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Oct 2014 · 733
Perpetual Retrograde
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
I used to think that I could fly
Held aloft when I closed my eyes
Earth a bauble below me stayed
In perpetual retrograde

I used to dream of heady things
Effervesced on gossamer wings
A world of petty dreams I made
In perpetual retrograde

When I awoke it was too late
Vision fades when you hesitate
Capricious fantasy will fade
In perpetual retrograde

I'm earthbound now and gravity
Has left a terminal mark on me
This truth is a fatal move I played  
In perpetual retrograde

TL Boehm
08/29/12
Kyrielle
Oct 2014 · 394
How Much I Love You
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Do you know how much I love you
No second passes I don’t see
Do you know that you are priceless
You mean everything to Me

I know your heart is breaking
But my love is unbreakable
I know your world is shaking
Cling to Me I am unshakable

I put your enemies to flight
I stop the terror in the night
There is no darkness only light
I am your victory
You mean everything to Me

Circumstance veils your tomorrow
But I’ve written your destiny
If only you would look in the mirror
And see the you in you I see
If you would know how much I love you
You mean everything to Me

TL Boehm
11/20/11
Oct 2014 · 459
Where is My Faith
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
The exaltation of doves
Hope flung wild against the breaking dawn
A riot of light in a quiet sky
With the tenacity of crocus
Color breaks across the frozen snow
Heartsick I shiver
Waiting
For the warmth to reach deeper
Than my skin
Where frost sets in
Faith obliterated
This ****** of crows
Picks the bones of dreams
Ill conceived
In the rush of passion for peculiar things
The thrum of oily wings
Scatters ashes across barren ground
I am found
Empty
Seeking your face in the empty space between
This heart without hope
Isn’t worth any effort to save
Birth a dirge for faith cast in an open grave
No breath of life expressed from my lips
I’ve come to grips with this inevitable reality
Only you can reignite the burned out light in me  
TL Boehm
10/25/11
Oct 2014 · 1.3k
Bella Donna Requiem
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
This peace you offer
Pinioned prayers and platitudes
Scry in the mercury shattered
Your brittle whispers snap in the rarified air

This madness is thunder at the back of my throat
Ragged and storm weary
I tread water in your wake
Spin my tahrihim and trim the fringe
I am the terminus of fragile breath
Falling away from you

Benedicimus Deum meum adventum et egrediente
There is solace in the blind blue moments
Let me surrender
To the baptism of despair
The upwelling catechism of deliquescence

Souls fall clutching the flesh
Gasping for one more shredding dream
Fill the spinnaker and set sail

I am no longer a seaworthy vessel
This tethered hope you offer
Stinging nettles in my mouth
On flitting wings
Is the drone of hornets in my hair

I crave
Oblivion
And you are bound to your promise
It is my free will

To let go...

06/12/12
TL Boehm

God bless my coming and my going out
*melt away/decay
Oct 2014 · 755
The Maid of the Hesperus
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
On wintry nights the mariners sing
Of tales such as these
The sound of a fair maid crying
Carried on November’s breeze

On moonless nights along the shore
Where plaintive surf does sigh
A chill will set in the bones of those
Who hear her mournful cry

Beware good men who ride the waves
Should you hear young maiden fair
Set a new course for open sea
Lest frigid death find you there

She drifts alone on storm frothed waves
Icicle tears form round her eyes
Her frigid embrace a sailor’s death
When winters wrath fills the skies

Alas fair maid of the Hesperus
Her spirit a slave to the wretched sea
The deep no kind of resting place
For a beauty such as thee

Beware good men who ride the waves
Should you hear young maiden fair
Set a new course for open sea
Lest frigid death find you there

TL Boehm 2007

dedicated to Longfellow...
http://www.bartleby.com/42/777.html
Inspired by "The Wreck of The Hesperus - by Longfellow
Oct 2014 · 370
Never Done This Before
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Somewhere in the cacophony of moments
That flash of imagination lost to white noise
The slow bleed of nights and days stains pristine dreams
The rush of brilliance grays
Surrendered to the litany of decay

Songs unsung caught in the back of my throat
Strangled words
Toxic on my tongue
Hand over mouth and shackle my mind
Truth in the mirror that renders me blind

Little thoughts they scurry
Furtive in the failing light of hope against all hope
Reality reigns dragging chains
She etches her name on my scarred heart
Until death parts us...
I am the eulogy of dreams

I've never done this kind of thing before
Desecrate this grave
We can save her....
Resurrect the desperation
Dismiss this ignorance as bliss
The fatalist in me screams
Some things are better left buried
Dreams and lullabies lie skeletized
Revived as nightmares
Will **** the marrow from a broken soul

Already I scatter
Ash and shadows
Requiem for life unbreathed
And you wait for me
To break the ground
And exhume the muse
Again....
TL Boehm  
04/30/12
Oct 2014 · 359
Sand and Ashes
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Memories hang
Suspended in the blue
The ash of blood and bone
Residual dreams
My heart cleaves
In the twilight
Quiet.
Alone with the ghost of you

Plaintive cries of seagulls
Everything dies
The wind flits with wavelets
Caressing wet
Pale gauze wrapped round my waist
You hover under the surface
One shade deeper
One more stolen moment
I am surrounded by you
And the water is so
Warm…

I will not hesitate
Hold you now as you slip away
One final time
In a wake of muted blues
The clouds enshroud the setting sun
I only touch the surface
And pray you on your way

You are my forever horizon
Watch the surf gentle
Slip from the shore
Casting sand and ashes
Life
Transient footfalls
On a barren beach
Shattered shells scattered
Catch the last light
And the dusky breeze
Carries a memory
Little girl longing
For daddy’s arms
Safe haven
Oh so warm….
TL Boehm
08/11/11
Our final evening at Hoffmaster State Park (Muskegon - Lake Michigan) I carried some of my dad's ashes out into the lake. As I stood waist deep in the water, facing into the setting sun, the skies were overcast, and the water quiet. I let the ashes slip into the water and as I stood there - the ashes gathered around me and the water seemed even warmer...I know it was only my imagination sparked by the broken heart of a girl who hasn't had the chance to grieve for her daddy, but it felt like he was there...in that place - trying to comfort me....trying to say goodbye. It is SO HARD - I cannot express the ache....
I just miss him so much.
There is so much more than what you might read in the poem.
Oct 2014 · 464
Folding Echos
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Cigarette ashes
Dun smudges of nicotine
the jaundice bits of addiction
I place the pieces
folding echos into epithets
dog earred memories that curl
brittle around my fingers
squeeze another beat from my heart
an exhaled dirge
the rasp breath timbrel
above the roar of life in my ears

I pan for gold
sifting splintered bones
for moments lost with you
Searching my haggard face
for your spectred resonance
I've become that thing I loathe
folding echos into paper chains
capture only damp impressions
of tears wasted
Am I just an echo
of your terminal refrain?

