Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
8.5k · Mar 2016
Trees
Rowan Mar 2016
Trees
Fresh from the kennels. A whole world away.  
Companion conversion for a young castaway.  
A darling of distraction with irrational fears.
The clumsiest canine with ever aware ears.
Guardian of gourmet. Suspect of all sounds.
He'll catch himself someday, spinning around.
A tug of war here. A muddy mess there.
A lick to the face of the humans in his care.
How thrilled his tail and tremendous his teeth.
How dug up the planet from paw underneath.
The running for fun. The claiming of trees.
The car window ride along - face full of breeze.

--------------------------------------------------------

But now he's a master of "Stay!".
His eagle ears succumbing to gravity's sway.
Napping much more, barking much less.
Now rarer the cuddle, the clean, the caress.
Patch protector. Owner of no debts.
A veteran of various villainous vets.
Birds as trivial as the tennis ball is far.
Eyes now as hazy as the indistinguishable stars.
A howl at the moon. A loosening tooth.
An ode to memories of a modest youth.
They still love this pup. He still loves them back.
May he long be remembered as he faces the black.
#sad #dog #puppy
Continue reading...
7.7k · Sep 2016
Wolke
Rowan Sep 2016
Wolke
Kyk! Kan jy dit sien?! Dis wolke.
Dis waar! Dit is gemaak uit spoke.
Mamma roep ons, lyk soos kos vir wolwe.
En boetie sin lyk soos 'n klomp golwe.
Ek kyk op en sien 'n hartjie.
Dit is groter as my hele handjie.
Mamma se ek moet my kos eet.
Maar ek hou glad nie van die beet.
Ek kyk weer op en weet ek speel in die sand.
Wolke is vir my so, so interessant.
A poem by my little sister - Annuschka Deysel - 10.
#sister #africa #south #little #afrikaans
Continue reading...
4.1k · Dec 2016
Nadir
Rowan Dec 2016
Nadir
Caucasian cadaver in the windless woods.
Carelessly hanging from a tree.
Colorless face looking down.
Carrion yet to be seen.
Creation of an evil man.
Displaying his departed art.
Completed, his compelling plan.
Of helping death do its part.
Few colors, fewer sounds.
White skin contrasts the black dress.
Faded yellow floating all around.
Splatters of red fill the rest.
A frightful figure that overwhelms.
Above the confused and thorny trails.
All the shallow know themselves.
At the sight of this female.
Breathless before being dangled.
Dead before being displayed.
Beautiful body, cold and mangled.
Death magnificently portrayed.
Multiple stab wounds in your back.
Added to the smell of war.
Mind immersed in barren black.
Gnawed eyes to watch and adore.
Dripping, dim and dreadful.
The portrait he wanted to smear.
Your future as empty as your words.
Your hollowness shown clear.
You don't know what you're missing. 
Elders still die, the young still grow.
The leaves below are hissing.
At the corpse of a girl I used to know.
Made when I was an angsty, cringe teenager who just got dumped by his first girlfriend.
Continue reading...
2.8k · Jan 2018
A Perfect Day
Rowan Jan 2018
A Perfect Day
Near a town of history untold
Where everyone knows each name
Wooden behemoths - obliviously old
Each unique but each the same
It was meant to be a perfect day
Of tranquility through the trees
Instead, the sky is brood with grey
And the leafs flow as they please
Alone, in nature's splendor spilled
In a rainy wilderness, seldom seen
The birds and insects grow suddenly still
In a spread silence of the green
Like eyes embedded in your back
You sense the stare of something sour
The mood hurries to horrid black
As you quiver into a cower
In bending branches blended
Creeping in creases - camouflaged
Nature's imbalance to be amended
In the forest's full mirage
Witness a terror appearing
Frantically floating from afar
Emerged in echoes and vaguely veering
Black, bleak and bizarre
A malevolent, monstrous maw
Snarls of hunger, habit, and hate
A malodor of meat, reeking raw
A violently increasing heart rate
From frozen still to fearfully shaking
You are manically mesmerised
Your pupils promptly dilating
As you and the beast lock eyes
Your meaningless attempt to run
From a stride to a collapse
The beams above crown the sun
As the twigs around you snap
A soar of pain as you hit the ground
Chest cavity cracked open
As you faint, you hear the sound
Of a language never spoken.
Gutted and gargling gore
Eaten by nature's nightmare
Convulsing on a forest floor
Indifference chokes the air
It's just another perfect day
Of tranquility in the trees
The rain has stopped, the leafs still sway
With the cooling, comfortable breeze
#forest #monster #trees #nature
Continue reading...
2.3k · Feb 2016
The Sway of Mountains
Rowan Feb 2016
The Sway of Mountains
The euphoric parallax, the vast.
The concealed, the intangible known.
The indifferent future, the decaying past.
The inconsistent, looping drone.
The lengths of our splendid slumber.
With both laugh and loathe entwined.
Bears witness to the wonders
Of our consciousness - sublime.
The falling from a heightened frightful.
The embarrassment of youth.
The promise of danger - delightful.
And the grand purpose - aloof.

