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Mar 2016 · 738
Considering Eve
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Considering Eve
Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. (Genesis 5:2 KJV)
From the moment you breathed
Dust disturbed across this barren earth
I was clothed in radiance
Infusa lux Dei
Skin and bone and soul
As one we walked in the still of the morning
Tender blooms un-bruised by the weight
Of flesh pressed soft
Fertile ground I found
The fatal embrace
Sinister beauty
And choices begat consequence
And consequence begat the lie
Never the two shall become one flesh again
Desperate we search for the God shaped hole
In our hearts
Filling the emptiness with poison
Until the acid bleeds from my tongue
Suckling the ******
Of Babylon
I will burn forever and never be free

Trace the letters set in stone
Echoes etched by the hand of the Paschal lamb
Qui sine peccato est primus lapis sint eiecti
And still the ******* would sell my daughters
To sons for a goat and a gold nose ring
And consider Eve the mother of all imperfection
Yet you named us Adam…we were one…

Forgive them Father for they’re too stupid to understand
Angels with flaming swords a metaphor lost
On sheeples and E.C. Wannabes
Intervention is a painful consequence when haughty children
Cleave bone and souls to succor their own crave
This crumbling throne is transient
I will walk in the cool of the morning with you
Clothed in light
Again.

TL Boehm
2014
published in Mavguard Magazine. www.MavguardMagazine.com
Mar 2016 · 1.1k
Grace Is My Destiny
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Put my petty dreams on the altar
My wasted time at your feet
Set my shattered soul before you
And this body worn by defeat
On my knees and I surrender
The battle lost now i retreat
And you meet me in this chaos
In the dirt and the tears and pain
In the middle of my humanity
Remind me who I am again
I’m your child and you’ve adored me
Forever loved since time began
In you I am beautiful
In you I am free
Only in you do I shine true
Your light bright in me
I’ll live this life reflecting you
Grace is my destiny
TL Boehm
02/15/15
Last God poem. Peace.
Mar 2016 · 1.2k
Electricity
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
I want to live life fearless
I want to live life brave
I want to live a legacy
This soul you died to save
Electricity you’re life to me
Free forever from the grave

Your breath across the water
Your words set in my heart
This spark of life so holy
Now I am set apart
Wrapped up in your pure presence
Where I end is where you start

I was made to worship you God
With all I am and am to be
My love poured out for you God
Like your life poured out for me
Electricity your love for me
Lights up everything I see

TL Boehm
Feb 2015
This is one of the last of its kind I suppose. I was inspired by a worship leader who said that God's love was like electricity. I wrote this and sent it to the worship leader and absolutely nothing happened. I now am in a place where I no longer attend regular praise and worship. No choir, no joy....I go to a church out of obligation and because of this and so many more reasons - I no longer praise. At least not like this. I believe it is integral but I am currently unable to do it. Just rambling.
Mar 2016 · 519
Will You Will
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Will you will or will you won’t
Will you do well when you don’t
Will you look right up and see
The mighty presence that is Me

Swing your saber through the wilderness
Taking hearts in stride
Will your will still carry you
Through the jungle of your pride
Will you will this road you’re on
Detoured from why I died
Will you will away eternity
Aim for Hell on a stellar ride

Will you nullify the light I give
Let the shadows dim this place
Every  time I call your name
Will you turn from my face
You can set your will against me
But my love won’t be erased
Do what you will to will it still
You’re forever my child of grace

I’m on your side as you run this race
It is my will to give you grace
No Hell no earthly place
Separates you from this grace
TL Boehm
January 2015
Mar 2016 · 628
I Will Worship You
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Breathe life over dead situations
Blow the roof off of limited expectations
Seed and rain change the barren ground
One word from you turns my life around

Speak your words and I believe it
Hear the promise I receive it
All my tears are wiped away
Live this life no reservation
Heaven is my destination
I will worship you today

Reignite the burned out flame
You call me out you change my name
From death to life your word calls me
From slave to saved you’ve set me free

Speak your words and I believe it
Hear your promise I receive it
In your grace I am made new
Life this life no reservation
Heaven is my destination
Forever I will worship you

TL Boehm
02/17/15
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
So you're the queen of hearts
Barefoot summer grass green and cool
Trade that tiara and party dress
A princess is now the fool
And its dreams not dragons laid slain
What will you do when it rains

What will you do when it rains
When Mr. Perfect is Mr. Pain
When your Prince Charming is so alarming
Love songs are a sad refrain
What will you do when it rains

Unicorns pure they surrender themselves
Gilded brows genuflect at your knees
Open your eyes to the stark surprise
The fairy tale hero you think you see
Mr. Right is Joe Mundane
What will you do when it rains

Love confronts and love contends
A battle over but war won't end
Only the strong remain
Life's not fair and love is war
The hardest fight worth fighting for
When you lose you gain
What will you do when it rains

TL Boehm
1/1/15
Every time I see a pair of flitting little love birds cooing and nuzzling - the song "Love Stinks" pops into my head....
Real love is terrifying, messy and complex.
Mar 2016 · 413
Not My Reality
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Is it divine dissatisfaction
Or just a chemical reaction
To a system overload
Run the meter to the red
Am I all up in my head
Do I shut it down or implode

Can’t settle for status quo
There’s so much more I want to know
This is not my reality
You can hang by your circumstance
Or cut that rope and take a chance
Could you handle being free

Cyclical day and night
Spinning at the speed of light
Lost in the blur of our lives
This black hole gravity
Has done its work on me
It’s a pull I can’t survive

So rescue me from oblivion
My heart is open to let you in
Change my linear destiny
No more victim of circumstance
Give me grace to take the chance
We were meant to be free
022214
TL Boehm
sigh....
Mar 2016 · 451
Prisoner of War
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
I’m not your whipping post
I’m not your stepping stone
You think you got me cornered
But I’m not in this fight alone
You’ll find me standing strong
In the middle of the danger zone

You better bring your A game
Do the worst that you can do
Cuz I’m standing locked and loaded
This is war and I’m gunning for you
I’ve brought more than slings and arrows
My sights are set and my aim is true

