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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TL Boehm
061408

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

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

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

La Luna lifts from the cosmic abyss
Pinioned in stellar skies
For a moment or two swept away by you
Sparkling life lit up in your eyes
Carry me away from anywhere
To that special hideaway called you and I

Cool Luna's fog sweeps round me
Spring night a bluer hue
You sitting there, soft breeze through your hair
Falling in love again with you
Take me away from the chaotic day
Lose my self in eyes so blue

I catch my breath and I
Close my eyes wish I could fly
As moments sweeping by
La Luna lifts in ebonyed sky
TL Boehm
050407

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

".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

I have learned that blood and bone
Are no assurance of love
That the parents who should protect you
Forget you
In the wake of their own unspun lives

I have learned that the newborn life
Once cradled in my arms
Won't consider my sacrifice
In the wake of unbridled rage
Love is a hollow lie

I have learned that I am a monster
Murderous and cruel
Selfish and judgemental
Producing bitter fruit
That withers on the vine

I have learned that the world
Doesn't love a dreamer
War and tragedy churns
In the belly of Babylon
The meek are weak expendable
Casualties of circumstance
Destined for demise

I have learned there is no sanctuary
No refuge from the malice
Washing over me like sleet
On a winter day
My heart is cold stone
I am lifeless

I have learned that intoxicants
Only fuel the ache
magnify this emptiness with
shallow platitudes
The flavor of the day
Scraped off the spoon tomorrow

I have learned
I still don't know how
To give up the little dreams
In the silence of my soul
I gather them piece by piece
Hiding them from myself
For fear I'll do me harm

I have learned I should love myself
I have learned....I don't know how to love
TLB 05/20/08

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

Run to me my broken child
And I will make you whole
I am the one who loves you most
Who breathes life into your soul
Run to me my broken one
And I will set you free
I’m here with strong arms open
Turn around and run to me.

You lie sleepless silence shattered
In the broken glass of your day
Your fragile spirit tattered
Your hope is swept away
In the deluge of delusions
Frustrations born of pain
But I am no mere illusion
Caught in a drop of rain

On my knees at your feet
I lift your tear soaked face to the light
I am your fortress your retreat
From terrors in the night
I am your warrior, your peace, your path
As your world tumbles down
I am shelter in the aftermath
You will not crash you will not drown

Let me hold you safe in my arms
Put your weary head against my breast
I melt the ice I keep you warm
This pulse of love beating in my chest
I have loved you before eternity
And after time stands still
You are beautiful and whole in me
I love you now and always will

Just a love note from your “Father”
082206
TL Boehm
you are loved beyond measure. Treasured beyond belief

“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....

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

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

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

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

With light steps
And joyous hearts
May you walk together
In the light

We join you in celebration

May you dance through life
As new leaves
Led by gentle spring breezes

May love lift your spirits
As birds carried aloft
In turquoise summer skies

My you be to each other
As soft mountain rain
Refreshing the soul
And bringing new life
To barren ground

May you capture your dreams
With rainbow lariats
And set them free
Within your souls

Now you have the secret of immortality
Entwined in bands of gold
A promise
And the spirit of two souls
Made one

TL Hughes Boehm
5/5/89
For Camille Dombrowsky and Ruan Bacigalupa 6/10/90

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

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

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

TL Boehm
062608

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

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

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

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....

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

"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

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

“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

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

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~

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.

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

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)

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

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