I have only my soul to blame
On addled nights when my weary heart rattles and bangs
In its bone cage the thrumming beats
Terrified finches flailing in the wake of a gloved hand
And I am sold to the child clutching wrinkled wet bills
And sticky Christmas change
Who’ll forget to feed me by New Year’s Day
Small songs left unsung and talons cramp from a perch unfit
To sustain me

I have only my soul to blame
When lofty thoughts plummet
High places and walls fall the buttresses too frail for
Architects flights of fancy
I was built for low shelter
A dugout in the western wind
Small solace in the face of tornadic spin
Scatter the crops and erase the traces of gentle humanity
Frail daisies wont sustain me

I have only my soul to blame
When words that course through veins
Carry more than the love of blood and bone
And I am alone with nothing but whispers and wrinkled wet sheets
Rhapsodies and rhymes they crackle like the shucked husks
On the threshing floor my dreams no more worth
Than the paper scribbling balled up around my feet
This written lie
Never penned to sustain me.
TL Boehm
11/30/13