This fight is a love thing
You will never comprehend
Rest assured the force that’s coming
Will put your armies to an end
Its ground you cannot take
And a position you can’t defend

Not even death will stop it
You won’t get what you came here for
You think that I am shaken
But I’m not afraid of you any more
You may **** but you cannot keep
I’m not your prisoner of war

TL Boehm
02/15/14
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
I saw it today. Stark aberration in my periphery. Flaccid and pale it was, like wan chicken fat under plucked skin. It blotted everything in the rear view mirror, jolting my reverie of quiet snow dancing across the road, resting on quilted cover lawns and frosting happy trees with dollops of white on spruce. So many distractions in the metal box, the meandered chatter punctuated with hiccup sighs and upended sentences. Now this…my neck in all its grisly middle aged wattling display. Like roadkill on a scenic Sunday drive. I’m mortified.
Wrenched from my tenure of “office know it all” or at least “figure it on the fly” chick in the high desert to this lakeside time warp, this place of gravy and pitched roofs, I’m totally off my jalapeno. Gone are the adobes and red or green breakfast plates to be replaced by the Sunday tradition of one hour with the silvers and breakfast with Bob " Bob Evans that is. Amazing how rote runs a brain. An epistle, the gospel, a homily and polite pew sharing with communion wrap up " it took a full minute for anyone to register  that one of our seasoned pieces of lumber was not slumbering but without breath altogether… and still so many went forward for the cup and the wafer in routine obedience.
Margaret asked me later “is he still gurglin’?” as though slumped over parishoners in a diabetic episode are commonplace, and sometimes a body leaves with an EMT escort. (He’s ok. At least that’s what we were told)
I keep looking out the bedroom window, the cascading sugary stuff glazing the scene framed by mauve curtains and punctuated by the few stoic sparrows too resolute or stupid to fly south to green paradise. I’m grooveless unpressed vinyl still waiting for the imprint of music. A rhythm above the chatter both inside my head and outside.
I’m a quiet creature - at least I crave the solitude and peace and I am diametrically opposed therefore to the queen of this house who savors light and movement and the noise of constant conversation. She’s been more than kind to open her home to us and I’m sure it’s difficult to have scuttling creatures in your home who prefer the sunless corners, the basement, the predawn holy places where nothing moves except the snow before the plow to the endless drone of voices. She’s flown solo in this house for nine years. Now it’s full of people who make no noise, no decibel print and it must be irksome to her.
I try to compromise, to curb my urge to run from the meal table and **** the myriad things that wait in my personal life. The bills, the bank issues " who knew our financial institution was unrepresented in this chile-less place? Who knew everything cost twice as much as it does way out west? Who knew unemployment insurance does not ensure a survivable wage?  All the tiny things I hold at bay until I can sit no longer. Patience. I lack it. I can learn to compromise, but I cannot quell completely who I am. It has been that attempt over the last decade to stifle what is inside that has made me itchy and twitchy and ****** now. That and that damnable wattling neck.  Yes, I’m stripped of all I was when I was what I was in the middle of the high desert and now the only thing left is the stuff simmering in my head…
Peace.
Its not a poem. I'm not a poet. I write. Sometimes I pass it off as poetry but the above is the real thing. Read me or don't - my cloaking device is down today.
Mar 2016 · 650
The Race
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Where the skylights meet the highway
Where the rubber meets the road
Hell in my rearview mirror
And my mind on overload
Can’t outrun the ticking clock
Or distance myself from destiny
Spun out in the middle of my life
By the reckless heart inside of me

Drag myself from under this wreckage
Can’t say I feel no pain
Only a matter of moments I’ll be
In another hit and run again
Speeding cars they never stop
Just because you forfeit the race
Clear the track and they go round again
A faster car to take your place

This blur of life makes me slam my breaks
I was never built for speed
Cut the nitrous and the adrenaline
There’s something more that I need
Calling out over the roar of the engines
Shut the door and throw out the key
Walk away from this race to nowhere
There’s a better path that waits for me

TL Boehm
02/15/14
stick a fork in me cuz I'm done....
Mar 2016 · 664
Songs Unsung
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
So we live in these two worlds  
This aching dark this perfect light
A standard of love unfurled
No more struggle you’ve won the fight
Tread the threshold of forever
Your joy has just begun
There is grace to surrender
There is one more song unsung

Where is God in the chaos
When torment takes us down by degrees
A little more broken every moment
Down in the dirt and the fight on bloodied knees
God is there in the heat of the battle
Telling you you’ve already won
He is your words when you cannot speak
And your music for songs unsung

And I will dance in the depth of sorrow
And I will sing In the midst of pain
And I will live today and hope for tomorrow
When I will see you whole and rejoicing again
Tears are temporary in this place  
Your celebration has begun
Standing with Him face to face
Singing sweet songs unsung

TL Boehm

02/09/14
I don't know if this link will work - this was written for Colleen Cawthon, who passed away after a long battle with Lyme disease. She was an inspiration to me and she and her husband headed the worship team where I attended church for a decade. http://kiroradio.com/listen/9967949/
Mar 2016 · 359
The Veil
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Before you tore the veil
And the scales fell from my eyes
Was I a child of the lesser light
Burned out echoes in ashen skies
The thundered rush of blood
Was I deafened by the lies

Before you cast the crown
Set diamonds sparkling at my brow
Did I crave the baser things
Found in the here and the now
Wrapped up in my thicker skin
Screaming where and why and how?