All is vivid. All is bright.
All the colour stains the light.
All things hazy. All things merge.
All connected. All converge.
In the early, in the old.
In the fresh and the fatigued.
In the clear and the controlled.
In the apt and obsolete.
Where days come to end their lives.
To bask in the blurred glow.
To steer the sky behind our eyes.
And allow our liquid thoughts the flow.

Time's waste - the wondrous tragedy.
Mourned hour after hour.
The inescapable catastrophe.
The sad, slow devour.
Sight, to the dull of eyes.
Stability, in the earthless turn.
Tranquility, in every sigh.
Truth, in what we're yet to learn.
Here you hear the happiness.
And the sadness of the stars.
They share a song - synonymous.
They sing to us from afar.

Stumbling through the shapeless silence.
Merging with the mangled mess.
Tampering with the truly timeless.
Engulfed in what we can't caress.
The vague and subtle sightings.
Through the chaos of your plan.
Into the long wait for nothing.
Which kills the heart of man.
In the all encompassing loom.
Where you can finally be alone.
Your mind - a fragile bloom.
And the void, your only throne.

A state of elasticity.
A transparent mirrored wealth.
The nook of all necessity.
An eternal nocturnal self.
Where does this calm originate
That seems so unprepared?
Who truly can appreciate
The blankness of its stare?
Imagination meets mere memory.
Rearranging what we think we know.
Distorting what we want to see.
Inspiring how we hope to grow.

Now see the minds that wander.
With the twisting of the trees.
With the certainty of thunder.
And the warm, empty breeze.
We have to leave, we have to go.
Back to where we loathe but know.
We want to breathe, we want to glow.
We want the reap but not the sow.
The change that you so fear.
Roams the halls of this distortion.
It pauses, sways and veers.
In ceaseless, cruel contortions.

There is something that here dwells.
Something small. Something real.
In our greetings and farewells.
In all we see, hear and feel.
It writes itself on our faces.
It penetrates into our sleep.
And although we can escape it.
Into our subtleties it seeps.
On a buoyant float of black.
The black of vacant oceans.
It throws what we still lack.
Into monstrous swirling motions.

From the canvas of infinite infancy.
With broken wisdom blushed.
Forgotten almost instantly.
In your dazed, waking rush.
To a mountainous climb of morning.
We share the sun of skies.
For it wears the warming.
And the opening of eyes.
But how fine the line is drawn.
Between the sleeping and the aware.
Between the smiles and the forlorn.
Between the dream and the nightmare.
#eyes #sun #time #dreams #nightmares
Continue reading...
2.1k · Aug 2016
Stranger things
Rowan Aug 2016
Stranger things
The thousand, thousand faces
Of pours, of hair, of skin
With glancing gazes - gracious
And a wealth of words - within

Some smile through their veer
Some simply snub but mostly nice
Some in slumber, some in fear
Some too busy with a vice

I am exactly as we all are
The mumbling, melting snowflakes
As I sink and swim among the stars
To avoid all massive mistakes

Onward stranger, to better things
May our minor encounter snap no strings
#people #outside #stranger #things
Continue reading...
1.5k · Dec 2023
Clinging To The Collapse
Rowan Dec 2023
Clinging To The Collapse
You've had this thought before
The flowers on the window sill
The distant sound of a radio
The streets
The grass
The stars

The sky's dome above your head
Everything is normal on Earth
Exactly as it is now
Look up at the sky
God is in his heaven
God is in his heaven
A god who's very very silent

Home awaits
A beautiful serene place
Of mystery
And peace
The one thing you will never find again
All the love and patience of your friends
The tenderness you feel

You no longer live there
Those times are gone
And so are those people
Why did you come here?
Why are you still here?
You don't know

The freedom of finality
That's all you have now
The great see-through world
All things bright
Only you remain
You against the nothingness

It's not fire
It's not ash
Everything is calm
You can only sense the shape of it
A pit opening up in your stomach
A blank space
With no point of reference
Something that has always been there
A new reality
Barely out of sight
Where only one type of motion is possible
The motion of a human throat swallowing
A throat into which the world will vanish

What strange words to celebrate a new world

No cities
No oceans
No mountains

You can breathe now

And finally
https://theswayofmountains.bandcamp.com/track/clinging-to-the-collapse
#nothingness #cling #collapse #finally #streets #grass #stars #god #silent #reality
Continue reading...
1.2k · Mar 2016
Dawdle
Rowan Mar 2016
Dawdle
Hello again, heartless friend.
So slyly in the backgrounds blend.
Your veering vanish, vaguely here.
Your gaze of increments - insincere. 
Healer of the hearted scars.
Swallower of the heavened stars.
The paths in which we dream and delve.
Allow the doubling ones to twelves.

