Death near
don't open the door
forgotten ruptured sky
sees you and I
riches are impossible
in the blinding dust
vision is beyond the horizon
fighting to win
you back
come close to losing all....

Each selective thought
will bring about
pieces .......
that we will think is love
discarding the rest
in street dust
of many tomorrows to come

It has been years since
you left me so long ago
trying to forget
daily life .... that we loved so
this is the last poem
that l will write
of the pain
you brought about


Time schedules
Timbre slows
so very far
in a varied substance
of liquid foam
as death
knocks
don't open the door.....*

By Debbie Brooks

I'm surrounded by a sea of people
As far as the eye can see
All flowing in the same direction
And just floating along, is me

I've been wading in this water
Letting it carry me any way
Not caring about which direction
And never having any say

After wading all this time though
My legs started growing tired
So finally it was time to choose
Which direction I desired

But the problem with floating along
Was that I never became aware
I wasn't really a part of the waves
I was just sort of...there

What I wanted didn't matter
The waves still moved as one
Whether I moved with or against them
Didn't matter in the long run

Then I thought I better get out
And give myself some time to think
But I couldn't see the shore anymore
And with that, I started to sink

Now I'm surrounded by a sea of people
As far as the eye can see
All still flowing in the same direction
But drowning in it, is me

If I had the words
A gift of wings that would not fail
Set my sword
To perforate the veil
Cut this clinging death away
Let the light fall like rain
Solace on a summer day
But I’m bound
Dragging shackles and chains
Starving for grace
As I choke on the profane

Sacrificed my petty dreams
Bled out on the altar of fools
Propitious as light might have been
I let darkness set the rules
Circumstance stultifies the child inside
Nullifies the need
To hope for a greater salvation
My spirit fights but my head concedes
Lost in the chaos around me
If I surrender who will lead

And if by chance you went walking
Through the shattered past I’ve left behind
Pick your way through emotional wreckage
Find my inner child deaf dumb and blind
This failing hope will not carry me
As I struggle toward the light
And so I wait abandoned
As the world spins fast toward night.
I know the truth you cannot see
What I carry hidden in me…
08/22/09
TL Boehm

There are bare-breasted women
lounging in the unmade bed
of my mind.
They teach me chords on the piano,
and how to stay grateful
in the face of time;
how it lingers between seconds,
but years go by unannounced.

We don't make love. We ****,
taking back each wasted Sunday
spent talking to G-d,
or waiting for political truth.
They run their fingers over my back,
send me to a sleep
of dried sweat and loving violence.
They send me sunflower seeds and ****

in the post,
so I can bloom by the open window
and feel warmth through winter.
There are powerful women
laying down the law by the clock tower.
They stand up for Syria
and challenge the authority
I had conjured in my mind.

to sleep i may, but not the dark vessel
of mine eyes, over stormy seas of placenta and albatross
tossed from the palm of  a rough hewn, Five-Headed Crane
raking five beaks across a canvass of my wounded fires -
and my brazen black honey, trembling on the lip
of mis-fortunate birth...,
in the cataract of
a fine hat
on a fat
rebel.

my public spaces engineered
to come from the inside

the wastelands are beautiful

as you gawk
at the red
sun

a bead of red plasma,
flowing from an
open vein

in a mind shaft.

with a bad back
and no front.

but a lasting gasp....

Your voice isn't like a song
Or a prayer.
It's more like a secret.
I am selfish and don't want to share it.
I wan't to catch it in a jar with fresh air and the scent of pine trees
A bottle to mix it with carbonated bubbles
An envelope filled with letters never written.
I want you shrunken down and curled up in the curved shell of my ear.
Whisper, scream, sing, laugh, mutter.
I have a seven-track mind and I'd like you to narrate them all for me.
Read me your homework, your favourite book, your shopping lists, the ingredients of your shampoo.
The breaths and lilts and stutters
Keep it raw and new and open
And I'm honoured.
Share the secret with me.