i don't test well

By Ian Bowden

i have never tested well, and early i did find
that all my smart friends went to learn and i was left behind
to luther'n school i was enrolled with fellow kids in christ
hard work each day with memory hid therein a price
unwittingly i sold my soul for knowledge and for skill
to get it back i found in time that i would have to kill
not to murder mortal men nor slay a beast in kind
yet dare lay waste to inner self and nevermore be blind
a new mindset within this flesh, a ghost within the shell
but never can i shake the fear, ingrained in me, of Hell

published 2003 by Creative Communication, Inc.

A Typical Morning

I open one eye and lift up my head
I look at the clock and it fills me with dread.
The numbers shout six, zero, and five
a half hour to go I'm not sure I'll survive.
I fall back asleep in a minute or so
only to wake up in a LED glow.

It's six thirty now, and I have to prepare
for the long day ahead I will need some school wear.
I grab my orange sweatshirt and throw it right on
it goes over my head and then I am gone.
I grab Dad's cold toast as I run out the door
leaving a notebook alone on the floor.

At the end of my driveway I realize my error
the thought of what I've done fills me with terror.
"I forgot my poem!" I admonish myself
it must have been left up on my bookshelf.

I run back down the driveway with leaps and great bounds
then search my room desperately looking around.
And suddenly it hits me like a pile of lead
it's Saturday morning so I fall back in bed.

Ian Bowden
Traverse City West Jr High School
Traverse City
Grade 9

Thusly, Ever Thusly

By Ian Bowden

trudge and tramp and trek and toil
grit and dirt through the mountain pass
beneath our boots, we move the earth
sloth and pain, our sins repaid
chains, raw skin, caked blood, red soot
bobbing torchlight points the way
stars eddy apart, the peaks too tall
cutting through sky, a branch in the river
valleys as caves and slopes as cliffs
enslaved by the roof of the world
tasked to turn her till eternity

not a limerick

By Ian Bowden

all teachers will know
dr seuss and ed poe
are among poets who don't write good poetry
but i'm of the mind
if you can make each word rhyme
you know more than the teachers who claim knowetry

of the limerick it is claimed
the rhyme scheme is too plain
the sonorous charm wears too thin in recitation
i will wholeheartedly agree
such poetry just should not be
and in its place i write this aural masturbation

As Engraved into the obsidian stone of Brünhaerdt's Tomb:

A world without gods
led by words without souls
Lives in the minds
Of all us fools

Old Nod Note

By Ian Bowden

Old Nod Note's next election vote was coming in the month of may
Nod's last hope was a six foot rope for each ballot gone astray
Old Nod's knights thought him none too bright and their votes wouldn't swing his way
Nod knows now no knights never knew Nod knew no knights never nay

The Wording Hour

By Ian Bowden

In the Wording Hour, so long and cold
The Wordsmith makes his rounds
He carries light his tomes of old
And brandishes his sounds

He forms and reforms in refrain
At forge that glows so bright
No ill his sentences contain
They float through air at night

Indescribable, the Wordsmith's work
For those not of his ilk
Ability in his hands doth lurk
To turn words into silk

No word known is beyond his grasp
No form beyond his power
A wordsmithing hammer in his clasp
He writes The Wording Hour