←

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: imagination

  • Victor Frankenstein of Rhythm and Rhyme | A Poem About Identity Through Writing

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems arrive as observations.

    Others arrive as questions.

    This one began with a question I wasn’t entirely prepared to answer:

    Who am I without writing?

    I’ve spent more than two decades translating my inner world into poetry. Over time, writing stopped feeling like something I do and started feeling like the place where I exist most completely.

    That’s a strange realization.

    Because poetry isn’t simply expression for me—it’s construction.

    Every poem is assembled from fragments: memories, emotions, images, conversations, dreams, fears, humor, hope. I rarely invent from nothing. I gather pieces of lived experience and stitch them together until they begin breathing on their own.

    That’s where the title comes from.

    Victor Frankenstein wasn’t remembered because he created life.

    He was remembered because he assembled it.

    That’s often what writing feels like to me.

    I gather disconnected thoughts, broken emotions, recurring symbols, and scattered moments, then bind them together until they become something capable of standing on its own.

    The result isn’t always comfortable.

    Sometimes it’s beautiful.

    Sometimes it’s monstrous.

    Most often…

    it’s simply honest.

    — Rowan Evans

    A poet writing by candlelight as handwritten pages transform into stitched-together figures made from words, symbolizing creativity, identity, and the act of creating poetry.
    “Every poem begins as fragments—thoughts, memories, emotions, and images—stitched together until they learn how to breathe.”

    Victor Frankenstein of Rhythm and Rhyme
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’ll be honest—
    I don’t know who I am
    without this,
    without the ink to bleed—

    what does my life even mean?

    I know it means something—
    but I’ve lost sight of it.

    Because I’m like a god here—
    I control the shape
    the ink takes
    and decide what it makes.

    I create every piece
    in my image.

    I write universes into existence—
    populate them with ghosts,
    lovers, gods and monsters.

    And every version of myself
    I couldn’t survive as alone.

    I translate my mental health
    from the inside, no distance.

    I take my mind
    translate it into lines
    and images—
    stitch them together
    as metaphors—

    Victor Frankenstein
    of rhythm, rhyme and imagery.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Pointing Me Home]
    The final poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind trilogy explores dreams, hope, and belonging. Through moonlight, ocean tides, and quiet conversation, Pointing Me Home reflects on carrying hope long before reaching the place you call home.

    [Caller ID: Destiny]
    Sometimes the places we visit in our dreams feel more like home than the places we wake up in. Caller ID: Destiny explores longing, belonging, and the quiet feeling that life is calling you toward somewhere new.

    [Monster Theology]
    What if the monsters under the bed weren’t monsters at all? Monster Theology explores difference, belonging, and the human tendency to fear what we don’t understand through a conversation with the creatures we’ve spent our lives imagining.

    [Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor)]
    Some poems are built to make a point. Others are built to reveal the mechanism. Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor) explores associative thinking, creative chaos, and the strange process of stitching disconnected ideas into something alive.

    [I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise]
    Love has never come easily to me. This poem explores the fear, vulnerability, and quiet courage required to stay emotionally present when connection begins to matter deeply. “I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise” is about choosing love despite the risk of heartbreak—and promising to remain long enough to witness someone fully.

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

  • Chemical X | A Poem About Creativity, Neurodivergent Thinking, and the Associative Mind

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    People often ask what inspires my writing, or how my mind moves from one idea to another so quickly.

    The honest answer is that I don’t think in straight lines.

    I think in association, in rhythm, in collision. One idea reminds me of another, not because they are logically connected, but because they feel connected in the moment they appear.

    This poem is built from that process.

    It began with something simple—the familiar phrase “sugar, spice, and everything nice.” But as I wrote, my mind immediately followed the same pattern it always does: connection, exaggeration, humor, memory, and cultural reference all colliding at once. What starts as something familiar quickly becomes something unpredictable.

    The title, Chemical X, comes from that idea.

    In The Powerpuff Girls, Chemical X is the unknown element that transforms something ordinary into something entirely different. For me, that “unknown element” is the way my mind blends thoughts, images, and meanings together in real time.

    This poem is not meant to be linear. It is meant to mirror the way my thoughts actually arrive: rapid, associative, sometimes chaotic, but always connected by feeling and intuition rather than structure.

    If it feels like a mix of humor, storytelling, sports commentary, and surreal imagery all at once—that’s intentional. That is the point.

    This is what happens when everything gets mixed together.

    This is Chemical X.

    — Rowan Evans

    A notebook and pen burst into colorful images of comics, sports, music, stars, and cartoons, symbolizing an imaginative mind making rapid connections.
    Some minds move in straight lines. Mine mixes everything together—and somehow, it all makes sense.

    Chemical X
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    They say “penny for your thoughts,”
    but it takes—two cents to talk.
    Go for a walk, a mile long, in my shoes—
    use my eyes, see the world through my view.

    I’ll etch it across the page,
    world view and all—
    because I’m the on the ball
    point pen, in an ink sprint.
    Usain Bolt, the way my mind went.