Slices of the eternal elude.
Movements of monstrous magnitude. 
A hesitant dawdle. A lingered delay.
The mountainous sway is steered away. 
Hoarded heaps of hourglass bliss.
Outnumbered by wasted nothingness.
With interludes of want, of miss.
To slowly morphed indifference.

The pendulums that abruptly swing.
The burdens they still hope to bring.
The envied earn of Earth's endeavor.
The better late. The better never.
The eerily empty echoed need.
The blossomed tree from planted seed.
The curse of a continuous grief.
The ever stealthy, silent thief.

The cogs, gears, hours and hands.
The burn of beauty, bleak and bland.
The coziest, surrounding choke.
The whelm from the transparent cloak. 
The running out. The ever essence.
The grand keeper. The watchful presence.
The potential of the plainest plan.
The currency of the wisest man.

What horrors - hallowed by the tick.
Will sound for both healthy and sick?
Will compose secrets, never told?
Will fumble flame to frigid cold?
The end stays always promptly nigh.
For the intimate, infinite blink of eye.
I fear your wasting, more and more.
The constant count to twenty four. 

Unresurrectable and second to none.
Airborne, regardless of having fun.
As retrospective wisdom blinds.
Our youthful hopes and manic minds.
On and on. From time to time. 
Song to song and rhyme to rhyme.  
Betrayer of all mice and men. 
Less of if and more of when.
Of all phrases of mouth and pen.
The worst are "I've done nothing, again".
#time #waste #sway
Continue reading...
1.2k · Jan 2019
Nothing
Rowan Jan 2019
Nothing
With nothing in mind, on the soft green ground
While gazing around inside of a dream
Squinting of Sun, inhaling of sounds
Relaxed, next to a running river's gleam
Serene and sedated, the rustling of leafs
A lease - eternal, an ease inside
A polished, pure and perplexing peace
I slowly sway into the swallowing sky

Sounds of the gush and the wingless glide
Divided between blue and beautiful bright
A meeting of mountains and stars magnified
Below - a haze. Above - the great light
The delight of the earth, protruding and proud
Shrouded silhouettes and gorges that glow
Maps of the sky, echoers of sound
Transport me down to the wet below

Floating on top of the swirling blue salt.
Exalted beyond the liquid haze.
The deepest doors of this massive vault.
A conversation with the warping waves.
A daze of darkness in this alien waste.
Embraced in unknown - pulling me down.
A captive buoyancy with calm erased.
The essence of life, in which I will drown.

Finally, walls, blank and opaque.
The ache of vast indifferent time.
With a failed past comes a future vague.
Measured only by its dangling decline.
Maligned touches of world-less colour.
The collar of emptiness. The forever nothing.
Blacked out details unnecessarily smothered.
A ruined illusion of caring for something.
#dream #peaceful #mountains #ocean #river
Continue reading...
998 · Feb 2016
Audience of Billions
Rowan Feb 2016
Audience of Billions
Audience of billions, billions of years old.
The blanket covering us, keeping us cold.
A veil of blue during the day.
Without being asked, you go away.

The desolate forest in the sky.
Before and beyond mortality's rate.
Watching as our lives go by.
What do you want from this endless wait?

Pathetic and empty the heavens would be.
Without your shining splendor to see.
We are the children that wish upon you.
Yet our granted pleads are far and few.

Empty, quiet, void of fear.
The perfect place for us to disappear.
#stars #space
Continue reading...
902 · Mar 2016
Pretty Great
Rowan Mar 2016
Pretty Great
So far things have been pretty great.
Not much to complain about.
Ever food upon my plate.
And yet to be blessed with gout.
I started as a little boy.
Probably crying. Who cares or knows?
Turned into a crawling bag of blood.
Ten fingers and ten toes.
A fun but forgotten formation.
With morning baths my plight.
Mountains of information.
Before a slumbered switch of light.
Sometimes sleep eluded me.
Sometimes I eluded it.
But food was always fresh and free.
Computer monitor always lit.
Avoiding smoked pressure.
As a rarely rebellious teen.
The black of my shirts a measure.  
Of the horrors I've yet to see.
Some studies, stress and cars.
Normal, expected, much like most.
Some loves, regrets and bars.
Some bacon, eggs and toast.

