A bird cannot stay in the sky when the sickness has spread through its entire body. And no amount of arguing over which wing is responsible will change the condition of the bird itself.
This piece is a short, sharp political metaphor about division, corruption, and the danger of treating opposing sides as separate problems when the larger system is already failing. It doesn’t linger to build an elaborate argument; it drops into the image, lets the wings beat against the ground, and leaves the reader with the sound of something collapsing.
Sometimes the question isn’t which wing is right.
Sometimes it’s whether the bird can survive at all.
— Rowan Evans
When the whole bird is sick, arguing over its wings won’t save it.
Sick Bird Poetry by Rowan Evans
Left wing or right wing?
I don’t give a fuck—
it doesn’t matter,
if the whole bird
is sick and corrupt—
the whole bird is going down—
flapping wild on the ground—
death rattle, our final sound—
Governments Behaving Badly: A Satirical Poetry Series [pt. 2]
Author’s Note
If Raising Governments is the exhale—laughter edged with frustration—then Government Time-Out is what comes after.
The moment humor fades, and what’s left is clarity.
This piece strips the satire down to something quieter, more direct. It’s still framed through the language of discipline, but the tone shifts from playful to firm—less about calling out behavior, and more about demanding accountability.
There’s a difference between reacting and reflecting. Between explaining something away and actually sitting with it.
Government Time-Out lives in that space.
No noise. No spin. Just the uncomfortable weight of consequence.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do… is stop talking—and finally listen.
— Rowan Evans
No more excuses. Sit with it.
Government Time-Out Poetry by Rowan Evans
Sit down.
No—actually, sit.
We’re not doing this today.
Not the yelling,
not the threats,
not the “I know better” attitude.
You’ve had centuries
to prove that.
And yet—
here we are.
Hands in the cookie jar,
crumbs on your face,
still trying to say
it wasn’t you.
Really?
You think we don’t see it?
All the broken plates,
the slammed doors,
the mess you keep calling
“necessary.”
No.
You don’t get to break things
and call it order.
You don’t get to hurt people
and call it policy.
So here’s what’s gonna happen.
You’re going to sit there—
quietly—
and think about
what you’ve done.
No speeches.
No spin.
No rewriting the story
to make yourself the hero.
Governments Behaving Badly: A Satirical Poetry Series[pt. 1]
Author’s Note
Sometimes the only way to process the state of the world is to laugh at it.
Raising Governments takes the chaos, contradictions, and immaturity often seen in global leadership and reframes it through something familiar: parenting. Not out of cruelty – but out of exhaustion. The kind that comes from watching the same mistakes repeat, over and over again.
This piece leans into satire, using humor to highlight a deeper frustration – how systems meant to lead can sometimes feel reactive, impulsive, and disconnected from the people they affect.
At its core, this isn’t just about governments. It’s about accountability.
And the strange reality of feeling like the adults in the room… aren’t.
— Rowan Evans
Sometimes the people in power act like children—and someone has to call it out.
Raising Governments Poetry by Rowan Evans
Why are governments
actin’ like bad kids,
needing their ass whipped?
Go and get the switch—
you pick. We’re going back
to the 90s and before.
No corners for you, no more.
I’m not mad, I’m just—
disappointed.
I’ll turn this car around.
Don’t think I won’t,
I can see you in the rear view.
This is gonna hurt me,
more than it does you.
As soon as we get home,
everyone to your rooms.
I need a minute to breathe—
collect myself.
And your attitudes…
they don’t help.
War is often framed through numbers – casualty counts, budgets, troop movements, strategic gains. But behind every statistic is a life, a family, a story that rarely gets told. Calculating Profits (Ledger of Lives) is a response to that reduction of humanity into arithmetic.
This poem confronts the uncomfortable truth that while war is frequently portrayed as a contest of nations, the consequences are carried by ordinary people. Civilians lose homes, children lose futures, and entire communities are reshaped by decisions made far from the battlefield.
The poem’s title references the cold language of accounting–ledgers, calculations, profits–to highlight how easily human suffering can be reframed as strategy or necessity. I wrote this piece to challenge the normalization of war as spectacle and to remind readers that the cost is never abstract. Every loss echoes through generations.
Sometimes poetry must be gentle. Other times, it must speak plainly.
This poem chooses the latter.
— Rowan Evans
When lives become numbers, the ledger of war never truly balances.
Calculating Profits (Ledger of Lives) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’m so sick of this, it’s ridiculous,
the way we glorify war like a sports game—fictitious.
Us vs Them, who’s gonna win?
While kids in rubble pray their lives begin.
Flags wave, bombs blaze, headlines spin,
nobody wins, but governments grin.
Life lost, life changed, families torn apart,
yet they call it “strategy,” cold as a heart.
Soldiers march, leaders sit in their chairs,
calculating profits while ignoring prayers.
Civilians flee, the streets taste of ash,
diplomacy dies in the bureaucratic clash.
Every life a number in a ledger they hide,
every tear a story the textbooks won’t write.
We cheer heroes in videos, oblivious, blind,
never realizing the price war leaves behind.
Us vs Them—what a childish game,
but it’s blood they gamble with, never their name.
I spit this truth, raw, without disguise,
because war is a lie, and I see through…
This installment dives into systemic inequities, confronting racial and social injustice head-on. It examines the anger and frustration that fuel action, and the costs of speaking truth to power.
Rowan Evans bears witness to history and systemic inequities in WOKE Part 2, channeling the fury and pain of the silenced.
WOKE (Part 2) Poetry by Rowan Evans
They say a lynching was a suicide, I guess being black took his life. The headline reads fiction, But history whispers cruelty in the wind.
I stay WOKE, because sleep is luxury Reserved for those blind to rot. Hands build monuments to lies, While bodies disappear, uncounted, unnamed.
“Calm down, it’s over,” they tell me, As if oppression is a bedtime story, As if my fury is a tantrum From someone who dares to notice.
I rage for mothers, fathers, children Erased in official reports, For those who fell while the world looked away, And those trembling, forced to pray.
I write in neon ink, in fiery scars, For the voiceless who scream in the dark, For every injustice whitewashed, Every truth buried beneath silence and sand.
I stay WOKE, because breathing here Means noticing horrors, refusing witness, Carrying the weight loud, unbroken, alive.
They may call me terrorist, troublemaker, But I call myself awake, And I will not blink while the world sleeps. Not while power smiles over the dead, Not while history repeats its cruel refrain.