TL Boehm
12/7/10
for my dad....who died due to complications from emphysema
Oct 2014 · 302
Moments Sacred
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
There are moments sacred
in that predawn sanctuary of your arms
I still drift away
Serene in the ebb and flow of light.
Quiet blue eyes that see only me
And the vision is enough
Your voice as you pray.
Distant drumming thunder
I dance
Hands outstretched
Fingertips wet with remembrance of the rain.
You are love without shame.
Embrace me with weathered hands
And I am safe
Tracing scars and storylines
Little boy laughter and airplane rides
Newborn pups cupped in your palms
So many tears wiped clean
From my cheeks
When the deluge in my heart crashes through....
I find sanctuary
Iin the rise and fall of your chest
As you sleep wrapped around me
And there are moments sacred
When chaos fades
And you are all I see…
TL Boehm
08/24/10

For my husband - with love....
Oct 2014 · 692
Torreon
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
"Baby Brianna was five months old when she died...she had multiple broken bones. Over thirty bite marks. She was beat to death..." "Susannah Martinez (campaign ad)

Doe eyed ghosts
Y los ninos mi corazon
Mall haired mamacita with the lined lips
505 madonna meant nothing to you
Bust that cap while she sleeps
Represent
And leave the little ones behind
Curled up against her cooling breast
Black blood and coffee grounds under their nails
It took them weeks to starve to death
Abuelitas they lament
Light the candles in Torreon
Would you buckle under the weight of tiny bones
Small hands that clutch the sky
Sightless eyes
Fragments of a smile stopped by a single shot
Gangstas gunning the wrong house
Little girl lost in poppi's arms
would her whispered breath against your neck
bring one tear
Baby Bartholemew in his car seat
choking to death in his own blood
Head lolling back crying for mommy
One last time
The sound...the stench forever resonant
Cuz teddy bears cant stop a bullet can they
Wrong place
Wrong time
Hand the grieving parents a tissue
And straighten her hair
For the cameras
This indignation will rise
Bile in your throat
for the next 40 minutes
Until you return to the blur
Of your regularly scheduled lives
We're so casual with our offspring
But Brianna, Bartholomew
and the ghosts in Torreon
they haunt these tears I cry

"It took us three years, but we fought to make it a death sentence. Baby Brianna's picture still hangs in my office." Susannah Martinez (campaign ad)

I will not forget....

TL Boehm
December 2010
This is a rewrite of a poem I lost - written about a culture that used to strap the murdered to a murderer until the murdered corpse dropped off. That was the punishment.

The Torreon cabin murders are true. Gangsters decided to **** a mother and her boyfriend in a cabin in Torreon and left her toddlers to starve to death. They ate coffee grounds before they died.

Bartholomew is also true. A drive by shooting....wrong car.

The little girl shot in the face, also true. Wrong house.

Governor Susannah Martinez and Baby Brianna Lopez. Yup. True.

It makes me physically sick.

you can google "Torreon Cabin Murders" as well as "Baby Brianna Lopez" - I cannot bring the pictures here. Only the words of my heart. Ask me now why - I am perpetually dark.
Oct 2014 · 484
Northern Light
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Northern Light
Forever words
They dance across my shattered soul
Lyric motion of northern lights
Ephemeral beauty
Hold my breath to save the moment
Before this riptide sorrow
Carries me from your peaceful shore

I will remember your gentle correction
Migrant birds aloft in a silent sky
The ease of flight
Faith in knowing that angels and eagles
Are built to ascend
So are you….

I am broken now
But I will soar
In the afterglow of northern lights
Dear friend your words
Will light my path….
Forever…
10/29/2010
TL Boehm
For Dale and his wife...
Written after learning of the accidental death of a dear poet friend and his wife, back in 2010
Oct 2014 · 333
What Lies Beneath
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
".Nothing is what it seems, what we see is just a mirage, what lies underneath, is the truth."

What do you see when you look at me
Harmless dog that I am
Fawning at your feet
Piddling all over myself to please you
This shabby mongrel you shoo from your table
Haughty in your pedigreed inclinations
Wipe my spit and dander from your petaled hands
I am nothing but a casual diversion
Banished from your hearth
Steward the beautiful things that catch your eye
Chain me up out of sight
I will always adore you

You cast this sadness
whips of words against my hide
I bleed out in the shadows
You've made me crazy
When all I wanted was your love
Curled up next to you
But you were too ashamed to let me in
Now here we are
My teeth in your throat
Your personal henchman
A killing machine calibrated
By your hatred
Surprise in your failing eyes
I would have rather died for you
But you left me to my own devices
I cannot stop myself
From survival
behind the mask of civility
Perhaps I've always been
A monster of your own creation
I can taste your poison
Beauty only the cast
Shadow on your surface
Tear the mask from your face
I cannot bear to see
Another monster staring back at me...

TLBoehm
05/21/10
Oct 2014 · 309
Circles Away
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
"Let patience have her perfect work..."

Pious words that don't hold sway in a wild mind
The slow ebb of days
The gray in my hair and in my sunrises
Amazing how the machinery of war
Is held by the thinnest web
Spidery lies heavy with dew
Catch the brilliance
of this failing light
Gossamer restraints
I'm held
Captive in my rabid fear
The thrumming heart, she reigns
I never held control
******* of a double mind
I'm deaf and dumb and blind
Relinquishing only the ghost of hope to you now
You never see the little girl
sobbing silent
swallowed up by the darkness of her own petty dreams
calls to a God she can't believe
why have you forsaken me....
Abandon this reckless soul
to the mastery of henchmen
Shallow breathing the necks they snap so easily
Just a bit of pressure
Applied to brittle bone
Birds with broken wings
I'm flying forever in circles
away...

TLBoehm
05/17/10
Oct 2014 · 497
Creature Feature
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
tongue tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit I" - Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly

