the Writings of Johnathan Lee Gower
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Cannot Let Go the Desire
 
There is no escape.
I’m not a small town boy living or having lived in a lonely world.
I’ve never taken a midnight train—anywhere (though that sounds cool).
Never been to Detroit…but I’ve been to Dearborn.
 
What I long for isn’t escape,
What I want isn’t a fast car or a dead end drive,
I want to be within.
 
It’s said God is outside time.
Our existence is printed on a flat sheet of paper…
that can be looked down upon…beginning to end…
everything.
 
I want to BE like God IS,
existing in a moment
that stretches forever.
But feels…
Perfect.
Succinct.
 
I’ve had those moments…
In the full, enveloping embrace of my lover…
High over the island of Maui in a doorless helicopter, careening down and sideways…
Surging violently back into the seat of my car as I rocket up a hill and hurl--
tight
a-r-o-u-n-d…
the next corner.
(I’m laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming)
 
The perfect moment,
is a drug.
I cannot let go the desire
 
 
 
May 24, 2020; Sunday.
5:25 A. M.


Indecision’s Breath
 
Slips away, whether pushed or sucked.
Passes by whether seen or not.
Disappears whether in smoke or light.
Time delights in not sticking around.
 
When do you force a mistake?
How do you know it’s right to fail?
When success doesn’t matter…
      enough to ensure it?
 
Can you always live with a failure,
      or the fallout from catastrophe?
Do some things bury you—forever--
      deeper than depression?
More permanently than a gunshot--
      to the skull?
 
So how do you know it’s time…
 
To jump from the edge
      down from the knife’s edge
            the towering cliffs…
                  more than high enough up
                        for the fall to kill
 
before the bottom is even reached?
 
Somehow…
 
When it becomes inevitable.
When it cannot be any other way.
When there are no options.
When there is no choice.
When the end is come.
And it really is
“The End”
 
Delay is indecision’s breath.
Feel, think, act.
Whatever the fallout is,
It’s the new air you must breathe.


August 25, 2019; Sunday.
3:03 A. M.
Is Joy

A light, glimmering just a moment, is enough
if in the glow I can, even just
make out the periphery . . .
the silhouette of
you.

A breath, in the suffocating darkness of
this void of a world, may be
too much to ask but
could you
please?

A touch, tenderly this scorched flesh . . .
though dark, everything burns,
and ashes reside where
the soul
should.

A glow from your eyes,
A breath from your lungs,
A touch from your spirit,

Is joy.


July 1, 2014; Sunday.
1:37 A. M.


Wouldya Shouldya

Would comes before
Could and
Can is the question I ask.
Want is desire that drives the
Do . . . the interaction of courage and initiative.
Success is in the back-breaking
Attempt--even if the result is
Failure.

Don’t create tomorrow’s regrets.


May 3, 2014; Saturday.
10:58 A. M.


A Beaten Dog
(a Villanelle)

I sneer, my upper lip curling back in disgust
how many self-loathing  entities exist
the rending of my own flesh is a never aging lust

pulsating and dying, ripped from my chest was trust
deserving of no more  and no less
I sneer, my upper lip curling back in disgust

to delve so deep, enjoy this misery I must
self-depreciating in the least,  the reality’s often more
the rending of my own flesh is a never aging  lust

the bone’s been bared and the skins a dried crust
everything visible  leaving open the honestly profane
I sneer, my upper lip curling back in  disgust

disappointing my notions are vomited and flushed
my self-poisoning venom is not unlike everyone’s
the rending of my own flesh is a never aging lust

I’m worse than the beaten dog that returns hushed
knowing it’s done wrong  to exist
I sneer, my upper lip curling back in disgust
the rending of my own flesh is a never aging lust



June 17, 2008; Tuesday.
12:44 A. M.
A Shovel and Hope

I’ve got a dust shovel outside my front door,
down the porch steps, leaning against a deck-box.
Its black blade bites deep into the thick lichen  of
past memories and dreamful ambitions.
It displaces well the thin and wispy, tendril-like roots of
dismay and loss . . . .

But its use requires effort.
And it’s no back-saver.

Oh, yes, and it stirs up that which it disturbs--
It’s up to the user to find the most effective way to
settle that which rises cloudlike into the air and chokes.

To disturb the past, to displace loss,
To cover the bare and naked and vulnerable wood . . .
The wet protectant of hope is the only choice
of serious life-builders.

And it’ll repel dust.








January 1, 2006; Sunday.
2:38 A. M.


Alone

so, so . . . so alone and endlessly so
ever, ever . . . forever along the road
            no vanishing point in sight.
down, down . . . fallen has the light and
darkness, dimness, blackened by burning
            hollowed out echoing hearts
                        beat the pathway past, past
                                    long gone beyond the freight of . . .

so, so . . . so alone and endlessly so
ever, ever . . . forever along the road
            no vanishing point in sight
down, down . . . fallen has the light and
darkness, dimness, blackened by burning
            hollowed out echoing hearts
                        beat the pathway past, past
                                    long gone beyond the freight of
                                                alone, lone.


 



January 25, 2011; Tuesday.
2:21 A. M.
I Am To You

I am the father of unborn expectations,
            ending what never began,
            lies birthing promises’ libation.
I am the occasional salt in your veins,
        Raising the pressure of your blood,
        and hemorrhage violently within your pain.
I am retroactive hindsight,
        going endlessly back to nowhere,
        accomplishing nothing, bringing night.
I am the well of darkness overflowing,
        your shackled feet are plunged within.
        Down you sink, the bottom never knowing.











  

Fall 2010.

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