←

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: metaphors

  • One Honest Sentence | A Confessional Poem About Vulnerability, Love & the Fear of Being Seen

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    There are two versions of every poet.

    The one who can write about anything, and the one who struggles to write the one thing that matters most.

    This poem begins with confidence—almost arrogance—as the speaker celebrates the ability to write in any voice, on any subject, from any perspective. But beneath that confidence is a question I’ve wrestled with for years: if it’s so easy to write about everything, why is it so difficult to write one completely honest sentence?

    Humor, metaphors, references, and wordplay are some of my favorite tools. They help me explore ideas, soften difficult emotions, and make heavy subjects more approachable. But they can also become places to hide.

    One Honest Sentence is about recognizing that difference. Sometimes the greatest challenge isn’t finding beautiful language—it’s finding the courage to stop decorating the truth long enough to simply say it.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary writer sits before a blank page while countless handwritten pages float around them, symbolizing the struggle between creativity and emotional honesty.
    Writing beautifully is a skill.

    Writing honestly is a different kind of courage.

    One Honest Sentence
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I don’t usually like to do this, but
    I’m going to do it anyway, because
    I’m tired of pretending—

    why should I lie and say
    I’m not that guy,
    when I know I am.

    Give me a pen,
    and I can write anything.

    If a person can think it
    or have an experience,
    I can turn it into poetry.
    I do it by stringing ink
    into so many pretty lines—

    but I don’t bother to try
    and rhyme, most of the time.

    I wrote poem after poem—
    I can write a poem about the search for home
    while feeling alone in a crowded room,
    talking about how this house feels like a tomb.

    I can write island hopping epics—

    I can silence skeptics,
    put their opinions in the septic—

    they don’t know
    shhh—

    it’s no wonder they talk a lot,
    their minds are empty, got no thoughts.
    So the verbal diarrhea doesn’t stop—

    and when I read what they write,
    I call them Watson
    ’cause their lines are elementary.

    I’ve written thirty lines of flex
    and after thirty lines,
    you’re probably wondering—

    what’s next?

    Well—

    how about we pivot
    from flex to truth?

    Earlier I said—

    give me a pen and I can
    write anything.

    I can take the joy, the pain,
    the sun, the rain
    and write a whole damn series—

    it’s even easier
    if it didn’t happen to me,
    I can write about it for days—
    poem after poem,
    different angles of the same thing.

    Because it’s easy
    writing about just anything—

    what’s hard is writing
    a single truth,
    without burying it in jokes
    and misdirection.

    And maybe that’s the joke—

    I can write whole worlds,
    but not one honest sentence
    without my pulse stuttering.

    Like what would happen—
    if I just said it?

    If I turned 1-4-3 to letters
    and I just meant it?

    Would the world cease to be?

    I guess I’m just afraid—

    because once I say it,
    I can’t unsay it.

    Once I write it,
    it becomes real.

    And real things
    can be lost,
    can be rejected,
    can be held—

    and I don’t know
    which scares me more.

    So again I ask—

    what would happen
    if I just said it?

    Maybe you’d laugh.
    Maybe you’d freeze.
    Maybe you’d say it back.

    Maybe nothing would change
    except—

    I’d finally be done
    hiding behind metaphors.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Noon Is Loud]
    If four in the morning belongs to truth, then noon belongs to impossible memories. Noon Is Loud is a playful free verse poem filled with absurd boasts, pop culture references, and tongue-in-cheek mythology that explores how easily imagination can rewrite reality.

    [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.

    [Director’s Commentary]
    Director’s Commentary is a self-aware free verse poem that turns the poet’s recurring metaphors into the subject itself, exploring creativity, artistic habits, and the humorous inner critic that follows every writer from draft to draft.

    [The Answer Is (Yes)]
    What kind of writer am I? Mythmaker, confessor, comedian, philosopher, dream-architect, romantic, storyteller, and diss-poet. This self-reflective poem explores the impossibility of fitting creativity into a single category—and embraces every version of the truth a pen can touch.

    [Before We Created the Labels]
    Ancient gods return to a fractured world shaped by borders, identities, and separation. “Before We Created the Labels” explores humanity’s divisions through mythic imagery, sacred ritual, and symbolic collapse—asking what remains when we learn to see one another beyond labels.

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

  • Through My View by Rowan Evans | A Free Verse Poem About Perspective, Imagination & Individual Experience

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Perspective is one of the strangest things we possess.

    Two people can stand in the same place, witness the same moment, and walk away carrying completely different worlds inside them.

    I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that—not as something that separates us, but as something that makes us interesting.

    This poem isn’t saying one perspective is better than another. It isn’t about claiming superiority.

    It’s about accepting that no one else can inhabit your mind.

    No one else sees exactly what you see, makes the same connections, or experiences the same emotional landscape. We can describe our inner worlds through art, conversation, and metaphor, but there will always be a distance between experiencing something and hearing someone describe it.

    As a poet, I spend much of my life trying to bridge that distance.

    This poem acknowledges that the bridge will never be perfect—and that’s okay.

    Our perspectives don’t need to become identical to be meaningful.

    Sometimes it’s enough to simply recognize that every person is looking through a different window.

    — Rowan Evans

    A surreal sunrise over towering mountains, a vast ocean, and a fading moon, symbolizing a unique personal perspective on the world.
    No one else can stand exactly where you stand or see the world through your eyes.

    Through My View
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    It’s eight,
    I hear the birds chirp.
    It’s late, I’m awake—
    what’s new?

    Silence.
    It’s violence—
    the words that I choose,
    when I’m cut loose.

    Like my thoughts,
    I’m off leash—
    you can’t stop me.

    I’ve got a mind
    that stacks lines,
    mountains high,
    metaphors rise—

    higher than Fuji,
    higher than Everest.

    You’ll never finish this climb,
    your mountains will never match mine.
    You could do this for the rest of your life—

    but you’ll never cross my ocean,
    you’ll never see my moon
    with your own eyes.
    You’ll never feel the pull of my tide—

    because your mind
    doesn’t work like mine.
    You’ll never see the beauty
    in my horizon line—

    the way the colors
    shift and shine
    with the change of time.

    You’ll never see the world like—
    I do,
    you’ll never see the world through—
    my view.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [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.

    [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.

    [Before We Created The Labels]
    Ancient gods return to a fractured world shaped by borders, identities, and separation. “Before We Created the Labels” explores humanity’s divisions through mythic imagery, sacred ritual, and symbolic collapse—asking what remains when we learn to see one another beyond labels.

    [No You and I, Ony Us]
    A hopeful free verse poem about empathy, borders, and imagining a world where humanity matters more than division.

    [Two Americans]
    What does it mean to share a country, a language, and still feel completely different? Two Americans explores identity, culture, and the quiet disconnect between people who should feel the same—but don’t.

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

  • 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]