    To understand the rhythm,
    you’ve got to understand the mechanism.
    You’ve got to understand the mind
    behind the rhyme—

    my thoughts are rapid fire.

    Thirty round magazine,
    three-round burst—
    that’s the way my mind works.

    I can jump from cartoons
    to comic books,
    music to sports—

    sugar, spice,
    and everything nice.

    A round of applause, Johnny—
    Bravo, you completed the Quest.
    You gained experience and leveled up.
    Still, it wasn’t enough—

    because I’m a two-way threat—
    like my name is Shohei.

    Bitch, I’m the Babe.

    At four years old,
    I was almost tossed
    out of the game.

    I was a menace—
    call me, Dennis.

    Two Hubbles
    strapped to my face,
    look up—see space.

    Fingers curled
    gripping the chain link—
    a bad call, a blind ump,
    a small child
    blind as I was,
    offering their eyes up
    like I was—

    trying to help?
    Maybe.

    Trying to insult?

    Of course…

    it’s sports…

    I was Dexter
    in the lab again,
    pen to pad again,
    and I gave
    all I had to give—

    Victor Frankenstein
    is at it again,
    patchwork metaphors
    and images galore—

    villagers are going
    to be afraid for sure.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    A deeply personal poem about relocation, longing, and the realization that some truths naturally arrive through metaphor—even when we try to leave it behind.

    [Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    The second poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind series, exploring the quiet ache of growing up in a place that never truly felt like home—and finally saying aloud what years of metaphor had been trying to express.

    [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.

    [Monster Theology]
    What if the monsters under the bed weren’t monsters at all? Monster Theology explores difference, belonging, and the human tendency to fear what we don’t understand through a conversation with the creatures we’ve spent our lives imagining.

    [Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor)]
    Some poems are built to make a point. Others are built to reveal the mechanism. Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor) explores associative thinking, creative chaos, and the strange process of stitching disconnected ideas into something alive.

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

  • Raccoons in Silk Pajamas | An Absurdist Free Verse Poem About Language Letting Loose

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem started where a lot of my more playful pieces begin: with a chain reaction of absurd images that refused to behave.

    I didn’t sit down with a structure in mind. I just let the language run until it started building its own logic—one that doesn’t really care about realism, linear progression, or whether raccoons should realistically be wearing silk pajamas in the first place.

    The “Space Chickens” at the beginning weren’t planned as a motif. They became one because they felt like the kind of strange, mildly accusatory presence that only makes sense in a world where camels are in parked cars and elephants are stored in jam jars.

    From there, the poem just escalates.

    Raccoons appear. Then llamas. Then the question of pajamas becomes a philosophical problem. Somewhere in the middle, the poem realizes it is no longer interested in consistency—it’s interested in momentum.

    There’s a moment where the speaker tries to impose logic:

    “Don’t be absurd.”

    But by that point, absurdity has already won.

    What I find interesting about this piece is that it still has a kind of emotional continuity even without narrative stability. It moves the way thoughts move when you’re tired, distracted, or laughing at your own internal associations—jumping from one idea to another through sound, memory, and cultural reference rather than logic.

    Even the ending, with its sudden shift into pop culture and cinematic reference, is less about conclusion and more about acknowledgment. The poem becomes aware of itself mid-collapse and decides to lean into it rather than resolve it.

    In that sense, it’s not really about raccoons.

    It’s about the way language behaves when you stop trying to control it.

    And sometimes, that’s where the most honest writing shows up.

    — Rowan Evans

    A raccoon wearing silk pajamas rides a llama beneath a colorful cosmic sky filled with surreal creatures and absurd imagery.
    When logic leaves the room, language starts having fun.

    Raccoons in Silk Pajamas
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I had to get away
    from the Space Chickens,
    they were a little too judgmental—

    always questioning what I wore,
    shouting implied curses
    spoken in cursive.

    It was camels in parked cars,
    elephants in jam jars…

    Now it’s—

    raccoons in silk pajamas,
    and they’re not alone—
    they’re riding llamas.

    “Are the llamas
    wearing silk pajamas?”

    Don’t be absurd.
    That’s the weirdest thing
    I’ve ever heard—

    llamas in pajamas?

    No, just raccoons
    and bananas.

    I was once a
    farmer on Pluto,
    a librarian on Mars—
    a poet amongst the stars.
    Now I’m just
    an astronaut in the ocean,
    rolling in the deep.

    Dude—
    you just referenced Adele.

    Like it is 2001 again.
    It’s a Space Odyssey

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    See where it all began.

    [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.”

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

  • It’s Just Me but Super | A Poem About Imagination, Creativity & Becoming More Yourself

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece exists because my brain occasionally grabs a pun by the throat and refuses to let go.

    It started with a single phrase:

    “Wanda the Cosmo.”

    The moment I realized it sounded like wander the cosmos, the entire poem became inevitable.

    From there, it turned into a collision of things that shaped me growing up: cartoons, superheroes, imagination, ridiculous wordplay, and the habit of taking a joke far beyond the point where a reasonable person would stop.

    The references are intentional, but they aren’t really the point.

    What interests me is the thread connecting all of them.

    Timmy Turner. Doug Funnie. Quailman.