Fearfully
formed bitter
gypsum whispers
the starlit dust of me fell
in darker places
rarified light bends and scatters
murderous intent
She wept
when you swept over me
Given over to that perpetual motion
inhale
exhale
pause
I am breath with no spirit
flesh and bone with a broken soul
already weary of this world
Before the the severing
fatal disconnect from the divine
I am alone in my skin
And my heart
Deaf to your still...small...voice
in the night when anxiety bleeds
from open wounds
hungry mouths they feed on insecurities
should I find myself naked
this profane offering
burning on your altar
would you find the fragrance
pleasing
blemished creature
beneath your clay feet.
040110
TLBOEHM
Oct 2014 · 392
Stuck
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Our babies' room awash in muted blue
amber lamplight fills the hall
you pray in the other room
Alone in the shower
Tears won't matter here
You won't drop that book long enough
To come in...
We exchange our barbs and callous conversations
And I wait until you leave the room
To cry again.
Alone with digital carols
and my memories
Ghosts of Christmas past put an ache in my throat
I'm stuck in my grief
My losses palpable
and I find no comfort in you
Get over it.
Renew your mind
You fish with dynamite
Can't you see I'm hurting?
You give me nothing to hang on to
Hand me another stone
I'm sinking ground
And you offer no rope.
NO HOPE
for my shattered heart
For better for worse was lost on you
A kiss on my forehead
Would make it better
Still a little girl in my heart
Not this foul cursing witch you see
I'm left to fight alone
And I'm losing this war
Die with my eyes stuck open
staring at the muted blue
our babies' room
and the hall light bathed in amber
you pray under your breath again
Stuck with me
wishing it all away.
12/12/09
take it  with a grain of salt. My "babies" are 23 and 18
Oct 2014 · 550
What IF?
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
What if i were built for ***
Yours on command
******* and a small brain
pleasure me this
we'd both be satisfied
me draped on your arm
diamonds draped on my wrist
all I'd want is your hands on body
your mouth on mine
I'd breathe for you and little more
but that's not the way it goes down
tell me again how you just roll over....
while I cry curled up in in the corner
at the end of the day
everybody gets played
my eyes are wet and my body dry
unsatisfied
sweat as much as I can
for nothing
never enough and there's nothing left for you
that you can't do for yourself
you're just one more thing undone
take your rough hands and leave me alone
I'm too used to it now to even give register the thought.
Or what if we went back twenty years
When I was still clueless and crazy about you
If I'd just thought with my thighs
Blind
You filled me up for awhile
But I wanted more.
Yeah, a family and a home.
I should've backed away faster.
We should've watched that movie
What if none of this happened.
God knows I'd be drunk by now
and you'd be ******.
At least then we wouldn't realize
How hollow life is
The things we didn't get but always wanted
Wouldn't be screaming in the back of our throats
And we wouldn't be screaming at each other.
What if you said one kind word....
What then
I'll never know.
This is all you get
a woman with big brains and sagging skin
Built for dreaming
And little more.
Forever dissatisfied
No better than your thoughts on a cold night
You lose, didn't you
What if you hadn't said yes...'
What if I'd waited for YOU to ask the question?
That might have been a better forever
than this....
12/12/09
TL Boehm
Oct 2014 · 561
Where Were You?
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Where were you
When the rope snapped
Predicate your excuses
The vernacular dichotomies
of savants and fools
These love lessons comparative to
Step dancing in a mine field
These guerilla tactics of yours
Are lamentable
My neck already broken
By the force of your linguistic blows
Etymologically patterned for adoration
Love theory wasted on your lap
Sanctuary for kittens and babies
I bear the distinction derived from years
Of practicable nonchalance
The inflectional brutality
Of casual words
Spat out barbs of cyanide
We could have ..... forever
But I gave you my soul
Now the best of me is wasted space
Asphyxiated by the torque of adrenalin and ****** frustration
There is nothing left for you here
Pick up your paper chains
And wander home…
121209.
TL Boehm
I was suffering from cranio ****** inversion when I wrote this. I'm better now.
Oct 2014 · 933
Gun Metal And Asbestos
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Gun metal and asbestos
The tundra of your father’s eyes
His heart left in London after the war
Stubborn, your mother clung to the lie
Hide the shameful sight
Your hands left over right
Roll a crochet ****** under your blanket
Picture perfect mask the missing
Digits and appendages
“That child’s not mine…Ma”
Shoulda put ya in a home

Whispered sins and indiscretions
You slept with your sister in silent rooms
Peed in a porcelain ***
Defiant, Old Nellie in her witch gray wool
She won’t latch the outhouse again
Keep that abomination strapped to your thigh
Crossed and awake at night
You came out swinging when he touched you
"Shoulda put ya in a home…."

Pick the rock salt from your hide
And never cry
Secrets sting more than saline bullets
You bared those knees in a hand made dress
And fled…newly wed
Birthed that ten toed baby girl
Relegated yourself to the drain of domesticity
Brownstones and picket fences
When did you cast the first thread
Spiderwebs and pyrite
Whispered sins and indiscretions
Broken dishes…
Broken bones…
Broken vows…
You lied so much better than you lived

That crave for validation in your fathers’ eyes
Drift away over his open grave
You played Taps in the shadows
One last time
I was an open wound in a house of pain
You couldn’t love your child
And swallow the shame
That little redhead down the street
Baby boy you couldn’t give
Fed your shattered ego with fear
In my eyes
Notch your bedpost with ticks for lovers and fools
Man eater never sated
**** point met….She’s not your daughter
You left him in an empty room
Payback is a jade eyed snake coiled up in your marriage bed

That High school Knight
Greasy hands and milk toast breath
You fled again
Tell me you’re happy
When he’s gone from dawn to dusk
Catching crappies* and suckin Pabst in a can
While you pickle yourself with cheap *****
And soap operas
Buried your crazy mother, your Witch of a sister
And the **** you married first….
No ripples of remorse
In the cement of your soul

We only speak across miles
Unreconciled
You will never apologize
Little dreams strangled
Wet ******* around my neck
Soap in my mouth
Welts and belts,
Wire brushes and hangers
Fitting discipline
Can’t leave my own alone with you
Drown your grandchild in the toilet bowl
Rather than ask for the truth
From a terrified child
Who had only begun to adore you
Now I can’t love his scars away
The truth is bitter, cold and lonely
Love cannot grow in a heart of stone
Chiseled bitter by the sins of a mother
A father and another
You never had a chance to be
Complete….
02/24/10
For Barbara....
*crappies are a pan fish.
My mom was born with congenital birth defects including a missing finger on her right hand, a missing limb below her right knee and no toes on her left foot. Her father swore she was not his child for several years. Her family was dysfunctional and she married into another dysfunctional family. When she finally divorced my dad to marry a high school sweetheart, she told my dad he was not my father. I know specifics weren't required but I felt they were necessary to understand the context of the poem.
Oct 2014 · 525
Emotional Armageddon
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
There is a secret place
Where I stumble over moments
Bleed out
Small tragedies
Ossuaries of unbirthed dreams
I pick the bones clean
Fat with the bitter marrow
I **** my own ego dry
Always hungry for more
Reality imperious with her stark sun
Will obtrude this paper veil
Lethal
Wasps in the wine
Sting my throat
Bloated
I cough out only lies
Transfixed by specters
The thin skin membrane fantasy
Effaces
I am so…
Disappointingly mortal
Transfixed by shadow Christologies
This shallow breathing
Slow asphyxiation
Of mantras that never rise
Appropriate the faithless
Words that burn
Catapult my personal truth
Against your stone walled beauty
I am ragged
Broken
Imprisoned in this walking cadaver
I call soul
She wants what she wants
There is no beauty in this lie
Only the resonant sensation
Of the inevitable decay
When the secret place that is me
Turns to ash
And blows away….
TL Boehm
2010

