Underneath the anger, there are tears. Beneath the fury, there is hurt, a river
of affliction - the day that possibility evaporated. I knew, the moment
it was gone. Telos obscured, like a mist, had left me.

Frost in February, morning at the local coffee house, perseverating, sedate
in privatized, cogitations - certainty dissolves into irony, the transient
collective with predictable cadence and singular objective. Borrowed
energies - preferred anesthetic in defiance of the placid, quotidian horror.

Angst wrapped in skin, clothed in remorse, like a muslin coat unable
to keep me warm, the palette of truculence, dislocated savant,
with guarded aversion - faces enucleating in tacit harmony, the muted tragedy
of the forgotten.

Yoked, the metaphorical satchel, freighted with the sentient debris, sifting
the fuckage, memoirs of failure, privation of venture and honor, objectified as
mere portent. [Existence] - the daily riot, becomes the necessary crucible.

Dissonance and detachment resonate the cultural banality, [being] displaced
by icon; [branding], ideas about ideas, life several times removed,
emblem over essence.

Existential renegade, exploiting the counter intuitive, the paradigmatic prodigal,
favor squandered, in the absonant passage, bearing fruit of the undone.

Bones of contention lament, interminably, like a false friend, present in absence,
perceived in the lack, subtraction, slip-stream - the disheveled
palaver of the broken.

Acutely self referential, misery enfleshed, its own reward, a post-war
discontent inhabiting sorrow, compressed and narrow, begetting
apathy in springtime.

Commodity of youth, the currency of beauty -permuted, commerce of the
ethereal and diaphanous. Human caprice, post-modern fog,
the flattened self,
the enemy of us is us, drowning in the decorum of narcissism.
the fattened calf,
immolating on the sword of autonomy.

Recycled grief, a recursive loop of gestating thoughts, marinating fluidly
within the interpretive grid. Confessional cyber community - exposed wounds
and concrete suffering, abstracted from virtual solidarity, refracted through a
reductive sentimentality, maybe they will ‘like’ it.

Iconoclast in exile, inhaling the incense of barrenness , surrounded by synoptic
drivel in understated - present tenses - alight in the now, axial axioms of the privileged,
who genuflect to the god of unfettered freedom.

Peripatetic intervals of isolation, self-imposed, hidden in a sanctuary of derision,
colliding with immutable otherness , the waters of chaos, calm.
The proleptic display, announcing eschatology. An ancient text written on the interior
expressed in myth and narrative the courier. The carnal and cerebral
arise, rightly flourishing.

Sense thresholds stirring, surprise and turbulence, reverberations of altered
domains merging - the temporal and ubiquity, the indissolubly resplendent
inversion - the invisible made visible. Opaque intrigues subsumed into the
balm of reconciliation - the first shall be last…

©2012 W.S. Warner

These words, dripping from my touch
Keyboard struck by a force beyond me
I call you in, into these words
To reach the hearts of the souls you quench for

My heart--
So tender, it's been marinating
In a deep sea of grief
So many months
Lost at sea

This tenderness, a stranger
Im learning to love him
Longing when he's gone
For that sweet, soft pain
Of my wet and tender heart

La Ratita Presumida
“... y sentia muy feliz. Pero al terminar, el gato se lanzo sobre ella para comer se la. La Ratita lorgo escaper y aprendio a no fiarse de la aparencias”

Generally speaking, the most romantic matters take place beneath the moonlight. It shone down on the city of Barcelona that night with a certain intention, a mysterious plan. She went out for a cigarette, or a “thought” as she liked to think of it, her soul already marinating in a bottle of cheap, red wine.  She let the moonlight pour its possibilities upon her skin as she exhaled into the night.

It was this recipe:
¾ bottle of red wine,
1 pack of Marlboro Lights,
a pinch of red lipstick and
a dash of moony-mist  

on the dimly lit terrace that started it all.

Just then, a tall, blondish, smart looking guy walked into the room. She felt as though she could see the weight of his brain sitting in his head. Almost visible were the synapses firing within.

He spoke so smoothly, in a comforting, southern accent.
His words cast visions of sunsets,
surrounding her
in an unfamiliar, yet soothing
warmth.
She drew closer.
His southern spark lit her cigarette and
with that flick of the match,
an immediate magic ignited between them.

