Down with Bowne (The Uncut Version)

A sonnet to my then girlfriend, Mary Jane, in 1994. Married in 1995.

A sonnet to my then girlfriend, Mary Jane, in 1994. We were married in 1995. Cheers!

A short poem for my wife, Mary Jane, during this busy time of her life.

Happy Every Day, Madeline, Five, Twenty-Five, or Eighty-Five

A sonnet for Mary Jane on the rock where I proposed

A poem for my daughter Nancy.

IN MEMORY OF MY GRANDFATHER, RICHARD GOLDHAHN

Walking in Windermere without Wordsworth with three lasses. Cover photo by the author. Lake Windermere, UK. 1990.

Changes need to happen in order not to become post-literate. Are we creating life-long readers? Or life-long haters of reading?

Intervening in the conflict between predator and the innocent

A Sensual Education: The Father Who Falsely Thought He Had It All Figured Out. Music by Music by Daddy_s_Music from Pixabay. And cover art: Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Wikipedia Commons.

The varied blooms resemble water lilies — floating on liquid air.

And other lessons for keeping your garden and lawn fresh and organic

Another Day in Room 605. This was the prompt from my Editor In Chief, Alanna Stein. Music by Daddy_s_Music. Pixabay. Music by

Captive Voice is Not Free. Foolishly filling the hole with three lies.

Drilling in America: The lesson for class changed once the announcement was made.

Tale the First: A serialised, satirical novel of Americans on a European tour.

This is the opening for satirical novel, Overland to the World, a collection of interrelated tales about Americans on a European coach holiday, which has been published in serialised form on Medium. As a pretentious and affected Anglophile, I purposely used the “s” instead of the “z.”

"An hour passed. I remained inside the red Kia Sorento on the sandy drive of The Aunt’s ‘double wide deluxe’ trailer house.

In that hour, I reconstructed the collapse of my universe, including our arrival in the States at Philadelphia International. Why no Littleman kin there to greet us? Did they lack propriety?

A storm had been brewing, but no rain — only winds and ominous, threatening skies direct from King Lear — my mum’s favorite play.

On the drive, we passed The Town Tavern — the parking lot jammed with motorbikes. There were no “pubs” in America, The Father told me.

Was that racist? Not only offensive but archaic?"

"I was the first to arrive at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My ramblings were over. From London, BritRail rushed me north with my battered hunter-green backpack with as many books as clothes and dirty underwear.

That color had faded in the Mediterranean sun. Had I faded, too, from weeks of traveling? Was I ready to study?

I settled into Lovaine Flats (Flat 10. Room 3). My fine custodian, both caretaker and mother, was Lorraine. I made her my specialty: Chicken Hawaiian over rice.

A few things were hard to find in Northern England. Like pineapple. The plates and silverware came from an expensive store in Eldon Square, like Macy’s. What did I know? Thirty years later, I still have them."

This map hangs proudly in our “map room” of our family room. The different colored pins chart the places we have been as a family and as single explorers

A satirical novel about a London lad in serialised form.

With the spare change in my trousers, I made a copy of Emily’s letter. One day I hope to publish “The Collected Correspondence of Thaddeus Littleman.”

Would such an audience exist for innocent and pretentious musings? Who would ever purchase such poppycock?

The Waterford Library was a bright oasis — inside — with new, earth-toned rugs, fresh paint, almost mauve, with comfy, cushioned chairs for reading by the windows — with four orange chairs around a circular table, laminated and clean. I’m writing now in the Study Room. For writing, sometimes I love sound — like the bustle of a London coffee house — and other times, like now, I want to be sealed away from the world and pain.

It’s sound proof, in here. I hear my thoughts reverberate on the narrow walls, like a being living confined to a coffin. Or a monk in a dorm, copying the Word for readers that will one day exist, long after death; a light in the darkness; a quill in hand, hands stained in ink, creating in long hand on dried, stretched lamb’s skin what will eventually be called Times New Roman. The candle burning — the light, ambient enough, the wax collecting like a queer stalagmite on the writing table.

A medieval link to the modern world. Art in Darkness. Oxygen in a sea of brainless sea anemones — minus the colors vibrant.

The outside of the Waterford Library was a different story — it was, perhaps, the only place alive in a strip mall dead or near-death stores — including a market that had once been called “Murphy’s.” It would have been brilliant to have a market for fresh produce so close!

There are ‘lunks’ here at the gym, but we have to conceal our ‘shameful’ identity

And because we have to stay secretive, we don’t feel in a ‘safe place’ — even with the silent eye stares from grannies and grandpas who are trying to stay in shape — and alive. And I say, ‘God bless us — every one — even ‘the lunks,’ and even ‘Tiny Tim!’

Literary magazines beg authors to return to writing for free.

