Thanatos on a Southland Freeway

By Jack Bowman

In Thanatos on a Southland Freeway the reader senses a range of dark, brooding cloud poems on the horizon, and as the wind blows each moves overhead and deposits its contents on the reader below. A sense of interesting dread and a mysterious forest of words attempt to lure the reader in, and keeps him there trapped.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 12, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469768199

Jack Bowman

Jack Bowman was born in 1962 to a working class family in southwestern Ohio, but soon moved to southern California where he lives today. The changes in subculture as well as the 'spirit of the times' affected his writing and philosophy. Jack graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in behavioral science, and from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena with a Master of Arts degree in marriage, family and child counseling in 1997. His work in the mental health field since 1984, as well as his own admittedly bizarre life experiences, figure prominently in his poetry and prose. Jack is an intern/therapist with at-risk youth and their families in the Los Angeles area. He has been a published poet since 1991.

Book preview

Excavation

Help disguises itself in dark robes and hands

which fold in prayer

small beings on the verge of growth

kneel and whisper to a great deity

Miles away bones are unearthed

betray the past; teeth, spine, tarsals

of the terrible lizard

two worlds crash

one a tale, the other a collection of facts

The priest wipes the dirt from his hands

has faith, yet wonders

what truth will be revealed.

Halo Around the Moon

She watches us each night

even when she can’t be seen

her cold dry seas and craters

seem so alive from this distance

She is there when we walk along Earthly shores

and dream the alchemy of love

She reflects in the eyes and

lights pathways in our darkened forests

it is no mystery why the ancients

worshipped her

far more than stone

or a soft light in the sky.

Poetic Paradoxes

1.

A person suffers, they endure painful change

and disastrous events

they then create, as a way of processing their

conflicts

as they grow as artists

they will, at some point, be rejected

misunderstanding, despair,

all the more reason, to create

2.

The wealthy of this culture

allow their offspring

the luxury of creating art...

so that the art is good.

they send them to the studios and schools

of the tortured

and misunderstood.

3.

You create when the muse strikes

you can control what you create

even how, but not

when

or necessarily why.

4.

The expectation of outsiders is to place

the artist in a box, a circus animal

who can’t afford their own

expression.

—for James

The Majority

Colors of paint splash on walls of antique white

in the neighborhood

shades of brown merge and blend

as fear turns to smiles, turns

to fear and returns

In the workplace, scales shift

disrupt the balance

then level off

where it never has before

Cabinets and Congress

begin to brown

bread in the oven

still raw in the middle

yet, they rise

colors spill onto the street

blend into a slow moving stream

head toward a common destination

Colorado Blvd.

In the aftermath of the great parade

streets sound hollow

wind whistles around the corners of buildings

closed for the day

On each thoroughfare

ghosts march in a close procession

barely seen and heard, there, just the same

they carry the weight of the thousands before them

never returned from their patriotic acts

wars, conflicts and aggressions

against the rage of humanity

From this day on

time speeds in frantic motion

toward the next event

the next war

the next

Parade

‘Tis the Season

Home, a concept

a dream of family memories

a fantasy world of pretend relationships

surrounded ornaments and decor

shopping, venture consumers

advertisements in August color, coming in handy

religious overtones drowning out carolers

on Everystreet USA

pretense, passionless faces roaming the malls

and tree lots

an observer strains to hear the heart sounds

of a nation beating itself senseless

led by a little drummer boy

Chicago Hotel

Soto St. Los Angeles, in the rain

the Chicago Hotel stands as it has for

almost a century faces come and