If you give perfect pleasure
Why would I require pain
What purpose does the deluge serve
For seed drowned out by rain
Why would I surrender Heaven
Just to go through Hell again

I can’t unwork the simple truth
Of a destiny unearned
If I step into the fire
I know I will be burned
Sometimes the seminal lesson
Is the lesson left unlearned

TL Boehm
01/03/2014
there are several schools of though about our existence. Did we exist before we were born here? Do our souls continue on? Do we lather rinse and repeat til the water runs clear? I found Mark's poem fascinating and was inspired to write something. What ever the truth is - I personally struggle with the thought that I "chose" my situation so I could learn something from it. And if I did - Darwin gave us hominids too much cred. Here is Mark's Poem - if you have a writers cafe account I think you can read it. http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/Insomnius/1261233/
Mar 2016 · 653
Free Equals Me Without You
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
I was cool for about five minutes
You had a big plan thought I was in it
But your love  is rigged and I can’t win it
So I’m movin’ on down the line
It’s just a broken heart, I’ll be fine
                  
Had my eyes on you lookin back at me
One plus one equals destiny
What a nasty surprise when you set me free
Got a future now with a clearer view
This light waits for me without you

We both got that free will baby
Victor or victim of choices maybe
It’s a bigger grace that saves me
Could be you’re not the one
And my happiness has just begun

So you stunned me when you cut that cord
So easily broken I was floored
No longer the one that you adored
You made that choice to set me free
And I’m walking out a new destiny

Free equals me without you
Go on and do what you gotta do
TL Boehm
12/7/2013
not about me.
Mar 2016 · 366
Only My Soul to Blame
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
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
This was actually only a bit of orneriness after nanowrimo 2013. I sometimes pretend I'm a novelist
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
You don’t get to be happy
You don’t get to quit
You don’t get to walk away  
Breaking my heart bit by bit

I don’t plan to light a candle for you
In the dark night I won’t cry out your name
I don’t want to be the bigger man
And concede to your sick little game
My love was real and I gave it
You took all I had and you ran off to play
Now you come back and say I’m your best friend
Like I understand why you let your eyes stray
What kind of fool do you think I am anyway

I was ready to give you forever
I sacrificed and I waited for you
You couldn’t even give me your honesty
You don’t even care what you’ve put me through
All the days and nights wanting are wasted
And I’m marking time just getting by
But you come at me with that fragile smile
Blind to the tears I cry
I’m broken but you can’t fathom why

Will your little conscience  
Keep you warm at night
I won the war
But lost this fight
You sent up the white flag
You know it ain’t right
But you made your choice
Better hang on tight
Out of mind when out of sight
TL Boehm
11/06/13
on 9/13/13 my son's beautiful girlfriend of over two years came over to his apartment and proceeded to shred his heart with a "I can't see myself with anyone but you but need to see if I can be happy alone" bit. Two weeks ago she tells him she is crazy about some other guy - like my child is her BFF. Yesterday - the some other guy posted the "in a relationship with" death knell status. Doesn't matter if there was no *** involved. Allowing yourself to be distracted by the friend of a friend when you are in a committed relationship and keeping your current on hold is infidelity. I pity the next little thing in a dress that darkens my son's door. She will be dealing with me and my broadsword.
Feb 2016 · 504
32 Reflection of You
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Thirty Two Years
I'm built like a burlap sack full of mongrel pups.
Too bad the arroyo is dry
I live in a stucco mudpile  where the kitchen linoleum peels up like iguana skin.
I wanted wicker and stained glass.
Too fragile for the lions that roar on my savannah.
I can drink and curse most men unconcious.
I'm nothing like that drunken S.O.B. you married
Whose every nasty habit crawls out of my skin unbidden.
So unlike your high school sweetie.
How amazing that genes can lie.

I sing seventies soul in the shower.
Cry poetry in twilight
This tenor voiced soprano warms with age.
When I'm forty I'll sing like Tina Turner.
WishI was black so I'd have legs like that.
I wanted a spotlight.

Drowning in a testosterone saturated puddle
Of synchronized farting, moco noses
And hot wheels sprouting from the carpet
I nurture till it hurts
Yes, you can raise tadpoles in the baby pool
Say "please and thank you".
Blow that nose in your tissue not your sleeve.
I love you, I'm so proud you can count to infinity.
Your eyes are bluer
You'll be taller
You're smarter than I was at your age.

Mama, you never let me be better than you
Ten fingers and toes, all you said you wanted - wasn't enough to make you whole.
I am a bogle in your basement
What color is the bad sheep when she's the only one?
A faded white reminder of your own failures
Captured in those curling Kodak moments
Your lithe arms draped over me
Your eyes focused on the Guy du Jour
Never felt my own small heart beating
Above the thunder of your own.
My mouth full of lava soap and spaghettios
Never able to question your omnipotence.

You still shriek in my dreams, Mama.
A jade eyed banshee screaming for a soul I cannot give you.
I never close my eyes.

I kiss my boys damp curls while they sleep
One tousled froth of lemon merangue
One butterscotch sweet against my lips.
Perfect love.
I wonder if you ever felt that ache in your heart  for me?
As you yanked that wire brush through my bristley mane
Or smacked my young *** with it?
Give me one more chance to nuzzle against you
And look up into eyes as bright as new leaves.
Let me see myself as a perfect reflection of you.
In my heart, we are whole...

TL Boehm
3/18/98
I wrote this in 1998 - for my mother who was born with congenital birth defects - and told by her father that she could not have been his child...She repeated the horror on me telling me in 1993 that I was not MY father's child. She is most definitely the offspring of her father..but as for me...I will never know the truth. and so a part of ME is incomplete
Feb 2016 · 746
Here Is My Everything
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Here is my broken heart
Here is my shattered life
Here are all my faults and failures
As a woman a mother and wife
All the promises I've broken
All the hateful things I've said
All the life I left unspoken
Wasting my breath upon the dead

Here is my sweat and sacrifice
Here is my blood and pain
My hollow effort to pay some price
Worry wasted for no gain
All the lies I cling to
All the truth I threw away
All the darker thoughts I bring you
Waste my steps and run astray

Here’s the sum of my existence
Here’s the hardest part to learn
This wretched pride and persistence
Stokes a bonfire set to burn
All I am at the end of me
All damage done that I could do
All that’s left is the love that sets me free
Everything comes from you
TL Boehm 10/06/2013
another Godpoem
Feb 2016 · 434
This Gate Guards No Castle
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
So I’ll tell you I’m a beautiful disaster
Stained glass prismatic in torrential rain
But the truth is I’m dull mortar and plaster
Crumbling walls in a house of pain
And the foundation sinks so much faster
Than I can shore up again