We noticed you have not submitted any poems or short fiction on Submittable to us with the required $25 reading fee. We really miss those fees. Well, as the reader, I really miss those fees. Can you blame me? Can you picture such an erudite and ambitious guy like me working at Dollar General?

Heck, I’m publishing one of the best literary magazines in the Dakota Territories — and I can’t do that for free. I know. I know. It took us — me — and my tatted biker BF, like — what? A year to get back to you regarding those delightfully mediocre poems you sent us?

I may even have the time to offer a line of criticism, for you to consider. And when I do publish you in The Prairie Dog Digest — circulation 500 and growing— I promise to send you a copy that you can print and give to your boyfriend and mom, depending on where you get the chapbook published.

Best,
DeAnna deGruntë
Editor

PS: You haven’t been writing for Medium, have you?

Gunnen: Dutch: Finding happiness in someone’s happiness because you love them so much. First published on Paper Poetry. 

"To awake before the dawn seems foolish —
But it’s the early nurseryman who wins
While the shadows on the vines seem ghoulish;
The vines this morning seem like twisted strings —
And the red berries hide in the moonlight,
Shielded beneath the enclosures of green;
But bashful, not, is the color scarlet;
I seek my breakfast before your dawn’s flight
Like prowlers upon the scene, routine,
Like a game, we aim for the same target."

"O, for that flavor tart we both adore —
The night cools the raspberries with blessings;
At least within my shelter I can store —
But that nectar serves as your dressings —
As I would address a bowl of salad.
But I’ve grown tired of this morning game —
The seeds don’t settle well in my belly!
The sun conducts a vivace ballad —
A thrilling trill of vines we each can claim;
Can I, at least, harvest some for jelly?"

Unlike the finches, I am not afraid
Of you as you sit on the patio
You made to mind; you harbored in the shade;
For this feast, you know, you’re fine, Daddy-O!
Don’t you relish how I hang upside down?
And I’m in heaven, already, today!
No technology makes me a machine!
And need I gas to fly around town?
Do I owe any dude a debt to pay?
“I’m a catbird. But please call me Eugene!”

You know, these slender barbed stalks don’t sting me
Like they nettle you. Is that why you ceased?
I know you have a wife, man, where is she?
During my feast, I delight you, at least.
For why would you ponder there all alone
With never any artificial sound
To cover my musings to you, my friend?
We each, right, seem to know something unknown?
Something profound planted here in the ground?
Dangling on the vine where we both depend?

How you warble, Gene, for moving water!
O! how you squawk for the bird bath refilled!
O! how like that of, then, my young daughter!
Both! O! how they thrilled! How they chilled, spilled!
You love the natural water from the drum,
Sans chlorine from the plastic garden hose.
Yes, and then you frolic and roll and shake —
My daughters would water dance until numb!
Glowing blue with rapturous joy to their toes!
The cold lake would snap anything awake.

You’re awake, of course, now while I’m asleep.
I have trouble drowsing due to unease.
At times, at night, I wander in too deep.
My bed takes on water from inner seas;
But then I think of you — your happiness —
And I recall jumping from the Crow’s Nest —
Leaping from Dad’s boat on the Chesapeake —
That boy again in all his flashiness!
And the decades seem they have never left.
With such faith, I could fly to any peak!

In despair and lonely, and devoid of culture, Thaddeus Littleman, 12, writes a missive to his lady love, Emily, back in London.

As soon as Thaddeus Littleman arrives in Atco, New Jersey with his American father from London, after the death of his British mum, Thaddeus experiences life in America the way he always feared: getting shot at by The Cousin with a paintball gun. This is a satirical, serialized novel. Enjoy.

How I re-enacted George Orwell’s fable with my daughters.

Gunnen: Dutch: Finding happiness in someone’s happiness because you love them so much

A short review on one amazing story of young love.

Isolated in three distinct sections, three characters run in the opposite direction of happiness. "At the end of the short story from Dubliners, the last story James Joyce devotes to adolescence, the slim girl of nineteen, Polly Mooney, hears her mother, the Madam, call from downstairs..."

Composed in the youth of my irrational exuberance at 22 in 1992. 

A writing lesson turned into a lesson about dying and living

Dan Norbury and Walter Bowne, beer dudes and book dudes, begin their series called Flights of Fancy. In Part I, Dan and Walter drink a fine stout, Gravity Road from Forgotten Boardwalk in Cherry Hill , NJ. They also discuss Robert Bly's influential book on the tale from the Grimm Brothers: "Iron Hans" and male initiations.

Applying Rhetoric to Your Writing. Hey there. Walter Bowne here. So. ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ and the ‘Preface’ to Dorian Gray. Fantastic piece, right? Oscar Wilde added the Preface after he received so much heat and hate for the late Gothic and philosophical novella. A deep dive into the work: Enough context, right? I’ll use rhetorical terms for you to know and understand and also use in your own writing. Application is everything. Photo by the author of Wilde's grave in Paris.