They spoke of Matthew Macconaughy, death and anxiety... death by anxiety, art and music and love and lust.

lovelustlovelustlovelustlostlove

“Just come with me,” he said,  “I’m not expecting anything... we’ll get brunch!” , he said. Ooooooh that’s a mighty word there, “BRUNCH”.

“Brunch”,
A word capable of bringing this girl,
to her knees
~the birds and the bees~
she left with him.
                                                              ..­.

“You had me at ‘brunch’.”
They took a cab to his shoebox-sized flat in Gracia, “the best neighbourhood of Barcelona by far”. They linked lips, caressed, clutched each other’s flesh and faded into one as the sun began to rise.
                                                           ­   ...
The sun came beating through the dungeon –like windows of the shoebox-shaped room. The laundry hanging outside-as it must in this city- cast shadows across their naked skin. It appeared to be dancing quite joyfully, despite the intensely hung-over state of the two strangers that lay entangled amongst the sheets.
As promised, BRUNCH ensued.  They chatted, and laughed and flirted. They shared secrets that no one else knew.

“I like your brain”, he said.
                                                               ...
In the weeks to come they spent every waking moment of each weekend in each other’s company. The rest of the time was spent as the charismatic protagonist in the day dreams of the other one’s mind.  

Hospital General, Sant Cugat Del Valles, Valldoreix, La Floresta, Las Planes, Baixador de Vallvidrera, Peu del Funicular, Reina Elisenda, Sarria, Les Tres Torres,  La Bonanova, Muntaner, Sant Gervasi, Gracia, Provenca,  Passeig de Gracia, Placa Catalunya.

The Trains chugged on
And on
And just remember it’s hard to stop a train...

Gracia -the best neighbourhood in Barcelona- sang like a bird in her ear and a sore thumb pressing its weight into her aching heart.  

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can...
...I know where treasure is waiting for me
Silver and gold in the mountains in Spain
I have to see you again and again.

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can.
                                                           ­        ...
That dreaded, dreary morning, the rain beat down. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane -Or all over, really.

She helped him stuff his damp laundry
into his star-spangled suitcase,
himself into her...




He came,
she left, and so did he.




*I'd like to see you again
and again.

(I mean it Ma,
Click back now
I’d rather not scar you
Or cost us even more money
On therapy)**

The first time I had ***
I felt horribly guilty afterwards
I can only guess as to why

Maybe it was because I was the ‘boy’
Of the circumstance
The one thrusting and holding her up

The one that didn’t get to ***
The first go around
The one to wash their fingers clean in the aftermath

While the ‘girl’ wiped up her nether regions
Put her pants back on
And remained in an ‘aftersex’ glow

Maybe it was because I was the ‘boy’
Of the circumstance
That I was the one that ‘took’ something

But whatever the reason
Is irrelevant because within days
This guilt faded

As did any taste of regret
Vaguely reminiscent of the
Taste of her ***

And replacing said guilt
Was love; strong and (now) poignant
Beyond my years

And she is gone; literally so,

Thus replacing said love
Was pain; strong and poignant
Beyond my years

Replacing said pain
Was another type
Quite common of my age

A madly bruised hand
To be exact;
Courtesy of my teenage idiocy

Replacing my physical pain and idiocy
Was another girl
One that could never be ‘her’

I cannot kiss this girl
It’s all so different
All so ******* wrong

I can’t stand her braces
And the taste of sour milk
That is always marinating in her mouth

I can’t stand this girl
But it is not her fault
It’s, to mimic a cliché,

It’s me, not her
And I am, genuinely,
Sorry for her


But I am so, extremely, pathetically
More sorry
For myself

Carnitas on the pit
Oranges searing as they hit the grill
Carne asada marinating
Waiting to be sampled
Coronas add lime
A **** shot of jacks
Laughing kids running around
Saturday morning was meant
For memories like this
Searing their own grill marks on our brains
Trampoline backflips into pools
Picking a lemon off the tree
Charcoal growing white
Familiar goodbyes and laters
Maybe another time joy will reach
This house that never seems to smile

Accursed is
the 1:45
outbound express
long distinguished
for its
contentious couples
vomiting babies
drunks marinating
in *****
and miraculous
near misses with
cars careening
around curves in the
no passing lane

From atop mountains
Of debt
We tumble, like
The thrill of defeat
Dripping down
The quivering chin
Of blood-stained
America.