-----------
Or
-----------

Like the many, many others.
With ever waning health.
Untouched by a loving mother.
Not born with relative wealth.
I sleep in slums, streets and shacks.
With whole hunger in my eyes.
I live inside the calloused cracks.
Of a veiled, dirt disguise.
Today's another closing door.
Another dose of killing time.
To letters I am an underscore.
The darkest beam of sunshine.
Tomorrow seems like much the same.
More escaping to get by.
Living inside the cruelest game.
Difficulty set to high.
The transparent cloak I wear.
Has been through the coldest times.
It protects me from the stares.
Of their perfect, endless eyes.
I am nothing but these begging hands
Nothing but a will to cope.
A lack of plans and fashion brands.
The lack of a noosed hope.
#homeless #poverty #beg
Continue reading...
852 · Aug 2019
Iemand soos jy
Rowan Aug 2019
Iemand soos jy
Op hierdie aarde, groen en blou
Met torings wat die lug uit grou
In elke huis waar mens dalk bly
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In wye winkels en krom kerke
In nommers en vergete merke
Waar ryk sweef en arm lei
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In stede, woude, see en woestyn
In alles, geen, grof en fyn
In luuks, skaars, bont en plein
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In winter, lente, somer, herfs
Met albei vuur en skadu bederf
Waar ook al maan en son mag skyn
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
Waar sterre sing en sonne lag
Omring met komberse van die nag
Waar ou gode en planete gly
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In ou legendes en sprokies verhale
In dooie sang en in lewende tale
In woorde wat die hart oop sny
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In gister se groot verlate vlug
In môre se onmeetbare sug
In die nou wat ons so graag vermy
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
In slaap te dig en drome swart
In die wandel en wonder van die hart
In seer, troos, kwaad en bly
Sal ek nooit weer iemand kry soos jy
#afrikaans #love
Continue reading...
690 · Aug 2017
The Room
Rowan Aug 2017
The Room
I think through exactly nothing.
The nothing of permanent plans.
The crushing ambiance - humming.
The hereafter is held in my hands.
I am anchored in absolute anthracite.
In the travel towards a tame tomorrow.
Surrendered sight. Goodbye. Great night.
But slumber's stare I cannot borrow.

I could feel fresh and rested.  
When the sun returns to wealth.
Instead, my mirrored mind is bested.
By none other than itself.
A bucket list - boundless and long.
A billion books for each day.
The distraction of the sterile songs.
All to suspend the swarming sway.  

The daylight waits for no creature.
And prepares the slumber song.  
But darkness is a wonderful teacher.
I wish this waning clock was wrong.
As long as I have a moving mind.
In the richest and poorest of weather.
A waste in rest I'll invariably find.  
In the Neverlanded nether.

When absolutely nothing's wrong.
When Time doesn't spill its touch.
To procrastination, I belong.
Am I asking for too much?
To grow into or fade out of.
The ideal temperature and tuck.
My eyelids cannot shut enough.
Outside the celestial flow, I'm stuck.

What if I never dream again?
Uncertainty honors each night.
What if I just roll around and then,
I am welcomed to morning's light?
What if I've lost the built in will,
To even further bother?
What if no book, no bed, no pill.
Could satisfy rest's hunger?

At best, this future is now failed.
Prevailed pause to a downhill stroll.
Detailed, another mated stale.
Thumb up into the endless scroll.
Roaming legs, wakeful brain.
In this domain, I'm just a guest.
Just close your eyes and try again.
I, alone create this terrible test.

At worst, this is my nightly fate.
Renewed again and again.
Much too little, much too late.
Still, awake, I still remain.
Nothing will solve the stalemate.
Nothing can stifle this absence of thirst.
What a terrible plan to perpetuate.
What a horrible night to have a curse.

But just as I accept my due.  
I've somehow ended my eternal night.
My eyes glazed in Sandman glue.
A miraculous recovery of sight.
I awake, escaped from a sleepless doom.
But tonight I suffer the same.  
If I do not substitute something soon.  
I will only have myself to blame.
I actually sleep fine now.
#sleep #dream #bed #insomnia
Continue reading...
543 · Aug 2017
Life
Rowan Aug 2017
Life
Their strange screens sounding loudly.
With electric magic imbued.
There's a mirroring all around me.
In bordered boxes and ceilinged cubes.
We're absurd, and all advanced.
An emergence carefully compiled.
Bend in a delightful, blurred dance.
Blend into the social wild.
Life is pretty, plain and plenty.
On this nonredundant sphere.  
Even so, it's essentially empty.
An assortment of souvenirs.