These gates guard no man’s castle
These walls are a prison cell
No shelter for love’s vassal
Just another room in hell

Set your flag upon the battlements
As the skies churn black to gray
No glory waits for all your time spent
As the hours bleed away
Lay siege to destiny hell bent
To render chaos on this day

Set fire to the tapestries
Where the spinner spun her tale
Destruction has her mastery
Burned out husks of walls so frail
I’d say I’d won but for the life of me
I only know how to fail.
TL Boehm
07/27/13
erm....just me complaining
Feb 2016 · 637
This Woman's Love
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
This woman’s love
Never caught up in the honeyed rush
As his gaze rests on the rhythm of her
Breath caught faltering
Lace at her breast can’t hide the fervor romance
The ephemera of blushed lips at fluted throats
Where bejeweled birds hover
Translucent
The summer luster of flitting wings
A dalliance in honeysuckle heavy with nectar
Fruited blooms and dew drop studded vines
The promise of heady mornings resonant with expectation
Of the day.
A fawn panting at the feet of Diana
Chase this dreamy ecstacy
Fling logic from a cliff with eyes wide open
Braced for impact and giddy for that little death

This woman’s love is war.
The ragged standard on the battlements
Bload soaked and stained with the sweat of my brow
Red earth and grit under cracked nails scrabbling
For one more split seed to sustain me.
This woman’s love is hard fought harvest
Wrestled from fallow ground
Ribs distend from weighted heart and lungs that burst
Feral words held hostage
And hips surrendered to the burden
Of flesh and bone made one
Knit in darkness before I knew you
A legacy that sprouts wings and fangs
And eats its way out through my soul

This woman’s love is birth and death
And all the sobbing chaos kept from you behind clenched fists
I would rather drown in the maelstrom than bring darkness
To blue eyed hope
This woman’s love is the slow decay
Of selfish dreams
The sloughed off mantle
Little girl dreams and daisy chains in trade for knowing
We created something beyond our selves….
Life will not be denied its effervescent bloom
As halos form in our hair and life becomes the salient blur spinning
Remembrance and forgetting
This woman’s love was worth the battle
Days settle soft at my feet
I obey gravity and the hope of little things
Babies in my arms…
Your happiness is my own and I win
This woman’s love
Is you.                
TL Boehm
09/27/2013
Two weeks prior to this writing- the love of my son's life broke his big squishy heart. We adored her. We still don't know "why" - I only know that real life fights - with teeth and claws and all it has - it doesn't cut and run....hard solace for my child. He has hope. I have teeth and claws. - He is now married to a different girl - and they are expecting their first child.
Feb 2016 · 615
The Moment I Let You Go
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Do not leave me child
Do not fledge and grow
It’s just my broken soul in your way
Crumbling soft and slow
The first moment I held you
Is the moment I let you go.

A daydream then my sonshine
My sonshine then her man
New love swept you away
On a sweet summer day
Suddenly I’m alone again
You’ve found paradise
In a pair of brown eyes
Place a banded promise in her hand

Such a primitive shelter
You carved in this heart of stone
Life etched sweat and dust
Blade stippled with rust
Furrowed deeper than I’ve ever known
Now my fractured heart
Is falling apart
As you step out on your own

This gift I never wanted
Now I cling to you so tight
With a ferocity
Upwellling in me
I’d rather die than lose the fight
But I have to concede
When you were born you were freed
I’ve just prepared you for flight

TL Boehm
06/20/2013
written after my elder spawn told me he was moving out. He's married now - first baby due in September..
Feb 2016 · 325
The Ride
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
So I seem a little awkward baby
You dismiss this gift inside
Pass your judgment in fast forward
On something you ain’t never tried
We could take this to the dance floor baby
We could take this to the bed
But it ain’t worth the sweatin’ baby
If you can’t get me outta my head

So close I can taste you
And you generate that heat
If I could get inside your skin
Feel that thing that makes you beat
You resurrect the fire in me
You were built to satisfy
But you only see the least in me
I’m that drug you’d never try

So I spend the night alone again
At the edge of a darker place
Thinking of your hands your lips your thighs
Wrapped around me face to face
But I’m not the stupid thing you take me for
Won’t beg you to drop your pants or pride
I’ll just swallow the words I cannot say
You wouldn’t regret the ride…
I could love you up one side, down the other
but you dismiss this bliss inside
If you left that darkness baby
You wouldn’t regret the ride….

TL Boehm
© 06/16/06
written about men who only see the physical...and never the real person. As a woman in business and graced with the working brain God gave me, I run into those men who only see the skin, the clothes, the hair...and it frustrates me still.
Feb 2016 · 373
UnFunky Girl
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Slipped into a satin cami
And my best Thang’s boxer drawers
Set my playground slide
For a heavenly ride
Jump on it I am yours

Got my music jammin’
Crank up that thumpin’ bass
I’m ready to groove
Throw down my moves
Come on now make some space

You know you’re **** baby
With my bra on your head and a smile
Take your glasses from you
Just pretend the view
Is ecstasy for a while

Yes I am your crazy lady
You got all this love for free
And I’ll dance for you
Cuz of what you do
For an unfunky girl like me

TL Boehm
© 04/19/06
For Dave, My hippie. He'd be totally embarrassed by this - but you know? I'm not ashamed to tell you I love the guy.
Feb 2016 · 373
What the Night Brings
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Spinning liquid threads
Furtive verses through my head
This is what the night brings
Silken whispered vision
Damnable decisions
This is what the night brings

She sneaks in through my window
Sunless spirit fills my room
Cryptic images disturbing
Gossamer grave clothes for my tomb
Silent songs unmeant for singing
This is what the night brings

Skitters in on feline feet
Prowling my intimate thought
Scares to life the dangerous things
That hell and my bad seed hath wrought
Death follows me on flitting wings
This is what the night brings