To quote a thunderstorm:

"All who question
The efficacy
Of God
Shall crumble
To an infinity
Of indecencies."

To quote a God:

"All who fall
Have not
Been pushed,
Those who rose
Were not all
Pulled.

"**** the heathens.
Justified are those
Who avenge the treasons
Committed unto me."

Waves of
Iridescence
Cleanse our pallettes,
And we open wide
For the next forkful
Of fermented
Excrement.
Bloodied are our knees
As we receive
The sacrement,
Trapped like rats
Cast in cement.

To quote a slave:

"Bound by prior
Engagements,
Sacrificed to
Advertisement,
The seeds of men
Wither in the soil.
Blood weeps
From poisoned skies
While YES WE CAN
Opens eyes,
And seals fate
Within fine
Print."

Wolves in
Cheap disguises
Bate their breath
Behind red grins
And finalize
The list of
Who gets in,
While in the cold
Stand the masses,
Marinating
In their own
Molasses.

From atop Parnassus,
A silver-lined horse
Watches the madness,
And snarls and spits
In shamed defiance,
While Apollo
Holds court
To form the alliance
That will interrupt
The defiling of man.

To quote a soldier:

"Cold is the mud
That cradles
The valiant.
Swift is decay
In these
Transient days,
Where passive
Observers rot
In mass graves."

Designed by the rich,
Assembled by slaves,
Our system
Keeps churning,
Rejecting all
Who misbehave.
Reflected in
Concentric waves,
The faces of children
Contemplate age,
And what it means
To be forever
Enraged,
Engaged in endeavors
That are only dreams.
They can't be saved,
And neither can we.
So it seems,
And so it should be.

As he goes to the washroom I sit and stare at my palms
I don’t know what to do
I almost pull out my phone to distract me from myself
Stop
I enjoy the silence
I allow the clinking of glass and chatter of folk to calm my restless heart
Something irritating
A laugh
Exploits of the night prior
My temperature rises  
I try and drown out the boisterous banter with my thoughts
How can people speak of such trivial things
Why am I plagued with pondering the contradictory nature of everything?
My mind
Wandering to those thoughts I suppressed long ago
Marinating in dreams unfulfilled and forgotten
He returns
I sigh and smile
I wish I could have thought a little longer
He talks
I laugh  
My desperate soul carries on

His matriarch set off in the brilliant burn
Pre-monsoon summer skies as she flies
Home to Big Blue and strawberry fields, rolling sand dunes
Studded with peaches and cream stalks full corn ears
Past the gunmetal  hulls - Motor City madness
Send that cheap crap back to China
Import ratchet dreams that obsolesce faster than a preteen’s
Boy band crush
We left our polite goodbyes on padded benches in the Sunport
Trekked the cement labyrinthine path back to the car
Sprawled myself out in the backseat
Marinating in my bipolar haze of relief and regret
Two weeks of my soft under parts presented  
Respect for the Alpha who never hacked up a rabbit
At the mere sound of my keening cries
Sate the pack tomorrow I’m off the forest floor
In all my ears back, feral, foaming at the fangs glory
Salient thought abandoned on the crest of a stressed induced migraine
And the whelps yipping for pricey coffee with caramel drizzles

She broke my bleary eyed unfocused reverie
Wrangling two carts corralled by bits of ragged twine in the parking lot
As she ferreted through her peculiar tinsel adorned collection
Scraggly plastic wreaths, sad ghosts of Christmas past
And her grizzled locks wound round a red velveteen door decoration
Muted hues against her transient mantle
I caught myself looking away…
A triad of flies buzzed her presence
The dull thrum of something important forgotten
She shuffled to a center table
Arranging dusky floral skirts and kohl layered clothing
With hands caked with cracked black grit
Fingers studded with grimey chunk costume jewelry
Dug at the lid on a generic bulk bowl of noodle soup
While baristas and capri clad patrons skirted her table
As though they were restless waves
Fleeing before the power of God across the Red sea
And me ******* spun fat from the top of an overpriced iced concoction
Without pittance in my pocket
Caught myself staring…
Waiting….
For someone else to do the Christian thing

