SHE IS A WOMAN
by James Evan Gates
Impermanence
Stop what you are doing and take a nap.
Your bed is calling. The rain is falling.
Our long and arduous expedition has come to an end.
Be at peace with it. We shared a piece of it.
Let your thoughts descend like an anvil through a cloud,
racing to the ground, never to be found.
You are free from the spinning material world,
all the flickering lights, all the blustering heights.
The end of nothing is the beginning of everything.
It is a reason to kneel, not a broken wheel.
Do not wave goodbye to someone you have never met.
Wave bonjour instead. Language is in your head.
Take your enemy’s hand and give yourself a pat on the back
before it is too late. We will not commiserate.
I love you. I love you. I love you, and thank you.
She Is a Woman
She is a woman.
She is everything I will never be.
She is a woman,
a figment of reverie.
She has bruises on her long white legs
and an overabundance of little eggs.
She is always late for an affair,
and I cannot help but stare.
She is a woman.
She is everything I will never be.
She is a woman,
a fountain of equity.
With Southern grace she can charm
every hairy muscled arm
that seeks her warm embrace
and a tender glance from her tender face.
She is a woman.
She is everything I will never be.
She is a woman,
a victim of therapy.
What kind of creature is this
that my mind cannot dismiss?
What ancient magic is brewing
when ancient love is renewing?
She is a woman.
She is everything I will never be.
She is a woman,
a speaker of heresy.
About the Author:
James Evan Gates is an educator, musician, philosopher, poet and visual artist from Alexandria Louisiana. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Louisiana Tech University in 2008 and 2010. Evan teaches studio art at the Avoyelles Public Charter School in Mansura Louisiana. He lives in Mansura with his wife Morgana, son Oliver and daughter Naomi. Evan enjoys Christian theology as articulated by Søren Kierkegaard, the poetry of T. S. Eliot, the novels of Hermann Hesse, the paintings of Gil Elvgren, the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, the comedy of Conan O’Brien, the music of Prince Rogers Nelson, the cultural criticisms of Camille Paglia, the economic criticisms of Thomas Sowell, the logotherapy of Viktor Frankl and the application of Jungian archetypes by Jordan Peterson.