Shadow Christologies - is a term often used for Old Testament teachings that alluded to Christ - many Jewish Festivals were examples of "shadow Christology" - in this piece specifically the intent is to illuminate the futilty of chasing shadows when the real thing is available...
another Godpoem
Sep 2014 · 436
Breathe The Days
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Silent she slips in
Resolute the new day
Steps of eiderdown
Path rendered muted echoes
As sparkled snow sugars tongues of lovers
A petaled hand extended
Fragrant cherry blossoms
The blush
The rush
Will cupids lacquered eros wax
When the breeze of romance
Roars ferocious
Lions prowl on taloned claws frigid
Before the frail Paschal lambs
New birth awaits the cadence of spring rain
And jonquiled mornings pregnant with dew
Little girls skip minuets
Plait the maypole
Festive in buttered eyelet, whispered taffeta and crisp dotted swiss
Dreaming of castles and gilt armor
Bind this heart of mine in gold and champagne roses
Love and gunfire burst on the palette of the night sky
Sonic color settles shrieking freedom
The haze of summer days
The wind warm, your breath warmer
She languishes heavy lidded
Pine pitch fragrant in her hair and sweet strawberries in her mouth
Fireflies flit teasing
Tepid water waits for stain glass wings to grace the surface
Taut the day holds her breath
As rumbling thunder promises the cool monsoon
Chase away the dog days when the atmosphere clings heavy
Sleepless nights of croaking toads and the drone of mosquitoes
Breathless for the heady patter of rain
Herald the skies of burning blue
Above a cacophony of color
Cottonwoods in petticoats sunflower yellow
Crimson maple and dusted ash
Dance beneath the harvest moon
Thankful
Life is a gift to be unwrapped
Surprise exquisite
Like the first star sparkling on your horizon
At the end of the day.
TL Boehm
02/01/10
think "Each month of the year"
Sep 2014 · 303
This moment is Mine
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
“From small beginnings come great things.”
Proverb quotes

The dawn waits
Blushing scarlet before she steps
Scarlet skirts spilling
Over cool blue mountain crests
Breathless she arrives
Slipping in your window
Your face awash with light and life…
Love wells up in a rush
Spilling from my eyes
Shh…they’re happy tears…

Just yesterday, or maybe the day before
I cupped that fuzzy head of yours
In the palm of one hand
As that first drooly smile bubbled up
And I lost my mind for you…
Now you’re grown
Dreaming of your own
That doe eyed Jewish girl
So high, can you see the curve of the earth
Reflected in her eyes
Does she make your heart race, child?
I’ll hold that first smile for you
Sacred
Give her the rest but this one is mine…
Its just too much
Hush…these happy tears…


Never thought I could love like I love you
Like Diana I got an heir and a spare
Your banshee brother
The terminus of endless screaming nights
How far away they are
Hair like a lion,
Skinny jeans and a fedora,
You’ve never been mine
Oh God, these ragged tears…
I lost my heart on you
An addict craving your arms around me
Without asking
I can’t get enough
The pretty girls, they smile shy
When you aren’t looking
You’ll break their hearts
But this ache is mine.

You stir in your sleep
As I whisper these prayers
Your lives on the wing
Send you off into your future
Don’t wake them yet, these happy tears…
Give them your best
But this moment…is mine.
TL Boehm
01/02/10
© 2010
former title "New Year, New Beginnings" - a dud of a title. This was written for my children.
Sep 2014 · 440
Ascendency
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
I have been a victim
Spattered by the saline spray
Of tears
Breakers crashing
The roaring surf
Blood in my ears rushing
Unable to fill the chasm
When dreams hit reality
Frail hope shatters
Scattered like gulls in the wake
Of a squall line
That dichotomy of sand and sky
Boundaries blur
Jetties endure the burden
Of the coming storm
This relentless tide hammers fragile shores
Limited ability to absorb the fallout
I find myself washed out to sea
Carried away
Forever swimming parallel to safety
Facetious hope a contagion
So acceptable to take on water
The annealing of complacency and stubborn faith
Simply a tonic for fools
I will be a victim
No more
My eyes are dry
I am weathered but unbroken
No more dredging the bottom for broken bones
And abandoned dreams
My reality waits
For me to stop treading turbulent water
And simply ascend
TL Boehm
01/01/10
© 2010
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
What is this bliss
That has me amiss
My thoughts verdant burning
Sound of cool rain
Soothing my pain
Nullifies the yearning
To see more of me than you
Hidden from my view
The epicenter of my discerning

This mask of stone
Your presence has grown
Barren branches reach for the sky
The silence belies
My unfocused eyes
Frozen from tears I cry
But you carry me through
To the place that is you
To the where and the how and the why