And you wonder why
Can't close my eyes
Against this lesser light that stings
I'm mortified
By the hell inside
The shadow that the night brings

TL Boehm
2007
an oldy
Feb 2016 · 276
Memory Go Easy on Me
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Memory go easy on me
You know I was just a child
And the visions and schemes of little girl dreams
Burn unfettered and wild

I know I’m grown I see the crone
Looking out at me from my own eyes
And gone are the days spent in that haze
Of star filled nights and sunlit skies
Destiny was not kind to me
My generic life is a brutal surprise

The world spins fast and and life won’t last
Love arcs brilliant like shooting stars
When the sparkle is gone I try to hold on
With a death grip on my own prison bars
In the flesh that burns it’s a hard lesson learned
Time won’t temper the fatal scars

Blow this kiss good bye I smile, I lie
Drop paper dreams in a shallow grave
Swallow the pain again and again
Pretend that I’m not a slave
Till that 45 spins and the music begins
It’s just the ghost of me I’m trying to save

TL Boehm
05/22/13
45 a magic ebony conveyance that when subjected to the stroke of a diamond tipped needle released pops, ticks and wonderful music.
written for a poet on Writers Cafe named Frieda P.
Feb 2016 · 636
A Shot of Adrenalin
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
What of love
She said you were the pulse of life
From woman to wife
Breathe beneath her skin
You’re just a shot of adrenalin

What of love
Open a vein and bleed the lie
She’s the addict you supply
Lips that drip sap and acid
And you’re death in a pretty package

What of love
Hypodermic words slurred
On a Sunday afternoon blurred
Stop her staccato heart
Drop death in her chest she’s torn apart

What of love
Arrest the damnable dreaming
Chains in the shape of a ring she’s screaming
Saffron dress and daisy chains
She won’t wear it again

What of love
Petty promises her overdose
On the floor of your hotel room comatose
Consolation prize forever after unhappily
No antidote to set her free

What of love
Little girls like lambs to slaughter
Lies make slaves of daughters
Chase the hollow sound of wedding bells
Fed fairy tales In prison cells  
Tl Boehm
04/27/2013
Real love is wonderful - and marriage is a blessing. But doing it for all the wrong reasons is tantamount to tossing your life in the toilet. (Just a random thought - not my personal situation.)
Feb 2016 · 306
Dream Like a Child
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Raven spirals in silent skies
I think that I
Would like to fly away too
If my anxious heart could only rise
No reason why
I'd be aloft against the blue

Color shifts from gray to green
I almost see
Destiny in a clearer light
If I could only grasp what love might mean
I would be free
Shed this fear and take flight

Gentle wind singing through trees
Reminding me
Of music I've yet to pen
Send my cares away on a summer breeze
And I would be
Able to dream again

Close my eyes and imagine
Like a child again
Let my heart soar and then
Dream like a child again
T L Boehm
04/26/13
when I was a teen. I used to write lyrics. now I just default to rhymes...once in a while.
Feb 2016 · 340
Soliloquy
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
I have winnowed words from red earth
Birthed mad poetry in silence
Rumbled under sullen skies
Cast my cries to the birds of the air
The cadence of  mind
Blind expectations
Venerations
The ache of angels and soliloquied
Mantras of savants and idol fools
I’ve plated my thoughts with bits of
Sugared glaze to coat the rendered
Offering dolloped in the sickened
Fawning
My voracious ego tasteless
Vinegar on the palette
The sweat of my brow spat out
In a shallow glass
The circumstance of banality
Nothing more than the dull ache
At the base of your spine
You dismiss me by degrees
Inconsistencies
Secrets grow fangs and
Spider themselves webbed
Close to the bone
Crunched underfoot
Weary words spin in the thin air
Senseless surrendered chattel
Trace my petty dreams in the dust
Of the space between
You and me and we
Will never grasp the significance
Of a blade of grass
Or the depthless black ocean
Where your terrors luminesce
On the cusp of a pirate moon
You breathe the algorithms
Temporal
And I have lost my taloned grip
On your poet soul
TL Boehm
04/2013
a moment of "duh"
Feb 2016 · 306
Lit Within - for Emily
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Perhaps you fell from quantum heights
To rest gentle by the brook
Chortling as she dashes past you
The rocks will cry out
Indeed!
You wait patiently
Warn smooth by wind and water
You cannot fathom
The way the dappled light
Refracted
Dances across your prism skin
Sets you sparkling
So brilliant I am blinded
Small stones unnoticed
Render treasure
At the touch of the Maker’s hand
Tooled, spun and refined
And set in metal
Precious
Tempered to reveal
The treasure of you
Lit within
042313
TL Boehm
A dear friend and of mine wrote a poem called  "what modest pebble said to babbling brook" This was my response - This wonderful poet is also here and I'm so glad...
Feb 2016 · 298
I Will Remember
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Precious son
Priceless one
Whispered words useless to convey
I clung to you
For a moment or two
But years like a breath they slip away
Under troubled skies
I cover my eyes
Cry when they can't see
A life just begun
My precious son
Suddenly taken from me
I remember the curve of your face
As I held you close in my arms
I remember the scent of newborn skin
As I cradled you safe and warm
I remember the turbulent years the fears
I remember the rage and the pain
But I held the hope and the dream that you
Would find your way again
I'm broken inside
The tears I've cried
Useless to ease my soul
Hold this memory
So close to me
And wish my heart was whole
Precious son
Priceless one
I send a prayer up to the sunlit sky
My thoughts of you
Must carry me through
This temporary goodbye
TL Boehm
050207
For Heidi
Remembering Adam
Adam Oury was murdered in 2007. He was 21 years old
written for the mother of my son's first girlfriend.
Feb 2016 · 387
Lifting
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Lifting
Sweet summer morning
Silent before birds singing
Welcome sunlight rising
Slipping
Over windowpanes spilling
With the anticipation of daybreaking

