Ken Dowen

Suburban Poems Ken Dowen

"Suburban Poems" are autobiographical poems covering the mid-sixties, the Vietnam era, through the eighties. Some poems are sarcastic, satirical, ironic and naive. For some, senseless childhood "wars" in the apple orchard morphed into the senseless reality of the War in Vietnam. For this poet, this experience was part of the journey. "Look-a-likes", about the author and his boyhood friend, Earl, "We were enemies for senseless reasons...flicking those mushy, brown and hard green apples off each other's heads..."In just a few years, "the green skins of our sour youth turned rot red, ripe and blue..."And we, "...joined the army together under the delusion we'd both outgrown something."Other poems are, Congo Church, Formerly Westborough, Hypes Of A Modern Poet, Look-a-likes, Philosophers, Remember, Utopia and Eulogy.""Jack, my friend, was sucked through his trumpet in the heat of his young breath one spring afternoon and my watch ticked on... And the buses ran on schedule."