Turbulence grows
Cold wind blows
My mind is storm filled and gray
But you are the mark
The light in the dark
I stand clinging to what you say
In you I have seen
Fields of green
Upon this troubled path I stay.
072006
TL Boehm
I suppose this is a Godpoem.
Sep 2014 · 300
Breathe the Little Dreams
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Find me broken at the base of the stairs
When I leapt but couldn’t fly
This ascendancy is tormenting me
Leaves me too afraid to try
To rise and then take a step again
But to stay here is to die
Seems I’ve wasted nights and days
Tossing dreams across the rail
Each sacrifice was worth the price
**** the little things before they fail
But dreams die slow and now I know
They breed nightmares that prevail
So I’m face down on the culling floor
Words in my mouth they beg release
Gasping memories they cling to me
The vendettas will not cease
They want to live they can’t forgive
Until I give them wings and peace
One more time I’ll face it
I’m climbing up that stair
And I pray that light not darkness
Is waiting somewhere up there.
110209
Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
~Mark Twain~
Sep 2014 · 428
Love Wins
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
To my kids,
There is so much you do not understand in your skins. I could give you some kind of divine download, fill that thing between your ears with everything there is to know but then what choice would you have to live free as I intended you to live? I gave you the earth and everything in it. I created you in My image that you see with your eyes " male and female as partners " not slave and master, and that part of you inside that you don’t see, deep in you, its that part that knows Me, your soul and spirit. It’s that place we connect. I surrounded you with everything you needed. And before you freak out, all you vegans, I created the animals and I killed the first ones so you would be warm and covered when you chose to walk without Me covering you. Clothes were totally optional. You had Me, you picked heifer…still scratchin’ my imaginary beard over that one. You chose… Sure, I had angels in full body gear standing around " but I wanted you because I love you. I want your companionship. I want your intimacy. I don’t want your laundry list of “He’p me GAWT, but if it’s the only thing you can give, I won’t turn you away. If only I could get past your religion, your doctrine, your fears where you could believe Me, all the crap you put each other through would simply be unimportant. Some of you scurry around and scream about me and my Old Testament, bad ***, flood the planet judgment and you totally skip the part about how I sent someone to you, just like you, a real human with real blood and real tears to stand in for all the stupid stuff you’ll ever do or have done. It was so simple, one death, one sacrifice and we’re all clean but you have to work it and manipulated it and qualify it until denominations and gurus and Oprah and Chopra have your minds so twisted you couldn’t see Me for who I Am if I sat on a unicorn, clothed myself in grape leaves, and led the Macy’s Parade. Don’t you get it? I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you. I am Love and I am incapable of hating you. EVER. All I ever wanted is for you to simply love Me back. You gotta trust Me. You can’t look at earthquakes and floods and famine and the rise and fall of the dollar bill as punishment from Me. All this stuff is temporary, except you, and Me. We are Forever. This planet isn’t your Paradise, kids. It’s just your training ground. I have amazing plans for you. And the sooner you grasp that, the sooner you stop swallowing the pills and the cheap thrills and stressing over the bills, and wringing your hands over “My will” the better off you’ll be. Oh, and as long as I’m monologuing, get off the backs of my worshippers. I’m perfect. You aren’t. I’d rather have you getting together in my name and singing and dancing, Kids your praise, when you just abandon your petty egos and party before me, it makes my heart swell with all the pride a Father could have. I’d rather see you do that " with the mistakes and the fussing " than each one of you alone under a tree somewhere barking about our “relationship” or watching the church channel 24/7 and calling it “comin’ ta Jeezus. I created you to work together in my name. Don’t freak out so much about the name of the building or the color of the wafers, or the drums and piercings. I will know if you love me. Quit running, quit hiding, quit comparing yourself to somebody else, quit blaming everyone else for your own mistakes when you never ask me to help you deal… Quit asking me to “fix somebody else” because if they like the thought of being critter fritters for eternity then that’s their choice to make, not yours. I do not impede on your free will. I won’t impede on anyone else’s free will. You can’t earn it. I don’t give out gold stars for good behavior. You either respond in love, or you don’t. The only thing I crave is that you get it, really get it. I love you. Always have, always will. You can’t do anything, you can’t **** enough, you can’t lie enough, you can’t destroy enough, you can go straight to Hell if you want, but I am everywhere…even in Hell…I’m with you. Of course, it will be your choice if you want to refrain, you know? See? Once you lock in your answer, you don’t get to phone a friend…You have a choice even I don’t have, me the almighty, the limitless with a limitation…you can choose to love…For me? It’s not an option…because I AM LOVE.

Your Abba....
God isn't mad at people. He just gets mad at what we do.
Sep 2014 · 594
The ABC's of God's Love
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
ABC's of God's Love
Above the chaos you see
Beyond your earthbound destiny
Cradled in the master’s hands
Dreams await and sacred plans
Eternal stuff for your weary soul
Fueled by love to make you whole
Generate the light where shadows break
Heal the cracks the wounds mistakes
Illuminate the chains by which you’re bound
Just take His hand and know you’re found
Kindred spirit deep within
Love never ends where you begin
My precious child I love you more
Never doubt what you’re created for
Only rest in me I give you peace
Protection, power and sweet release
Quiet child I am your source
Removing rocks I set your course
Swift water rises and winds may blow
Trust in me and this you know
Unconditional love precious and true
Victory and strength belong to you
Wherever you are I am with you there
Xoye your shepherd within my care
You are priceless by my infinite design
Zion waits " dear child mine.
TB 090706
I cheated on the X.....
Sep 2014 · 335
Revolution
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
“Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply, those who want to deny the world must have embraced what they now set on fire.”
MillyQueenie
So you slither in
On silken hinged conviction
Your pain the knotted noose
For the necks
Of sinners and fools
Too stupid to put a foot on your throat
Constricted benediction
The little foxes pant for air
Flailing in your scaly wake
They writhe in your grasp
And you revel
Blood on your tongue
Puffed up with your own poison
You open your mouth
Spray acid on the Bride
Satisfied you savor the screams
Your pride a blade that cleaves
Tender flesh from fragile bone
As if one innocent life freely given
Offers no succor for your temporary pain
Tear the tender lambs from the fold
Cast babes to the stones
And throttle the hope of reconciliation
Agape love a whisper on lips
Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean
Dress me in unspattered white
Lift the veil  
And see me lit from within
Who are you to hold me back
With vicious words and venom
Drive another spike in the flesh
Watch me bleed
I’m on my knees for you
Prayer still slips from swollen lips
Forgive them….
My bruised heart will never harden
Against your clenched fist
You seethe and rail
When love would simply set you free
Perfected love casts out fear….
Covers a multitude of sins….
Love is patient…
Kind…
Still blind I cradle you coiled in my fractured hands
And pray for that day
When you realize
And rise….
TL Boehm
092909

Um....yeah...Guess what THIS is about....
spoiler alert...I can't keep a secret...so:
Often, Christians - or those who would call themselves Christians, or those who "were" Christians once - are more deadly to the Church (remembering that the church is PEOPLE and not a building) than those who are not "Christian." there is a fine, deadly line between taking a "sin" to your "brother" and hanging your brothers soiled knickers out for the whole world to see...
Thus the poem. Everyone sins. Nobody gets away with it. Love is the better option. Gossip and slander kills.
I'm guessin this angsty little number will go over like excrement in the happy sangria, but you know? There just isn't much that gets me wound these days. So if I have to dig for a scrappy tangent - I have to exhume my personal warthog. And she's comatose. So I'm falling back on my sheepdog tendencies and I'm sure I'll be spitting out a bit of wool before the day is over.
So - take it with a bit of salt if you want. I'm not ****** at anyone in particular. Just writing what I know...And I know I'm s'posed to play nice...even if I don't want to.
Sep 2014 · 1.3k
Circumspect
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Ever decreasing circles
Tessaracts
And mine fields
Hindsight blind sided
Ostensibly this funneled
Tunnel vision
OCD in oscillations
The vortices surround me
Gravity
On my event horizon
The memory of sunlight thins
This meridian
Soul and spirit intersect
At the latitude of foolish intentions
Emotional circumspect
The absolution of revolutions
Pull my fatal focus center
Enter in
To end
Where I begin
aufero vestri cranium ex vestri ****
whispered litany
reverse reverberation
In that space between statis
And 360 degrees
Stretch out my arms
And I am free…..
Ever increasing circles
From the epicenter
To destiny
TL Boehm
092809
remove your cranium from your ****....
the oozlum bird was the inspiration for this mess.
Sep 2014 · 447
Where Are You?
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Sometimes it seems my world is so small
My POV - a bland wall
Studded with scant moments:
Digital whispers of my legacy
A young man's smile effervescent
Facing his future in cap and gown
My heart skips with that mix of ache and pride
Another man
Temples gray and that impish grin
The last birthday cake he ever shared with me
My hand reaches up but I cannot touch you, Dad
"Do you remember,
when it was like September?"
Pinned up equines splashing through surf
as I tick off the days