I am listening
To your steady breathing
Softly snoring
Perhaps you're dreaming
Thoughts skipping
like stones dipping
Under cool water trickling
Toes skimming
Wavelets tickling
All your hopes surfacing
Love is believing
In you, knowing
Forever is in the learning
Two becoming
One destiny ascending
You'll find me whispering
soft secrets warm with meaning
between us nothing
more than this embracing
Sharing
This blessing
Of living
TLB 061208
From the vault of lost poems
just playing with words and sounds
Feb 2016 · 404
Broken - Sestina
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Broken, I crawl to you, dragging sins and shackles over barren ground
Offering nothing but putrid flesh and blood to satiate the hungry grave
No strength to raise my tear streaked face to Heaven
The wreckage of my life crumbling in your weathered hands
You could crush the shattered remnants of my soul
Beyond salvation, I lie lifeless waiting for your Sacred Breath
How long have you sorrowed as I wasted precious breath
Aspirations dropped like autumn leaves scattered on cold ground
My skin screaming curses and lies to fracture my temporary soul
Clawing the earth ferociously, I dig my shallow grave
Precious flesh and bone you’ve woven shredded in my taloned hands
I am lost forever falling far from your Heaven.
Yet in solitary moments you called to me from Heaven
My spirit cried out, I strained to hear your whispered breath
You broke my fall and sheltered me in your mighty hands
Dropping hope into my heart like seeds on fertile ground
You rescued me from my self made grave
You erased my shame and restored my soul
You remember the divinity within my soul
Reminding me I am a resident of Heaven
Never intended for eternal death in a shallow grave
You give me the spark of life with your Holy Breath
I am strong in you and planted on solid ground
You dress me in bridal white and cleanse this blood from my hands
And I will glorify You with every work of my hands
You are the mighty Protector of my soul
No longer condemned, I stand for you on solid ground
Sending sweet songs of adoration to Your Heaven
And I will praise You for your love with precious breath
You set me free from torment, from the grave
You remove the sins and shackles of a permanent grave
Remove the residue left by the ***** ground
And I will love you as you love me with every breath
I carry your Divinity in the center of my soul
Your precious sacrifice prepares a place with you in Heaven
My spirit soars no longer sentenced to return to barren ground
Your precious breath sets me free from the grave
Uplifted from the ground by your strong hands
The grave doesn’t claim my soul, I am yours in Heaven.

From the Vault of lost poems circa 2007/2008
TL Boehm
This is a Sestina - a brutal poetic format and thus the only one I've ever written. I challenge you to look up Sestina and try your own...for fun they said...
Feb 2016 · 709
Lost in Your Words
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
I find myself
Intoxicated
Letting your words spill
Fragrant like crushed flowers
To settle at the base of my spine
The lush moments
Intimacies
And daydreams
Effervesce on the tongue
I savor the phrases
And catch my breath
There are days I could drown
Let my foundations crumble
In the torrent of you
My mouth full of succulent fruit
Un-bruised by the hungry palette
I could drown
Looking up at metaphors
You fling like stars in my night sky
The thrill of sacred and profane
Crystalized on the tip of your pen
The alchemy of lovers
Passionate
Raw
Nightmares that creep with words
Stretched over bone
And those that dance
Enrapt within
Surrender of flesh and spirit
I am lost in the power of your words…
TL Boehm
04/15/13
Feb 2016 · 338
Terminal Spin
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
And so it goes
The palpable ache in your voice
The slow burn of chaos
The crawl of acid in my throat
And Rigor mortis in my skin
I brace for the deluge
You are the perfect storm
And I am always wreckage on your shore
You shattered me a lifetime ago
Swept away in the flotsam and jetsam
Of your unfettered ego
And your insatiable …
Candy melts sweet can’t sustain
You’re fetid with the choices you made
You savaged my soul
Your little ******* child
Tossed out on the lawn with the soiled sheets
For the world to see
And you savored it.

And somehow I’m bound
By the memory of grace
And Sunday school songs
To spread my brittle wings and shelter you
Even as the ribs snap
I bleed out any integrity
Just for you
A mother’ s love is…
F... that…really
You only show me the horror in my own soul
With your black hole heart
And I am on terminal spin
TL Boehm
04/15/13
the story behind this perhaps is more interesting than the poem. I love my mom - but at 27 she told me the man who raised me was not my dad. She divorced this man, married a childhood sweetheart and told the world he was my natural father. I have never reconciled this in my soul. She has her reasons. But my identity has never recovered. The explicit tag is primarily due to the language...
Feb 2016 · 303
Shed This Skin
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
You can shed your skin
Begin again
But you’re still the same inside
It’s the same old lies
Behind your eyes
There is nowhere to hide

I thought I knew
The ghost of you
Crash through me the other day
Avert my eyes
This thin disguise
Won’t let you slip away

You took a chance
That circumstance
And thin ice would set you free
Can’t cover the cost
Of a soul that’s lost
And the cracks betray your destiny

Now I face this mirror
The reflected fear
And I can’t wish you away
You’re the greater part
Of my petrified heart
Flesh knotted you’re here to stay
TL Boehm
04/10/13
I can't get away from me
Feb 2016 · 269
I Surrender
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
I surrender
To the exaltation of light
This baptism of fire
And liquid skies
Breathe a palette lit within
To delight a child
Songs break from tears
Beauty from ashes
This your legacy

I will seek you in the solace of morning
Receive the touch
Warm on my skin
Let praise rise
Like butterflies aloft
On gentle summer winds
Let hope bloom
Across the surface of my spirit
Tranquil
At peace
Reflecting the light
That is you
TL Boehm  
04/17/13
a little God poem
Feb 2016 · 285
Are you Ever Truly Free
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
I could sing it to you
Gentle and mournful
The salient arch of white wings
Against a bleak backdrop
Of defrocked trees in stasis
For the spring sap
To rise
Wispy buds of pastel pink rupture
Throaty melodies
Coax the sun from somber skies

Or I could give it to you straight
No chaser
No dilution to offset the burn
This just got real
And you’re all up in my face about it
As If you could slap down
The change in your pocket
As the full payment for my salvation
When you yourself are the bars to my larger cage