Is that how a Freak rolls?
Tongue lolling for the opportunity
When crazy plants itself
In the high backed chair in front of you
And pops open a styro container of “stroke in a cup”
Do you flash that cash wrapped round a tract
Put a hand on her weary back and pray
Do you simply look away
Caught up in awkward indecision
Uncomfortable in your urban bubble
This is latte day at Starbee’s for God’s sake
And she never put a hand out for help
Or spoke a single word
As if a bag of Oprah’s cut leaf tea would
Change her world.
Or yours.
Pride goeth before Christmas wreaths, and shopping carts
And *** metal costume jewels

Under the cool blur of my ceiling fan I glance skyward for answers
Offer a smattering of plaintive prayers
For matriarchs
And mavens with dull velveteen bows in their hair
For my children
For release from the pain at the back of my brain
And the constricting grip of entitlement torqueing my brittle heart
God breathes in moments missed
When we simply look away…
TL Boehm
08/21/2014

let me get the lyrics right
i wrote 'em on the bus the night
i'd had enough and left him for the city
he sat me down there on the floor
'cause all the seats were sold before
and i don't mind, I'm fine, so save your pity

and as he turned, I saw him smile
and more relieved with every mile
"it's for the best" was just the way I heard it
hollowed by the cold and shame
the wounded heart, it places blame
or tries to make you think that you deserved it.

and as the lonely hour passed
I caught him in the looking glass
the driver, he reminded me of Poppy
He'd shown us mercy, must have sensed
the urgency and hurt condensed
beneath the smiles, the goodbye kiss so choppy.

It didn't really matter though
Slid down this mountain in the snow
and one last ride beside it was exciting
and wiping tears with my coat sleeve
last night he asked me not to leave
but we were just so tired of all the fighting

and as I sat there in a haze
my purple mind reviewed the days
since marriage hell had swallowed up my joy
As everything I'd done before
so blindly trusting, nothing more
mistaken for true love, I wed the boy.

but from that point, the veil was lifted
I was lame and he was gifted
or so that was the way that it all appeared
and so I bought the lie each day
to be a good wife come what may
and hold in my contentions for I feared

that he was right and I was wrong
and we had nothing all along
a thought beyond that which I could conceive
and rather than just cut our losses
pack it in and tell The Boss, he
opted then to cheat and then deceive.

And thinking he could do no wrong
I wrote this stupid little song
as though the man was faithful to the end
strange that he had left behind
a trail of clues for me to find
but at the time, a comfort to pretend.

And down in Denver it became
so clear to me, he had to blame
another woman, could it be, was waiting?
I didn't have the energy
to see more of the worst in me
decided, there and then that he was dating.

Misery loves company
the woman sitting next to me
had something going on with her digestion
I'd like to say she burped a lot
and as it was she slurped a lot
but either way, I moved at her suggestion.

And every stop was getting worse
the seats were reeking of the curse
and three days penance was the price for freedom
and then my final destiny
Grand Central Station was to me
the answer to my prayers, that's where I'd meet 'em.

with a heavy heart and broken pride
we come to places deep inside
but older now, we see the lies and shed them.
I made the choice, against advice
of parents who are rather nice
and saw through all the heat and vice,
with wisdom.

I see the young ******* the bus
she didn't drink and couldn't cuss
unless the moon was full on with her saddness
and then she'd turn and rant and get
to marinating in regret
and have a few to mellow out the madness.

had she known what she knows now
or I should say, what I know now
I would have taken flight before that bus
I would have come back home that summer
met my friend, and what a ******
saved myself three days of stink and fuss.

save it for a better day
another heart will come my way
and in the end it's just another story.
Another chapter that was read
He breathed new life into the dead
and cleaned it up and now it's for His Glory

i hug you
on tiptoes
with arms around your neck
like “girls do”
but i haven’t been a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i know that how you see me
doesn’t match up with
who i used to be

and the first time i
hugged you like that
i told you
i loved you
smelling like 11.5 hours
marinating in other people’s food
and you said you knew
when i said the day was horrible

and i want you to know
i didn’t mean for this to happen
heart eyes you don’t notice
talking about you like
you’re a new favorite book
pages i never want to stop
running my hands over
papercuts be ******

but i love you
for your long hair
black as ink
and other metaphors
and i wonder if you’d let me
run my fingers through it
like some cheesy romance novel

i love you
for your smile
and how you smile at me
still laughing at my lame jokes
about how queer i am

i love you
for how you said you
just have to
sing along to
in the danger zone and
the wall between us
hid a grin so wide
my cheeks hurt

and i love you
even though i know
this will never go anywhere
because i’m never going to
tell you

just how much i love you
just how much i want to kiss you
just how much i miss you
when you’re gone

and just how much i hope
you might love me back
enough to let me
be yours

sadness how could I ever forsake
the sacred?
indeed child sometimes
we seem to forget
where we come from
on our way to where we are
our current plans for tomorrow

i never forgot

i just didn't always remember.