A frosted claret vase, left by some young thing
Silk flowers sunny yellow, cool blue and lavendar
Clay sculpted toothy worm monster poised to eat a boy
Look closer - he's peed in the pastel dirt
Random shots of blue eyed boys rest on my blonde wood desk
80's music drifting from my radio
Jungle green growth dances lightly
Draped on black steel file cabinets
My back to the window
Cars passing by
And the late summer sky
yes
My world sometimes so small
Lose myself in the crave of an electronic universe
Colors and light and words
So much warmer than the stale coffee in my cup
Strike a match and let it burn
away...
TL Boehm
091609
The view from my desk in 2009 - hasn't changed much...still small.
Sep 2014 · 349
Quiet Chaos
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
You were my quiet chaos
Calm storm in the heart of a girl
You led me skittish
Ungainly beautiful
Like a newborn fawn for you
Lose me in this wilderness
Reminisce that kiss
Lips parted never met
Would you have lingered
Hot and sweet in my mouth
Like green chile praline brittle
Your idiot savant I played
serious for you
Danced in my dreams to your beat
stacatto pulse alone together
But like real magic
You disappeared
Rumors of you
Sleeping under your daddy's truck
same jeans and tees
worn at the knees
Curls tangled around your face
Your eyes that fevered chill
Where earth...
and stars...
and forever collide
I could see beyond infinity
Yet you'd look at me
Soul empty the well dry
was it the ****, the speed or the need
Casual intimacies
I was totally partial to you
Wild inside but you never knew
Left me parched in the pouring rain
The last day
Breath on my cheek
Words you didn't speak
My skin craves you hugging me fierce
Dreams broken they slip away
Aching for a second chance
Stinging question lingers in my brain
Will you kiss me
You'll never ask again...
TL Boehm
091409
for Chris Martinez
Chris was a drummer in HS. He was a reclassified senior and I was a junior. We recruited him into our "garage band that never was" only to find that he was pretty much "gone" for all his talent. He dropped out of school and broke my little cheesy heart. He asked me to kiss him once. I told him no....end of story...
Sep 2014 · 415
Aching Blue
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Your mongrel dog at my side
We swing gently
back and forth
faded redwood planks sigh
and the weathered grape leaves
Whisper a tired summer song
My bare feet brush cut grass
As I stare at your back door
waiting...
For the ghost of you to cross that threshold
Say my name one more time
Fill up the empty places you left behind
In my heart
My ears ring at the silence
Missing small talk about the trees
Heavy with fruit
and fuzzy bumblebees that drone
pollen laden bodies
burying themselves
in poppies she never planted
The sky burns aching blue
Like your eyes
Cloudless before the storm
The deluge will come
But not today
Mongrel dog in my lap
I let my thoughts swing gently
Back and forth
remembering you
and skies of aching blue.
TL BOEHM
for my dad....
090709
written a few months after my dad passed away in 2009
Sep 2014 · 993
If I Had The Words
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
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
Morose and peppered with self loathing. But HEY it rhymes....sorta
Sep 2014 · 391
My Sister's Keeper
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Three day's deep in the wilderness
Water too bitter to satisfy
Can't cry out for the latter rain to fall
With a voice so parched and dry
Dreams broken and Hell before you
Face down on the barren ground
You struggle to breathe a ragged prayer
Your heart screams but your lips make no sound

Would I bleed to save you?
Sacrifice my life to stop your pain?
Or would you struggle to see the Jesus in me
If your eyes met mine again?

Troubled dreams in the morning
This ragged life a scourge I dread
Lose myself in the worrisome world
My heart beats but my spirit is dead
Abandoned to deeper sorrow
Whispered words flood my brain
I find that you wash over me
And I pray for you again

Am I my sisters' keeper
Would I bleed to stop your pain
Hold your tear stained face up to the perfect light
Die to see you smile again?

Am I my sisters' keeper?
Precious sister, I would give
The last ragged breath I have for you
so that you and your dreams can live...

Yes. and then some.

call answered.

TB
062909
For my BFF....I miss you.
Sep 2014 · 303
Ache
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Morning drifts through windows closed. Her sunlight brings warmth but no comfort as I watch hummingbirds hover. Jeweled wings a blur against bare branches. The bones of broken trees and memories waiver liquid. I cannot bear to let them fall.
Today is the goodbye moment. Kiss and cry as faceless friends press wet palms against our backs and chant the mantra..."I'm so sorry for your loss. He was such a good man...He loved Jehovah..." So proper in suits and ties - perfume and sweat in a cloud of sadness, God will veil my eyes so I don't remember this day except in bits and pieces. Flower petals spent on dry ground. I am this throw away child with the paper doll heart.
Faced with a box of ashes and this terminal ache how can I be grace? So brutal to tell the child in my soul she cannot climb up in your lap to watch the words as they fell from your mouth...mouse eaten corners and molding images - your legacy tossed in boxes on my livingroom floor....no crosses....no Christmas....no military...I'm alone with the you I knew in pieces...where is my peace?
Whether you sleep or cease my actions only testify to a memory. LIke a dog I crave that praise at the end of the day....good girl....I will cause no pain. Please and "thank you." Sit like a young lady...I will disappear by degrees....and never shame your name....but I ache
TL Boehm
05/16/2009
Written the week after my daddy died. I am his apostate daughter - Jesus Freak. Holy Roller. The lost child.
Sep 2014 · 665
Condor
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
f I could fly
Ascendent circling thermals
Spattered ash on God's blue palette
Perhaps you'd shudder
As my shadow passes
Spectred tingles scurrying beneath your skin
Like mice before the combine
My soaring sight unfocused on the chaff
Or the burning curve of the earth
I'm only fashioned for the passing
Gliding in on the last breath
Life ebbs
And I'm scrabbling for sustenance
In the dirt
A mongrel bird
Insatiable for the taste of decay
Raucous opportunist
Crack the bones of broken dreams
The marrow of life a dry memory
I am built to consume
Your castaway flesh
As you slip from death to life
I begin and end with eyes wide open
Transient purpose served
This side of Heaven
You won't find me aloft
In empty skies
When death passes
Into life
TL Boehm
031809
Sep 2014 · 782
Hating Shakespeare
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Oh, tragic Romeo and Juliet,
Two star-crossed lovers, by the way
Thy tale of woe makes me *****
What else could be more cliché

Or morbid Hamlet’s *******
With a jester’s empty head
Thy necromantic discourse
Woulds’t be better left unsaid

And woe betide who says thy name
I’d sooner choose a horrid death
Than sit through the doubled bubbled fame
Of the queer kilted lad, Macbeth

Thy coupled innuendos, Bard
Doth soften thee rigored mortis hard
TL Boehm 03/14/09 (edited by Fred Boehm)

PS: I conducted an interview with Shakespeare in an attempt to gather inspiration...from the sour sonnet above it was fruitless...my questions and his answers below...