Through veined paths, my blood abides.
And a beating heart repeats.
A life that comes from inside.  
A bloodful sack of meat.
The ghost in the flesh machine.
Proves a life in my pale past.
In the strange nostalgic obscene.
When I was a lesser, younger cast
There is life still to come.
Between now and the coffin.
I should sprinkle it with fun.
I should carpe this diem often.
#life #strange #humans
Continue reading...
369 · May 2023
empty spaces
Rowan May 2023
empty spaces
community of concerned silence
submerged in beautiful bliss
security through pristine violence
indulging from the precipice
a legitimized and hopeful sphere
where nostalgia is taught
tribes of the disappeared
in collective coffin cot
dirge of docile disconnect
floating in the familiar flow
gleaming life failure effect
reflected from the calming glow
an emptiness we can't describe
with closed eyes and unmade calls
we yearn for a wider inside
even when sentience crawls

a pause in the extremities
the precompiled thought exchange
warm welcome obscenities
ransacked and rearranged
inconstant conversation
with the void of sudden stares
replaced with relaxation
and the comfort of the glare
delightful streams assault the skull
sterile, safe, and bright
depleted and desperately dull
swinging sea of peppered light
the inconvenience is self-installed
the underlying illusion undone
shrink down our huffing halls
the idle universe has won

the enemy is deep within
performance of a billion waves
swallowed smiles and sheared skin
how the happy hive behaves
the veil will protect you
from unintentional dismay
regret imprinted with the hue
of a shrouded gargled gray
surprise of the vibrating static
a pain we all outgrew
signals stuttering erratic
in the calm unending queue
the awkwardness we will away
while embracing tomorrow
we can't escape a single day
of scroll of want of follow

why would we even care to change
we live like leaking taps
neatly cubed nicely contained
clinging to the collapse
the greatest source of doubt
counts steadily in the wrong direction
abandoned from within without
the violent means of introspection
calm comfortable victimhood
moments for the self to shine
a debt distinctly understood
children of the copied divine
the grind has never been as grand
to constantly be seen and heard
the perfectly designed brand
the flashing the absurd

the algorithms all agree
with the incompleteness of your thoughts
what is not yours and cannot be
the gift that can't be bought
the law of things obtained and kept
protected by the shared veneer
in the screams of squares we slept
buoyant in unconscious fear
collectively brushed aside
wisdom warped and blurred
broken rhythms often denied
desynchronizing word for word
the norm and the exception
the youthful smile reign
the stabs of asking questions
in the murmuring mundane

a looming forest fire
roams nervously in the system
flooded in the mirror's ire
both perpetrator and victim
the limbed and headed machine
will do anything for a sensation
the chance of an ideal dream
a simple moment of elation
the monuments of the worst
uniquely ignored and neglected
simultaneously blessed and cursed
meaninglessness perfected
you are the cause of your exclusion
from the well of laughs and joy
you are the smirking intrusion
that our captors now employ

into the hollow depths
we parasites in paradise
preconceptions born in breaths
the humming art in artifice
this isn't how we pictured it
but even stars fall apart
leer in rooms temporarily lit
slump into a fresh new start
the product of the insurrection
ensured in acts of war
a humble impersonation
of the lies we’ve told before
inevitability in the present tense
we comfortably comply
the taste of innate inconsequence
under a slowly sinking sky

vast but empty spaces
surrounded by white walls
severely friendly faces
abundance of eyeballs
a perfect new cliché
wearing thinly concealed scenes
a planet full of time's decay
illuminated by our screens
another day rejected
through the blank pages we pursue
the banal and the expected
from the last crumbling few
the doomed attempt to disappear
not for a lack of trying
and so the final souvenir
is the hard work in dying
Continue reading...
303 · Jan 2021
Sun Light
Rowan Jan 2021
Sun Light
Light of all lights
Tremendous treasure
Wonderfully bright
Cyclical measure
Beams of a king
Twinkling center
Warmth that stings
Biological inventor

Thermal life
Luminescence east
Day full of strife
A temporary lease
Slow red death
Cold setting west
Heated breath
Winter's chest

Constant burn
Behind the clouds
Orbital churn
Of planets round
Certain tomorrow
Brand new start
Galvanizing glow
Insulated heart

Father and mother
Nature and crown
Scorching lover
Setting down
Brightest eye
Plasma sphere
Radiant blue sky
Violent veneer
#sun #light
Continue reading...

— The End —