I keep my circle small
Pluck the pin feathers before I fledge
So I don’t beat myself to death
Struggling against my own **** expectations
Trade my freedom for security
And the surety of bread on my table
And a hive of hornets in my head
Perched on the reality
We are never truly free.
TL Boehm
040813
Jan 2016 · 303
Love Letter To A Friend
Tammy Boehm Jan 2016
This is not what you think.
This outpouring of ash and smoke rings,
Whispered in the solace of shadow.
And I know you're unmoved by the little foxes.
Tails tucked they fawn,
Whelping poetry at your feet.
Feigned flattery
And fangs bared
They would feed on your exposed heart.
Pick the sweet fruit from low branches
And leave the acrid waste pooling in their wake.
Perhaps I am no better.
Scattering my humble saffron wreaths of words,
Set tiny lights adrift
In a river thick with blood
And suffering.
If I were sustenance you'd starve.
There is nothing I can give you but my simple truth:
I love you.
I am so blessed to call you friend.
TL Boehm
04/08/13
Her name is Sharon. She's a poet. She inspired me in 2006 to start writing again. I don't associate much with her anymore because life and distance happen. But I am grateful to her - and I wish she shared her poems these days.
Jan 2016 · 292
To Say Nothing At All
Tammy Boehm Jan 2016
I am almost out of time
The more I struggle
The tighter the grip
On my tired mind
How can one small heart
Be so full
Of dust and air
And the resonant remnant of
Life
The scarred mark of each
Insensitivity
Set to splinter
So deep I cannot dig it out
There are no words
Just this circular path I’ve worn
An un-removable groove
Furrowed lineage of
Rebels and tyrants and the unwashed
Yapping jackals
Finally silent
I’ve run out of words
Saying everything
To say nothing at all
TL Boehm
04/06/13
Yup...******. That's how I roll sometimes
Jan 2016 · 257
Touch Me With Light
Tammy Boehm Jan 2016
Are you with me

At the cusp of the torrent
Gray skies ragged
And the hungered earth
Beneath my tread worn feet
My veneration sanguine
Etched in weathered stone
As the birds of the air
****** your sustenance from
My blistered tongue
Bring me to my knees
Scrabbling at the door
That never opens
I can see past my imagination
To eternity
And I am but damp breath
Panting for you in the gathering storm
Time is a finite line
Destiny a place where the promise
Of your arms surrounding
My fractured soul  
Is the transient fragrance
Of crushed petals that bleed out
Through my clenched fists
Token moments can’t sustain
I need you now
To touch me with light
Again.
TL Boehm 04/04/13
Funny how a poem can come back on you...I feel this today.
Jan 2016 · 464
The Opportunist
Tammy Boehm Jan 2016
In twilight you will find me
Dipping tenuous thread
Umber on dun
Sputtering tallow
Tapping ash into my thin skin
As if the tattooed music would soothe
The crawling terror in my gut
Hollow eyed I ply the offal
Crack the marrow mixed with spit
And dirt I form words of earth
And blood and bone
The viscus slippage I devour
The accretion of tears and sweat
In open wounds only births
Words that fester
Were you expecting a pearl?
I am weary of chasing
Beautiful winged creatures
Only begets feathers in my mouth
And dry heaves  
Fluff and nonsense
Raindrops and daffodils
Never sustain
There are no gentle angels
Only capricious minds that rail
Oh the horror of living
Off the remains of throw away moments
Chase the rainbows end
To your designer ever after
You will find me
Teeth bared and waiting
For you to wake up…  
TL Boehm
04/02/13
Just a ramble
Feb 2015 · 678
If only the Days
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
"Slowly, silently, now the moon..."--Walter de la Mare

If only the days slipped soft
Eider down from quiet skies
“Slowly, silently now the moon”
Crests and ebbs in the star swept horizon
Mercury moments I consider the sinister things
The rush of blood banging at the back of my throat
The cadence of daybreak
And heart break and darkness hearkens
Scurrilous thoughts scatter faster
Roaches at the flip of a switch
Writhe in the light
Seek solace in shadows
Rats scrabble for higher ground in the downpour
Drown me now but I’ll never be clean
I carry the disease of this civilized beast
Scorpions under my tongue
And splinters in my skin
The higher rungs are toxic
And the air thick with afterburn
The antiphon of the apathetic
Chirrs me from daydream to entropy
Peace is hospice for poets and fools
Grit under my nails
And ***** in my mouth
Forever falling forward
The warp and weft stretched
Taut expectation
Of the cut that never comes
Just let me fall
Feather light and quiet
Let the gravity relentless
Have her way
TLBoehm
040113
Feb 2015 · 517
Daughter
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
The little lights
They effervesce
Caught up in the breath of you
Crisp pinafore dress
And fireflies
I am with you child
At the edge of the world
Where sullen skies ebb
And bare trees
Poise for the blooming spring

Daughter
I long to put my arms around you
Barefoot and tousled
You carry my broken soul
Flickering
If only
I ever

The ash from bonfires
Winks out in sand
Summer evenings
Capricious I danced
Let the waves take me
Ephemeral pleasure
A skipped moment
Gray in the daylight
Shake the shamed from tattered blankets
And sneak back home

I will never cradle
Your tiny frame
Feel the thrum of your heart
Like moths against a window
The echo of a breath
I love you, mommy
Sad mantras now
This consequence
Surrender to the silence
Of life ungiven

Daughter
Resurrected only
As a fatal wish
Moments when I see you
Do you wait for me, still?
TL Boehm...03/21/13
Yes. This is real. Yes. It is about abortion. Nuff said.
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
We kept it light
You and I
Wrapped friendship around moments
Of lavender and tea roses
Treasures unearthed in lazy afternoons
Morel s and the damp lull of pines wafting through
An open window
Trading simple things
You were light
Filtered through antique lace curtains
Thoughts of you melt sweet
Chocolate chips held tight in small hands
Smiling for the moment
Until the residue is wiped clean