1.Are you a male or female: "Tempt not a desperate man"
2. Describe yourself: "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast"
3. How do you feel about yourself: "Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb."

4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend "Tis torture, and not mercy
5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: "It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear"
6. Describe your current location: "Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty"
7. Describe where you want to be: bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud -

(snippets of Romeo and Juliet, by the way....)


9. Your favorite color is: That which we call a rose
10. You know : Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."
11. What’s the weather like: Never was seen so black a day as this.
12. If your life was a television show what would it be called: For you and I are past our dancing days"
13. What is life to you:  "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
14. What is the best advice you have to give: "These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume."
15. If you could change your name what would you change it to: "What's in a name?”
a flippant quip in honor of the Bard
Sep 2014 · 382
What I Give - Volcanology
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
This ferrous heart
Rythmic in my chest
Striking sparks of scarlet
The rush of love
Urgent
Liquified
Thundered pulse beneath Hapheastus hammer
I am tempered
Precious metal wrought in chains
Your weathered hands strain
Clenched against the inevitable
Release….
You know you want to let go

Hesitant fingers rest
Against your hoary spine
Your response
The seismic reverberations
Rippling epicenter
Spasmodic undercurrents
Your shimmered skin betrays nothing
Silence
Before small sighs break
The surface tension
The catalyst
The chaos
Does the earth move for you, Baby?


Terminal velocity
This pyroclastic flow
Paroxic refrain
Embrace to disengage
You curl up mummified
Like the mutts of Pompeii
Ash covered and ragged
Legs splayed and heads thrown back
Against the seize
Measured breath forms fumaroles in the twilight
My vesicular skin soaks you in
Haphaestus aches
This ferrous heart sparks and breaks
In a dented cage
You never penetrate me

Eros Eternal no more valuable
Than chips of pyrite
Grace the palms of your hands
Transient cheap glitter
This exchange of fool's love
Procreation of Titans
Is best left to the gods
After all I give
You return only the memory
Of satiation
I gave you all of it….I am broken stones

TL Boehm

01/30/09
Um....yeah. Three guesses as to what this little ****** is about - and the bass keeps runnin' runnin and runnin' runnin'....I can go from zero to stoopid at the speed of light. Most days, hey...I'm already there.
Sep 2014 · 690
The Bones of Winter
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
The Bones of Winter

The sun rests cold
On the bones of winter
Bleached mirror of oneself
Shedding light
But no warmth
With the tenacity of sinews
I am tied to you
Drawn in by the solidarity
Of shared intentions
Tethered until death parts us  
I'm starved for intimacy
Heart stretched taut
Thin skinned belonging and attachment
Characteristic covenant of a lie
Your drum song litany of sorrow
Wasted on empty air
Our mutual decisions shackle me
This reciprocal forgiveness
The pleasantries of acquaintances
Quaint values wasted  
Bands of gold identifying markers
The dirge of mutual caring
whispered fireside stories of life
Enhancing spirit
Walks a well tread path to a shallow grave
This passing of our forever friendship
Trade better for worse
The sun rests cold in this soul of winter
Remembered warmth in your arms
Fades away.
TL Boehm
01/28/09
I'd like to think it was more creative than saying I'm peed at the hub for leaving me wait in a cold car all night last night, but maybe not.
I was planning to go home, to enjoy some desperately craved quiet time, to catch up on the little things like blogging and sock mating and choking down banana nut muffins the other peeps revile, and so I left work with a light heart and big dreams only to be crushed when my key wouldn't fit in the door...
Sep 2014 · 388
Let It Be - For Terry
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
"when I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
Let it be"

Solo notes set to rest
Crimson petals fragrant
Descants and refrains
Take the light
Take the floor
This image flickers
Suspended adoration
Sister mine

Forever singing in the secret
Sacred places
Unscathed, unscarred
Wild irish locks in ringlets
at your throat
grace notes and triplets
concrete streets and desert skies
While years and tears fall around me
I keep you safe inside

Weve weathered everything
casual insincerities
jealous suppositions
vicious cycles of friends and enemies and fools
Ticking clocks mark idle time
You so often the weary warrior
While I cower naked behind these words
Pray they say enough to cover us both
Passing off my emptiness
You fill it up
Give again
Feed my monsters fragile kindness
from your hand
You bless me more than you will ever understand
My sister Treasure
the forgiveness of a friend
All my petty dreams and inclinations
gathering dust at the end of the day
I slip away to that sacred moment
and you are there
I hear you sing again to me

"whisper words of wisdom....let it be"

Take the light
and you are free

for Terry - who gave me a second chance at friendship.
012209
quote from Paul McCartney Let It Be
I'm in a dry season when it comes to poetry - not for lack of ideas - but lack of time to develop them. I took time I didn't have yesterday - and let this one out. In 1981, Terry and I were juniors in High School - sharing this big dream of rock sisterhood. By 1982, I got a big ego, and Terry got a life. My dreams never manifested, and hers - they changed as some dreams do. But now, because she forgave me repeatedly - we are friends. So the poem is for her. It is an image I have of her, on stage, singing - casting a flower to the crowd - I remember her spotlighted....I remember the applause....for her...it is a precious image. I hope she reads this and it brings her light.
Sep 2014 · 338
Send Them Love
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Scribbled epithets
Pressed wet with tears
Sacred spaces carried by hallowed hands
Whispered winds that hover
Can't cover this fragile soul
Fractured by the passage of years
Each stone a death remembered
Casual depravity
Swarming queenless
Cyclonic before the storm
The walls we build
Never strong enough to stop the tide
Empty breath
Bubbles up to a silent sky
Potential of a life unlived
Slips beneath the surface
Swirling backwater memories
Heavy with fresh earth and leaves
Surrender the imprint
Of your body to oblivion
I can only wish you peace
I know will not come
Forever beyond
My aching grasp
If I could pull you
Warm inside
Some secret place
An open heart
Rubbed smooth
Sweet balm for your weary soul
I’ve lost you to the droning insanities
Shipwrecks and effigies
Cast up on the shore
You are forever dragging chains
No ascension
No freedom
Fruit plucked
Before the ripening
Bitter offering
For barren ground
Always hungry for more
I scribble an epithet
Pressed wet with tears
Plastered prayers to fill the cracks
In my fractured soul
Surrender your memory
To the silent sky
Send them love....
Good bye...

