Three Poems by Andrew M. Bowen

Exorcism

The world wears white tonight, the white of ghosts:
by snow, shivers, and sleet, I conjure you,
O Shannon Red, a drunken poem to toast
the fairest and the cruelest of my ghosts.

How strange to call your shade in winter's chill
when summer's dying heat caused hearts to stew
and summer sired your tawny hair, your will
of velvet iron, and eyes like sleepy rills.

But winter saw our passion's courses run.
At first I lit your eyes like sudden rays
gladden a sodden day; at last you shunned;
saw me a thug accused of murder one.

As winter's death signals the spring's first beat,
this conjure tolls the end of icebound days
for I will live, will not allow defeat
to deaden joy and sap my soul of heat.

Farewell, sweet spook:  if I had loved a host,
each one as lovely as a virgin coast
and richer than computer moguls' boasts,
still, Shannon, you would be my favorite ghost



Sonnet for Shannon 6

A naughty boy once taught a river to dive
and wed the night to birth an egg of gold;
whether he's good or bad, he is alive
and never stood a regiment so bold.
He launched a gleaming shaft straight through my heart
thus fanning endless desire for your caress
and should relentless fate dictate we part
his bow will plunge my soul in endless darkness.
I'm just a puppet on a golden string,
a flesh automaton without a hope,
enthralled by dreams of bliss and golden rings,
but I fear I'll hang from a dirty rope.
In wondrous beauty dawns the birth of love;
its death more dark than endless night above.




Finis (Or How Could You Treat Me This Way, Sweet Princess?)

Bounce up, plummet down,
my heart's ridden a bungee
cord, rejoicing we
might join, dreading the cold of
your outer void.  It failed to
shock that you chose him,
but silence wounds:  to learn it
from the Net, to know
you threw my heart away like
an unwanted basketball.

Andrew M. Bowen works as an insurance salesman in Bloomington, IN.  He has published 74 poems and recently submitted his first two novels for publication.  He is also an actor who has appeared in eight independent films, seven stage productions, and two radio teleplays.