Single minded sister
Solitary soul searching
For my whole
Set my purpose defined
Within my spotlight mind
Could see that when you found me
My perfected sight was blind
Serendipity
Filled the emptiness in me

Wistful litanies
Distractions the futility
Of intimate action
Wife and mother not for me
The daydream others
Ceased to be desired destiny
Surprised to find in your eyes
Serendipity
The reflection of a family

This frantic spinning pace
A circular path I race
From frustration to futility
You took my hand and
Changed my course
With measured steps
you run with me
Serendipity
Without you where would I be

TL Boehm 070408
- For Dave

Perhaps you aggrandize
Those sacred manifestations
Lupine resonance
When the moon takes a cooler hue
Ebbing in the western sky
As I scurry
Furtive in the wake of wolves
Cavort under cover of shadows
The darkness lenient
Diana's placid orb obfuscates
Any deeper meaning
These solo notes from husky throats
The soul’s chronicle lost
Your hackled superstitions don’t abet me
Demure dogs shiver on silvered chains
With the acumen of stones
They throw themselves
Lick the hand of the master
Fawning malleable in your fettered life
You crave the panacea
Of stagnant water and stale kibble
Trade these wild cries for silence
Shrink from the eminent colossus
Freedom is the howling nemesis
Beyond your black and white vision
You never see
The multifarious color of coyote dreams  
TL Boehm 070508

So this is the watermark
The stranding after the deluge
Tidal storms recede
And I am wreckage on your shore
Gulls hover
Strident cries they scrabble
For cast off sparkling trinkets
Dead flesh
Winging requiem for a life unlived
Slip the yellow tape boundary
Drape daisy chains and platitudes
Across my fractured hull

Would you find wild beauty
In weathered wood
Barnacle scars
And the echo of measured surf
Set this longship by the sunstone
Radiant light when skies are heavy
Sullen with winter chill
Would you cleave to the beat
Aegir’s heavy hand on your prow
The moon pull of open water
The tease of salt spray
On full lips whisper my name
One more time
Quiet
Voice across the deep
And I will breathe

Will you simply wreath
My memory
“ see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me”
Cast the fire and plot the stone ship
Pebbles skipped cross brackish water
My legacy sinks
Little rippled terminus
Wont shred butterfly wings
Or froth the wild tides
To the maelstrom
So this is the watermark
Strand my heart
With one spilled tear
TL Boehm
09/03/2014

The missing grain of sand
Saline manifestation in my eyes
An absolution of temporal dreams
The heart of pearled treasure for you
Fetid obstruction in an oyster like me
Hold your breath and crack me open
Debacle on the half shell
Consume me whole
Still you hunger for more

These castaway dreams
Crest on pleasured seas
I abstain from riding the wave
Licentious churning toward the shore
The foaming wasted lap my ankles
Stolid salted earth am I
This dearth of passion
Fervent birth of deeper meaning
Too strenuous for my limpid mind
Heavenly sounds
This ground bound child
Deafened by the strident cries
Of whispers and lies
The clarion gone
In the wake of troubled seas

Swirling connotations and inuenndos
Languish warm and wet on shifting sand
Fleshy emulations of inspiration
Bleed out on the beach
The weight of wicked words the crush
The convulsing rush of life that ebbs
The linchpin thins
Blistered skin slips from brittle bones
You die alone
Soul shipwrecked
This missing grain of sea spray sand
Dissolves in sightless eyes
This purging dirge an echoed requiem
A timbred bliss
Oblivion
Ephemeral ebbing lunar blue
As I drift away
From you.....

TL Boehm
062608

A furse of birds
Fragile wings that bring
Rising chaff
Of ground cover dreams
Litanies and lamentations  
Half hearted singing
In the sanctuary
I am the echo of a soul
Shallow voice breaks the silence
In hallowed halls
Like poetry thrown up
Dry chalk scritti on dusted shale
Persona non grata
I stand pale
Naked before you
Muffled pulse of an average life
I am the trickling stream
Wishing for waves
Gentle breath across the surface
Scattering ash and expectations
Borrowed words spring from fingers
Slip my grip and flit away
Like color bleeding from empty sky
At the end of day

TL Boehm
061408

Skeletal babies too weak to cry
Hollow eyed mothers
Fractured families scratch pits in fallow ground
Earth and hope
Dust scattered chaff
Rice in bowls for ***** hands
And hungry mouths
Cracking smiles optimized
"Mister Christian" done a good thing
Sign your name and look away
Feed a family of four for the price of a gallon of milk
Minimize your guilt
Clinking trinkets in a rusty bucket
Change the channel
Change your mind
Envision God and mother Africa
Doe eyed and grateful placing the crown of the faithful
On your generous brow
While another woman silently screams
Integrity leaking
In the baptism of red earth
And *****
She sleeps outside tonight
No shame for you the miniscule
Separation of virtue and flesh
The seeping reality
Scarred body and mind ravaged to feed
The baser needs of a man
Who will no longer have her
Worthless animal that she is
Brittle field unripe for planting
Seeds of life burst the seams
And she only dreams of a day
Unstained.
Untainted
Waste no meditation on the knowledge
She won’t bring another child into THIS world
For you
Insular in your indignation
Recoil at the colossus of poverty
Knuckled clicking at your heart
While you coddle your conscience
With spare change offerings
Consider dignity
At what price
Small sacrifice to you
Another mother sentenced to desperation
Crosses her legs and prays
While her integrity leaks away

TL Boehm
061108

While I am not addressing well intentioned givers - or Christians who donate money to worthy causes - I am often deeply disappointed in those who "throw money at" a situation - and then consider the minimal effort sufficient. Yes, we need to feed hungry children, but we also need to educate young males on the difference between a wife and property. We need to help women who's bodies have been ravaged by constant famine to take better care of themselves before, during and after pregnancy and we must destigmatize conditions like *** and fistulas that cause women to be shamed and further abused. This poem specifically addresses birth related fistula - a condition in which the bladder or colon is torn during a difficult birth - usually attributable to other conditions like constant malnutrition, immature (underage) mother or a baby too large for a safe vaginal delivery. The fistula results in incontinence for the mother....

See the two agencies below for further information. or google fistula foundation - or clean birth kit.  
www.fistulafoundation.org
www.path.org
Peace

In fertile fields
Fragile blooms heavy with seed
Swaying lucid dreams
Coupled with a whispered destiny
Do you believe?
(Father forgive me for my sins)
I listened
Pulse quickening to the promise
Carried on transparent beams
the angelic rush of lesser light
Left me sightless
Blind witness to the culling
Harvest put to flame
Only aborted dreams remain
(My life ends where yours begins)

Fragrant flowers consumed
Emotional holocaust of volcanic ash
Scorched earth your cordial offering
Death is the memory of a smile
Shadows pass across your face
(Along this fractured path I race)
I let your passion burn within me
Fury, vengeance and rage
Your forever promise ever hellish
Echoes in my smoking soul
I let the sun set on my anger
(Falling far from perfect grace)
Let you shackle me with my own actions
My guilt a noose to snap my neck
You the author of defeat
another broken soul for your unholy altar
(resurrect this child from this dead end street)
I cling to life in the balance
Waiting

silence welling in the aftermath
Crescendoed message resonant
let go...let go...
Is there oblivion in the release
(place my spirit to worship at your feet)
Falling away from everything I know
The old man shatters within
(wash away my every sin)
(my life ends where you begin)
TL Boehm
05/29/2008