You are gone
But never forgotten
I will see you in sunsets and surf
And the way the rain falls steady
In late spring
When the light is soft behind the clouds
You never shied from the rumbling storm
When I raged and railed against the breaker walls
You were the calm
You held the tide
Even when the deluge started to take you
I could sense it in the pull of deeper moments
You said we’re all on a journey
And you left your legacy etched in my soul
Open the window a little wider
And embrace the sky

I will think of you always
And treasures
And the sea
Conch shells and mermaids
Surf against the sand
I will keep the light

March 2013

For Pat Brodniak-Carbonaro “ Seanymph”
Feb 2015 · 592
Rock me to Rest
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
And when I'm hurlin words and throwing blows  
Thumping drumbeats against my chest
I long to fall in your arms like a frightened child
And let you rock me to rest  

Inside outside upside down
Confusion coiled around me tight
This crawling terror got me paralyzed
I'm defenseless in this fight

All the frenemies and the wannabes
Levelin those guns at my head
Spillin  gasoline on a grass fire
Ain't no life with the walking dead

Then through all the noise inside my head
Your whispered wisdom rings out to me
Send that white flag up and surrender
Cuz I have come to set you free
TL Boehm
03/17/13
#godpoem
Feb 2015 · 449
Rainy Day
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
You are never happy
Again, he chants the sad mantra
Of a life spun out in threadbare patches
Pain etched in weathered eyes
Gray green like late summer grass
Burned by the whirring blade
Again she says…if only we were friends
Under breath held to quell the deluge of
I can’t be your everything
Then anything
You ever were is nothing
In the soft blur of days that drip
Empty windows scarred with the memory of
Rain.
And I
Am so brittle
Harsh light behind your eyes
Hostility disguised as loving correction
The caress of fire on kindling
My petty dreams the memory of smoke in your lungs
Just breathe me in
Shallow
Ripples across this thin skin
Break the surface tension
I ache to be something more than
Empty words
Penciled afterthoughts in margins
Eventually illegible
In the steady decay of days
I am never happy
Lost in the transience of you
03/11/13 TLB
Feb 2015 · 744
Salome
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
Perhaps it was the blasphemy of lovers and fools
This dalliance of ravens and necromancy
The brush of pomegranate mouths
Amaranthine against the backdrop of ochre and tintype
I dance the silent rhythm
Innate the rush of blood in veins
Salome
I am your feathered death on prism wings
Small consolation you cannot see the soul beneath the veil
Spin a legacy of heretics starry eyed and hungry
For flesh and soft skin
Spills the stain on pristine canvas
The palette of indiscretions
Peep show intimacies
Vibrant I am unfettered light
And you are blind
In black and white and gray
You twist this myth
Ropes coiled serpentine
Hungry eyed you feed on dreams
Cellulose crackling in the heat
Borne on desert winds
I rise to claim you
I am the moment
Pigment and poetry
Alive and fluid in your mind
Inescapable
Whisper my name
Salome
031113
Feb 2015 · 436
Alternate Reality
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
Pretty girl with stars in your eyes
And the world at your feet.
You never gave another breath about me did you?
You never thought about the consequences.
Sad little awkward one that I was
With my toothy smile
Face peppered with freckles and imperfections.
You took the first chance you got
Grabbed that ring
Drank that koolaide
Whatever the mechanism was
You swallowed faster than a desperate pledge at a frat party
You’re on that perpetual joy ride
And I am left alone
To drown in the gray desperation that is my glass ceiling life.
How can you breathe in the thin air of your rarified sky?
I think of you and I hate you
like I hate burying a kid’s first puppy.
You left me with nothing
But an open wound where my soul should have been.
You can’t come back
And I can’t rise above
This little existence I’ve dug out with my own jagged nails
Hell may be too good for you but at least I know
The monster in the mirror is more real
Than that illusion of angels
I thought I saw in your eyes. Love is a witch of a mistress
You taught me well
TLB 031313
just a little old angst and envy
Feb 2015 · 594
The Sea Inside
Tammy Boehm Feb 2015
Your voice fell in whispers
With the cadence of rain
Thrumming against the windowpanes
The rush of mourning doves
And albatross dreams
I am the storm tossed
Sea inside
Angry skies
Breathe me in
And I become gravid
With the weight of your soul
You are cool blue water
Gentle surf teases
This fractured shoreline
Scuttle up ancient things
The tide brings both sorrow
And exaltation
Let me drown in you now
Carry me out to the depth of you
Lift the anchor
And cast me away
03/14/13
Jan 2015 · 431
Fade To Gray
Tammy Boehm Jan 2015
I am falling
Carded wool and eiderdown
Muted hues in the resonant ghost of you
My words drift
Shadow soft before the deluge
Of an angry sky
I pray for rain
Even though I cower under cover of your grace
Myriad tears from heaven broken
Etch the epitaph and rune stones
Twist the light to brazen
Blanched in acid
Your brilliance blinds me
Sunlight spilled on fallow ground
I am soaked to the marrow
Weathered and weary
An the abyss whispers ever closer
Embrace the profane till the flesh burns ashen
Nati sumus solus et nos solus perire
Deo autem non est sine interiori lumine
You follow me sombrous through the maelstrom
Trade my hueless soul
For the ecstasy of light
In raptu lumine vestit me


we are born alone and we die alone
Without God there is no internal light
Clothe me in the ecstasy of light

TL Boehm
11/13/2012
Oct 2014 · 960
Unreachable Dream
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Cast one more stone
In a well void of water
To sustain you
As if your trebuchet barrage
Scattered talismans at my weathered feet
Will bring the deluge
Pour out sacrifice
Redolent offering to the god in you
I want nothing more
Than to sharpen my sword on the bones
of your unreachable dreams
Draw this blade across your saline skin
Etch my grievances in blood and mortar
The panacea of fools
Are you even capable of feeling pain?
What a waste
This dance
Your ineffable demesne
Is nothing but gossamer threads
Smoke and mirrors
Cannot contain me
I refuse to move to your
Susurrous litany any longer
I'll cut out your tongue
For my standard
And leave you silent
To decay
TL Boehm 11/09/12
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