TL Boehm
010809
For "May"
Inspired by the Book "The Secret Life of Bees"
Sep 2014 · 694
Wild Vine
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
I have found myself
A wild vine
Growing away from the center of You
Tendriled pathways
Coil around themselves
Clinging to rough stones
Searching for nourishment from barren ground
That cannot feed me
Leaves crushed and trampled by treading cares
Of this world
Parched and soiled, by sin
Choking out Your son light
I am unrecognizable as Your child
A wild **** to be ripped from the field

Yet you find me
wash me clean
with gentle spring rains of love
Your word cuts away
Bruised and broken foliage
Your breath stirs me
To put forth fresh leaves
The promise of fruit restored
I can feel your life  
Welling up
As you turn me again
Toward your Son
TL Boehm
021208
Definitely a God Poem
Sep 2014 · 1.0k
Cloister
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Cloistered manifestation
Candle lit veneration
Indoctrination it seems
The apocalypse of dreams
subtle degradation
emotional *******
a soul split at the seams

you whisper wicked words
pleasure and pain are blurred
subliminal hypocrisy
fingers slick I grip these beads
wheat and tares sprout from these seeds
twist the truth in a noose for me

formidible religion
this gospel of indecision
life bled out on your killing floor
render me defeated
my lesser gods unseated
wrath poured out I am no more

chant your litany of lies
This sinner you despise
clench that unread Bible to your chest
consign me to eternal shame
never again to speak my name
bury me with the rest
your religion is death
with my final breath
a means to an end is best
TLB 11/01/08
there is a difference between religion and faith - this is not a dig at faith -but religion by rote with no faith in God is enslavement
Sep 2014 · 1.2k
Lucid
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Have I forsaken
The sanctity of dreams
Enabling the cacophony of small chattering crises
Droning desires dominate my days
Clinging to incantations and litanies of little lies
Repetitive resonance no substitute
For your whispered word
Sipping the residue of wickedness
from this burnished cauldron of the world  
Toxic stupor no replacement for you
Enabling vulgarities to reign supreme
This was never my lucid dream

I am blinded by your radiance
The mirrored pure light of your soul
Resplendence magnified
Purified in a river of pain
You cleanse me from within
Erase my melancholy days
I am uplifted from this abyss
You breathe my lucid dream
TLBoehm 061807
perhaps a God poem
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
So the world spins
Inner discourse thinning
In the wake of daylight
Muted blues shift crimson
And the halcyon light floods my vision
I remain saturnine
The inner tenebrae of my dusky soul
My personal shadowland
sedulous manifestos etched
across my heart
the tattooed movement
cadence of oblivion
stained by the purpura
Of bleeding dreams

Apollo rides grandiose
Careening orb obliterates the dusk
Yet my eyes rain
myriad tears chase themselves
forever obedient to that same gravity
leaving me face down
with nothing but wet earth
and seeds dormant
full of promise that never blooms
My heart in the darkness
Of a shuttered room

TLB 092308
just a ramble. If you're gonna be in a mood, you may as well squeeze a poem outta it.
Sep 2014 · 711
Doppelganger
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
In the hush of moments
Before the breath of day
Expressed from hesitant lips
meus animus vacuus vita
Before the pulsing flood
Of light spills across the floor
My heart the cadence of skipping stones
Tossed across the abyss of moments
I am the skittering silence
Taboo communion
intereo regenero

granite manifestations
This flesh a memory of dreams
Swallowed by sightless eyes
Oblivion a sanctuary for fools
Flesh and bone obey decay
And you wait in the space between
reflection and rejection
for me to put out the light....
TLBoehm
082808
my soul without life
to die and be reborn
nails and rust
Sep 2014 · 266
Who Am I
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Mat 24:6  When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end.



Sleep, precious one
The sheltered oblivion of innocence
Passes quickly
In the revelation of darkness and light

Mat 24:7  Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places.



But consider the intimate whispered things
The divinity of DNA
I made you to stand unshaken
Uncompromised
Unforsaken, Child I am with you

Mat 24:8  This is nothing compared to what is coming.

The celebration of death
Macabre mutations of sacred and profane
Black and white will blur
And you will cry alone
Over gray shadows of lives
That might have been

Mat 24:9  "They are going to throw you to the wolves and **** you, everyone hating you because you carry my name.



But you have the courage
To stare death down
I am your forever
Each beat of your heart
Remembers my promise

Mat 24:10  And then, going from bad to worse, it will be dog-eat-dog, everyone at each other's throat, everyone hating each other.



Eyes blind they stare
At the mirrored reflections
Unable to recognize
The sanctity of a human life
But you’re not among the walking dead

Mat 24:11  "In the confusion, lying preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people.



One way, one truth, one life
This mantra whispered
In the cacophony of choice
Residue of lost souls, multiple paths
To a destination of perpetual separation
Just follow me….

Mat 24:12  For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in--nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes.

The conditional provisions
Bound, gagged and shackled
This was never my way

Mat 24:13  "Staying with it--that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved.

Sleep precious Child
I will wait for you in your future
When you know its not in the victory
But the struggle
You will find me where I’ve always been
Within
I bring you Peace.

Love
Dad

TL Boehm
www.tlboehm.webs.com
Peace.
(all scripture references taken from the Message Bible paraphrase)
just another Godpoem
Sep 2014 · 1.2k
Friction Addiction
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Friction addiction

Hostilities slip from blistered lips
Scald the core of me
The I don't love you
War of words
and absurdities
What will it take to please you
Teasing me with shackled pleasure
The measured moments
Your addiction is friction to my spirit
I hear it in your veiled promises and lies
Defies the logic that tethers me
Responisibility
Civility
The trappings of this plastic
Psuedo humanity
Insanity the manacles I drag
Bound and gagged by your perception
The deception of what you choose to see
Skin to skin we writhe enslaved
I will never be set free
TL Boehm
080708
not about the spouse. love the spouse. always have.
Sep 2014 · 460
Altar-Ed
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.  Katherine Hepburn
Altar-ed

Imbedded in my memory
Scratchy soundtrack moments at 33rpms
The wicked life I led
Wine soaked nights
Days steeped in bourbon blur
Pagan cadence to the sacred space
Thrumming drums of pen to paper
Cryptic rhythm of words slurred
In sweat and desperation
My imagination
I reveled in potential pleasure
So many suitors spellbound and broken
In my wake I take nothing
The carnal flesh set for sacrifice
On the altar of forbidden dreams
My mind sullied, body clean

And you came with sober notes
The subtle structure of a tempered life
Traded my tambourine
For shackles
Mother, wife….
Dry eyed I cleave to you
Under quiet skies
My mind recants
The rigid friction of your words
My body yours when this mind’s empty
Adequate sacrifice for the sanctuary
Of dreamless creeping sleep.

TL Boehm 070408
a bit on marriage I supposed. And past lives half lived.
Sep 2014 · 2.8k
Serendipity
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
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
A rare poem for my hubby. A bit o sap and fluff
Sep 2014 · 663
Coyote Dreams
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
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
Random bad poetry
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