault comes from Impasta (A Diss in Pasta Form). The trees point back to my playful botanical wordplay, while Danny Phantom, the Monster in the Margins, the Seven Deadly Sonnets, ravens, spirits, and other imagery come from the larger mythology and vocabulary I’ve been building throughout my work.
The references aren’t just Easter eggs.
They’re evidence.
Evidence of how much my writing has changed—and how much more willing I am now to let different parts of my voice coexist.
For a long time, I thought I needed to choose what kind of writer I was supposed to be.
Gothic poet.
Confessional poet.
Love poet.
Dark poet.
Funny poet.
Experimental poet.
But the more I write, the less interested I am in choosing.
I want to write the heartbreak poem with sandwich ingredients.
I want Tony Stanza to write a pasta diss.
I want to turn mythology into autobiography.
I want to write about ghosts and gods, then turn around and make a terrible pun.
I want to chase a metaphor until it becomes absurd.
And then, underneath all of it, I want to find something honest.
That is what the storms in this poem represent.
The chaotic lines.
The sudden cadence changes.
The ideas that arrive from nowhere.
The parts of my mind that refuse to walk in a straight line.
I used to think I needed to calm those storms down.
Now?
I chase them.
Because writing has become a playground again.
And somewhere in that playground, I keep finding pieces of myself I hadn’t finished discovering.
“It was writing that saved me” is therefore not a throwaway line.
Writing gave me a language for experiences I couldn’t always explain directly. It gave me somewhere to put the contradictions, the humor, the darkness, the questions, the love, the anger, the absurdity, and everything else that makes up the person behind the pen.
Piece by piece.
Bit by bit.
I rebuilt myself in the art.
And apparently, sometimes that art looks like a sandwich, a bowl of pasta, and a storm on the Pacific.
I’ll take it.
— Rowan Evans
I stopped trying to avoid the storms. I started chasing them across the page.
Across the Page-cific (Chasing Storms) Poetry by Rowan Evans
Let’s see, what other ridiculous thing
can we turn into poetry—
I’ve written a heartbreak poem
using sandwich ingredients,
and wrote a diss poem
using nothing but pasta noodles—
was a farmer on Pluto,
witnessed raccoons in silk pajamas
perched on the backs of llamas—
while I shaped love poems
out of the trees—
I’ve turned Danny Phantom
into religion—a whole faith
on “going ghost”—
but really it’s just me stuck
between worlds.
I’ve written as the monster in the margins
and the spirits in the room—
seven sins that act like tax on the soul.
Go against the monster, you won’t leave whole.
Feeling like Pennywise, grin wide,
’cause I’m a clown in my rhymes
sometimes—
I’ve taken trips
in ink-dipped ships
across the page-cific—
avoiding storms of chaotic lines
and jagged rhymes
with sudden cadence changes.
Just kidding—
I chased the storms across the page,
embraced the pace my brain gave.
It was writing that saved me—
it gave me a way to translate me,
piece by piece and bit by bit,
I rebuilt myself in the art of lit—
where a mind like mine appears rarely.
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Lost in the Sauce] A playful heartbreak poem where sandwiches, ketchup, mustard, rye, lettuce, and sourdough become metaphors for emotional confusion. Beneath the food puns is a speaker trying to understand how everything went from “we’re okay” to suddenly feeling cold.
[Impasta] Tony Stanza is back with another literary attack—and this time, he’s bringing pasta. Spaghetti, fettuccine, macaroni, ravioli, and angel hair become weapons in a ridiculous diss aimed at a poet whose rhymes are allegedly cheesy, fragile, and completely impasta.
[Pluto Farmer] A whimsical absurdist poem about being a certified weirdo, farming space carrots on Pluto, and refusing to fit into anyone else’s definition of “normal.”
[Raccoons in Silk Pajamas] What begins with judgmental Space Chickens quickly spirals into camels in parked cars, elephants in jam jars, raccoons in silk pajamas, and astronauts in the ocean. A playful absurdist poem about language, imagination, and what happens when you stop trying to control where the words go.
[Did You Really Think This Was About Trees?] A playful love poem disguised as a forest of terrible tree puns. Beneath the birch, oak, cedar, palms, lumber, and absurdist wordplay is a poem about devotion, loyalty, laughter, and building a life with someone you love.
[Danny Phantom Theology] What begins as a metaphor borrowed from a childhood cartoon becomes something deeper: a reflection on existing between survival and possibility, exhaustion and hope, the life we have and the life we long for. Danny Phantom Theology explores what it means to keep moving toward a future that feels worth living.
[The Monster in the Margins II] The Monster in the Margins II transforms Rowan Evans’s Seven Deadly Sins mythology into a horror story written between the lines, where Lust, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Envy, and Gluttony become monsters growing from pain, grudges, and scars.
And sometimes my brain apparently looks at a sandwich and says, yes, this is how we’re processing emotional confusion today.
Lost in the Sauce is a deliberately playful poem built around food-related wordplay, particularly the language of sandwiches, condiments, bread, and the wonderfully terrible possibilities hidden inside them.
The jokes are intentionally stupid.
That is part of the point.
“Bread” becomes “rye.” “Ketchup” becomes “catch up.” “Mustard” becomes “must’ve.” “Sourdough” becomes an emotional description. Even “lettuce meat in the middle” is doing multiple jobs at once.
But beneath all of that nonsense is something much more familiar: the confusion of being told that everything is okay while someone’s behavior feels completely different.
The speaker is trying to understand the contradiction.
They were told the relationship was fine.
They were told the other person was happy.
So why does everything suddenly feel cold?
Why does affection feel sour?
Why does the speaker feel trapped in place, struggling to catch up to something they don’t fully understand?
The ridiculous wordplay gives me permission to approach that emotional confusion without making the poem overly solemn.
I’ve been rediscovering how much I enjoy treating language like a playground—taking ordinary words, twisting them until they become something else, and seeing how far I can push a joke before the emotional meaning underneath it starts showing through.
So yes, this poem is about sandwiches.
Sort of.
Mostly, it’s about being lost in the sauce when the person you’re trying to understand has already changed the recipe.
— Rowan Evans
Sometimes you don’t fall apart. Sometimes you just get lost in the sauce. 🥪
Lost in the Sauce Poetry by Rowan Evans
You sandwiched me in
with an all-tomato—
love you or leave,
but I couldn’t do it clean—
I was lost in the sauce,
begging lettuce
meat in the middle.
You said, “you lie.”
I said, “Nah, you rye.”
But do you know why?
I was stuck in place,
you wouldn’t wait—
I was struggling
to ketchup.
I thought you
mustard—
how could you not?
People talk.
Look—
I’m sorry.
I don’t want to fight.
But, you said—
you were happy.
We were okay.
So why you so cold,
why you actin’ sourdough?
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Did You Really Think This Was About Trees?] A playful love poem disguised as a forest of terrible tree puns. Beneath the birch, oak, cedar, palms, lumber, and absurdist wordplay is a poem about devotion, loyalty, laughter, and building a life with someone you love.
[Blended Hardware] A playful, absurdist poem where step-ladders, garden hoses, Star Wars, teenage memories, Gothic imagery, and the poet’s own self-interrupting commentary collide. Blended Hardware is a celebration of letting language wander.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 