stigmas of the past
social tap dance transgressions
left me aghast; mouth agape
confused marinating

it never mattered,
nothing did.

that was the motto
life long LSD lessons to follow
at times not adequate
others still so hollow
make room for others
and make room for tomorrow

A symphony of majestic silence in the middle of the night
Marinating in my thoughts of mishaps a warm and intense delight
I washed away the daily sarcasm and lather on the charm
A hint of sexuality to allure his curious arm
I awaken with the subtle tickle, purr in sweet conviction
His touch is a perfect masterpiece and I'm his willing victim
I'm dressed to **** and kiss to haunt him
Pierce his eyes and bite to taunt him
He's satisfied, but keeps on giving a world or gifts of which are never ending
Its passionate and such a whirlwind
But I'm content the fuel is burning
You'd never guess but I never second guess him
He's distant while affectionate but what he gives is nothing less of splendid

he rises early, well before the premature, minutest hints of early dawn,
cradling tenderized words, from a silent marinating mind withdrawn,
some spices harvested from the soil's mortality of daily strife, others,
manna gifts of wild floral tenderness, plucked from Eve's tree of life

neither gardener nor chef, the fruits of his labor, are product of
a mothers mind's silent back labor, emerging with no notice or invitation, spilt from lips unmoving, eyes shuttered, fingers ungloved
ministering a Temple sacrifice of plain psalms authored but un-titled

some spark ignition causes a key reversal, from motionless to motion,
moving with no in-between, words simmering, from seeds unknown,
the dishe's integrity questioned, but it births itself, uncaring, eagerly, willing copied from cavern decorations of rude, wall drawings

almost fully formed, though untasted and undigested, a savant smell
provokes a leap from placid prone, to upright and seated upon the
throne of his writing desk, can one* *divine a recipe from odor alone,
thus claiming authorship of an untitled dish, one that can't be recreated?

sets it down before you uncovered, with a lustrous screen of silk damask,
plated on Royal Worcester fine bone china, yet, without any utensils,
asking you to ken this work,
*eat this poem, with bare hands,
love it as if it was your own first born,
consumed/consuming
a strange but familiar spirit

My fingernails crave your skin
Hard red assassins
My fingernails sweep your skin
Texturizing our love

In every corner of your body
Your breath is twitching
Melodiously
You fill with air

Speak to me in tongues
On a plate like a breaded chicken breast
Marinating in a fine Italian wine and Balsamic Vinaigrette
Sauce craving an open flame
Homemade.

I'm falling asleep
I'm falling asleep
To the digging of a Disco party on a late
Friday night in yellow polyester baby blue You forgot
To pick me up, again but it's okay 'cause I'm
Stayin' Alive.
In a plexiglass life.
See right through it, it's translucent
Then never look at me again.

am i solidly so-so sane
am i slightly in-all insane

a sweet and sour, salty, bitter stanza

anaphora, alliteration, rhyme and meter
spiced-up with macerated metaphors
slant rhymes stirred in a one cup measure

chopped, cut, creamed or cored

i guess i am...

a tablespoon of solidly so-so sane
a teaspoon of slightly in-all insane

a roast with a zest of relished craziness
a marinating mustard mix of uniqueness

i guess i am only simply me
an originally homemade recipe

I want to feel
beautiful again.
It's like I couldn't wash away
the **** and **** you said when you left.
Your words have been marinating my life,
trapped inside me like a bad song.
Following me everywhere like a bad tattoo.

But I'm done.

I'm ready for me now--the real me...
The me I couldn't be when I was half of you.

Let me finish my waffles and
I'll find something adventurous to wear.
No. **** it.
I'm getting up.
Let me look for something pre-you.
Orange skirt? Green blouse?
Wait. What is this yellow sundress?
Yes.