My Goddesss
translated into Arabic by Fethi Sassi of Tunisia
©2018 Stefan Bohdan

COUNTING SHEEP

I thirst for water
in a paradise of fire
I am so parched
I seek the seven seas
in every grain of sand
I am too weak
to shake the date palm
so I eat
the fallen fruit
giving me visions
of kingdoms
and last days
of the world to come
and my own death
weigh heavy upon my soul
the angels astray
revealed to me
death
is the opposite of
Resurrection
in this dreamland
I can see
I am a pile of bones
buried in a desert’s mirage
counting sheep

©2018 Stefan Bohdan

counting sheep
digital art
500 x 665 pixels
©2018

SMOKED A JOINT
LACED WITH
AFRICAN ROOT SHAVINGS
AND ANGEL DUST

So stoned
think I’m swallowing my tongue
think I’m having a heart attack
think I’m pissing myself
think I’m dying
think I’m not going to make it
think think think think think
think I’m thinking too much
hallucinations
Picasso’s sucking me off
sucking the marrow from my bone
the hemispheres of my brain
divided by a cocaine razor blade
I kissed God’s closed eyes
now I’m having visions
the sun is fucking with me
shining in my eyes
every direction my head turns
I ate her Persian triangle like a juicy pomegranate
and she loved it
images of you inside my mind
fading into bone white as skull
we have become one
random thoughts
life is an infinite haiku
my mind a mosaic of broken thoughts
my spinal cord is made of macrame
the geometry of my skull reveals
I’m emotionally retarded
yet a genius polymath
my slow stoned movements
an interpretative dance
of the Russian cosmonaut
floating in space
the most beautiful creature
I have ever seen
lives in the desert valley
none of this
is making any sense
to me
brain damage
I dream in haikus
nightmares of yellow butterflies
rust falling from the stars
prayers rising from my head
my tears run like watercolors
my blood circulating like tie-dye
the gay bar piano is tuning me out
music stretching and contracting without origin
moving too slow
thinking I’m moving too fast
my horizon tilting and overturning
my world spinning off axis
spinning the wrong way out of control
spinning spinning spinning spinning spinning
falling falling falling falling falling
time jerky
moving in tiny increments
tripping out

from God’s Breath
©2018 Stefan Bohdan

smoked a joint
digital art
736 x 500 pixels
©2018

FLOATER

Strange fish
a colorful mosaic
of metallic scales and fins
reflecting golden hues
across patina-colored flesh
full of open wounds
exposing silver bones
echoing prison bars
drowned out in
a sky-blue ocean
as salty as
a wet dream
spewing syphilitic visions
from anatomically incorrect
coin-covered eyes
like two dead pools
weeping gonorrhea-green lust
through worn-out glory holes
heaven realized
happy tears dripping down
upon you and me
hell realized
sad tears dripping down
upon life and death
the floater floats above us
like a bloated corpse
dripping its incurable disease
into the contagious breeze . . .
O strange fish
the symbol of death
you make this life bittersweet!

©2018 Stefan Bohdan

floater
photography
911 x 500 pixels
©2018

YELLOW BUTTERFLY

Cocoon head
larva mind
chrysalis thoughts squirming
fluttering
like angry wings
escaping silky dreams
my nightmare born

from God’s Breath
©2018 Stefan Bohdan

yellow butterfly
photography
782 x 500 pixels
©2018

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I am a self-taught author, poet, artist, draftsman, sculptor and photographer. I have no
inspiration to create, more of an internal urge to create–an urge that must be realized.
The arts I have chosen to pursue are the arts that I am not gifted in. This is the
challenge for me: to achieve success artistically–where there should have been a
failure. My latest poetry collection, God’s Breath (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), along
with all of my other poetry collections, anthologies, novellas and novels, can be found
on my Amazon author page (link below).

Favorite authors: Dostoevsky, Orwell and Rand.
Favorite poets: Hafez and Rumi.
Favorite artists: da Vinci and Picasso.
Favorite architects: Wright and Pei.
Favorite composers: Bach and Handel.

Stefan Bohdan lives in Orlando, Florida with his wife Margaret.

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Stefan Bohdan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lived in Jamaica and Iran, and
has traveled the world. He currently lives in Central Florida with his wife Margaret and
their Giant Schnauzer, Standard Schnauzer, Mini Schnauzer, and Affenpinscher. He is
the father of five adult children: three females and two males. He is also a grandfather.

Stefan has been a construction laborer, a land/road surveyor, an estimator, a manual
draftsman, a CADD technician, a designer for state/national/international architectural
and engineering and construction firms, a licensed building contractor, and has owned
his own business designing custom homes. He has been a community college student
who received his AA degree, and is a university dropout: a former student of computer
engineering.

Stefan enjoys creating abstract drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs. He
also enjoys writing unorthodox poetry, philosophy, screenplays, short stories, and dark
novels. Some of his favorite authors include Dostoevsky, Orwell, and Rand. He loves
collecting and reading Russian literature and dystopian novels: the older the better.

Retired from the architectural/engineering/construction world, Stefan now spends his
days and nights writing novels, off-center stories, and unorthodox poems on his iMac:
while guzzling sugary coffee nonstop and jamming and convulsing wildly to The Cure.
He is currently working on his next masterpiece.

His poems have been published in multiple books, anthologies, journals, e-zines–
and translated into Persian (Farsi), Arabic, Urdu, Nepali, Estonian, French and
old Japanese.

Stefan can be contacted via facebook or email: [email protected]

Stafan Bohdan’s Books on Amazon
Stefan Bohdan’s God’s Breath
Interview with Stefan Bohdan
Another interview with Stefan Bohdan
Stefan Bohdan on Facebook

author photo by
Peggy Bogden
©2016