Author: Gordon S. Bowman III

Writer, Visual Artist, Blogger, Advocate

Getting Older

Growing up is a fateful journey,

Full of both joy and despair,

With yearning for a sense of completeness

And sometimes a wish for escape.

I wish I could spend more time

With my family and friends, but

Somehow life seems to get in the way.

Everything from irritable bowels to

A toilet overflowing and flooding several rooms—

From a new job as an administrative assistant

To my wife taking classes at the local community college—

It’s always something.

But as time passes,

I will grab that opportunity to touch base,

Even if just with a note or a phone call.

As I get older, and especially,

As my nieces and nephews get older,

Time seems to fly by and becomes

Much more precious.

Decisions become a challenge, sometimes,

And dates and times seem to crowd in

From every angle.

Oh, if I could only go back!

What I would do differently.

Tea

Beep toward years of comfortable ennui in twin champagne glasses on a tabletop tennis championship fruitcake anniversary gel tank top candy bar. Weep onto the thoroughfare in cowboy boots spray painted with blue and pink. Lovely lasagna breezeway Cadillac tea underneath crinkle cut potatoes with lots of ketchup dangling from the rooftop in a potted plant.

Ralph

Goliath seeps through puddle macaroni headsets in columbine zebra moves. Calculating, zero time capsules come together on Indian southern pacifist kangaroo tarantula knowledge levels. Belief, sacks of wool, Ralph rude tangled toothpaste tubes and variety show realization wonderful weaves come across the TV as confetti populism creature films.

Knot

Amen to the Leroy concupiscence leaning on the everlasting farmhands ritualize breathing treatments overwhelming transistor radio days in the middle of a sanctimonious seizure on three barstools love on soap sprinkles of chocolate glee in mocha syrup to make it not so likely Reynolds wrap teasing on glossy rainbow tantrums never to behold a cascading weekly docket of solid rear trap nickel queens believing not

Breathe Up

Anniversary pickles dream myopic Transylvanians. Honestly, predicaments bring salt and textual amphibians. Sellers transfuse blabber mouth orangutans. Christological suntan beefcakes travel above glaciers and alligators moronically speaking. Can two deep Texan chowder breath stultifying cyber linguists connect inside a medium high shower candle? Neat. Breathe up.

All

Face frog fans phone types ineligible for fancy flows. Do you like Mikey Renfroes? Friends following end zone Pointdexters, caveman blues in zero Fallopian tubes. Can you make it to the fresh leaves, the crumpled laundry heads, the screaming tattered nudes. Leave me here—I don’t want to go with you to the Who’s Who in Animal Training All Over the World. Blue, blue: 24 Blue! Jack jumped into the blue Oldsmobile in jalopy jeans until the fallen green hell surfers die.

Mercy

Alone, but not alone.

God waits behind the curtain–

Or is it I that wait on God?

We wait on each other, then,

In a sort of waltz together,

Taking one step forward,

And one step back,

Rotating in circles,

Never completely meeting.

Oh, how my heart yearns

To connect to the holy one!

Like a child yearns

To be held by its mother,

So I crave the loving arms

Of my Creator.

My prayers of desperation

Fall down into the abyss.

My prostrate body

Aches with loneliness and pain

Of rejection and betrayal.

I must continue

To remain faithful,

But my soul is so weary.

How my enemies mock me,

Lord of All, please,

Be merciful.