    They’re ordinary people living inside worlds that are a little bigger, stranger, and more magical than everyday life.

    And in some ways, that’s what writing has always felt like to me.

    A blank page is ordinary until imagination gets involved.

    Then suddenly you’re wandering the cosmos. Building constellations out of language. Turning metaphors into transportation.

    The speaker in this poem never actually becomes a superhero.

    Nothing supernatural happens.

    No powers. No cosmic upgrades. No secret destiny.

    Instead, the final line reveals the joke that was hiding in plain sight the entire time:

    “It’s just me but super.”

    Because that’s what creativity often feels like.

    Not becoming someone else.

    Not transforming into a different person.

    Just becoming a more exaggerated version of yourself for a little while.

    A little louder.

    A little stranger.

    A little more willing to follow an absurd idea all the way to the stars.

    And honestly?

    That’s where some of my favorite poems come from.

    — Rowan Evans

    A whimsical poet standing beneath a galaxy-filled sky surrounded by glowing constellations, notebooks, and symbols of imagination.
    Sometimes creativity isn’t becoming someone else—it’s becoming a more imaginative version of yourself and following the idea all the way to the stars.

    It’s Just Me but Super
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    They say I’m fairly odd—
    call me Timmy Turner.
    Watch me Wanda the Cosmo,
    a trip across the stars—

    Get it…
    Wanda the Cosmo?

    I am saying, watch me
    wander the cosmos—
    it’s a trip across the stars.
    Every stanza a constellation
    shaped in star dust,
    inked in the space between.

    And when I come back,
    re-entry will have me feeling Funnie—
    I’ll write about it like
    “Hey, journal, it’s me, Doug.”
    I cannot fail, man—
    like my alter ego is Quailman.

    It’s just me but super.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [100 Grand and a Book Deal]
    A playful collision of candy bars, comic book heroes, basketball legends, and cosmic metaphors. Beneath the jokes lies a reflection on twenty-three years of writing, creativity, and the dream of building something lasting one line at a time.

    [Copy of a Copy]
    A sharp, self-aware poem about originality, imitation, and the search for an authentic creative voice. What begins as a diss gradually reveals itself as a meditation on authorship, influence, and the things that can never truly be copied.

    [Lone Wolf Theology]
    A philosophical pop-culture poem exploring freedom, identity, and self-authorship through the lens of superheroes, antiheroes, mythic archetypes, and personal rebellion. A declaration of autonomy in a world determined to write your story for you.

    [L Words & Heart]
    A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

    [Just Beyond Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

    [Twin Suns, Sister Moons]
    A poem about distance, longing, and the quiet pull of someone who lives beneath a different sky. Between twin suns and sister moons, the heart keeps reaching for home.

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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

  • L Words & Heart | A Poem About Love, Longing, Loyalty & Being Seen

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began as a joke.

    Or at least, I thought it did.

    The opening voice is intentionally playful—awkward, self‑deprecating, a little chaotic, prone to wandering off into side comments before finding its way back again. In many ways, it feels closer to how I actually think than some of my more polished or serious pieces.

    But underneath the humor is something sincere.

    I’ve never been particularly good at saying important things directly. Sometimes vulnerability arrives disguised as a joke. Sometimes affection hides behind wordplay. Sometimes the safest way to admit what you’re feeling is to make someone laugh first.

    The title comes from a simple realization: when I think about certain people, my thoughts tend to orbit the same things.

    Love. Longing. Loyalty.

    The L words.

    And heart.

    The final section is intentionally quieter than everything that comes before it. The jokes fall away, the distractions disappear, and what remains is the truth the speaker was circling the entire time: the way another person can take up space in your imagination, your creativity, and your inner world long before they ever occupy the same physical space.

    Sometimes affection doesn’t arrive as grand declarations.

    Sometimes it arrives as a face that appears when you close your eyes.
    A voice you hear in silence.
    A shoreline you keep finding in your dreams.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure standing on a moonlit shoreline while waves roll in beneath a dreamy twilight sky.
    Some people arrive in your thoughts quietly—then somehow become part of every dream, every poem, and every beat of your heart.

    L Words & Heart
    Poetry by Rowan Evan

    I’m just a quirky, mother—
    not a fighter, but a lover.
    I’m not brave or whatever,
    I bite tongues,
    holding words like lips
    with padlocks.

    I’ve never been a fan of change,
    but I want things to change—
    I want my life rearranged,
    I want to be seen as normal
    not strange—
    I want to be me
    and accepted,
    because I’m not as strange
    as you think—
    I’ve seen Stranger Things.

    (Actually, no I haven’t.
    I never got into the show.
    But I digress…)

    I’ve got things I want to say,
    got things I want you to know.

    When I think about you
    it’s all L words and heart,
    you reshaped my art.
    So I close my eyes
    and I see your face.
    In silence, I hear your voice—
    and in dreams I walk your shores.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Just Beyond Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

    [Twin Suns, Sister Moons]
    A poem about distance, longing, and the quiet pull of someone who lives beneath a different sky. Between twin suns and sister moons, the heart keeps reaching for home.

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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