starlit spectre
on crescent thoughts descend
the lonesome days I spend
apparitions disappear in daylight
Like whispered promises
of friends

celestial solace
nocturne's daydream
on pinioned wing visions stream
the sparkled rush of lovers hands
cross silvered sands
mercurial stream

Cast away imagination
Set to flight in ravened skies
the ghost of hope now flies
shh don't wake me
to the harsh light
I despise.....
TLBoehm
032808

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

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

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

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

You cannot be what you want to
You cannot stay who you are
You'll never get there from here
You'll never get that far
    
     The loop goes round and round
     The sound on autoplay
     The noise is loud inside my head
     I cannot get away

Who do you think you are
Why do you even try
You came into this world with nothing
And with nothing you will die

     The loop goes round and round
     Plays inside my brain
     The loop is a noose around my neck
     And around my ankles its a chain

Don't believe it don't recieve it
The loop is a deadly lie
Meant to put you in the ground
When you should spread your wings and fly

     You are precious beyond measure
     You're a priceless gift to me
     Break through the loop inside your head
     Let love set you free...
TL Boehm
02/05/06

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...

Tendriled nightmares coil
Writhing blind knots
Restrict my inner vision
Peripheral blurred neuroses lurk
Morbid melodramas spin symbolisms
Of a tragic ending
Beyond the memory of moonlight
plaintive note of hope recedes
In the saturnine breeze
I am Lost to lower oscillation
Vestigial presence of the divine
Inert
My racing pulse thrums a dirge
for the waning day

You are the fulcrum
Levo mihi per vestri lux
The arbitration of angels
My inner spirit luminesces
Hope regains her tenuous place
I turn my tearstreaked face
To the memory of light

Amo Deus perficio lux
EGO mos orior iterum

TL Boehm
052608

Lift me with your light
Like God's perfect light, I will rise again

Do not leave me child
Do not fledge and grow
It’s just my broken soul in your way
Crumbling soft and slow
The first moment I held you
Is the moment I let you go.

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

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

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

TL Boehm
06/20/2013

In twilight you will find me
Dipping tenuous thread
Umber on dun
Sputtering tallow
Tapping ash into my thin skin
As if the tattooed music would soothe
The crawling terror in my gut
Hollow eyed I ply the offal
Crack the marrow mixed with spit
And dirt I form words of earth
And blood and bone
The viscus slippage I devour
The accretion of tears and sweat
In open wounds only births
Words that fester
Were you expecting a pearl?
I am weary of chasing
Beautiful winged creatures
Only begets feathers in my mouth
And dry heaves  
Fluff and nonsense
Raindrops and daffodils
Never sustain
There are no gentle angels
Only capricious minds that rail
Oh the horror of living
Off the remains of throw away moments
Chase the rainbows end
To your designer ever after
You will find me
Teeth bared and waiting
For you to wake up…  
TL Boehm
04/02/13

Where the skylights meet the highway
Where the rubber meets the road
Hell in my rearview mirror
And my mind on overload
Can’t outrun the ticking clock
Or distance myself from destiny
Spun out in the middle of my life
By the reckless heart inside of me

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

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

TL Boehm
02/15/14

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

Pressed between the pages of an old diary
An age lightened rose
Lies soap bubble thin
A claret echo lingers in once vibrant petals
Like the smudge of a first kiss
On a clean shaven cheek
Does the rose remember the blush?
Of the first love
Does it remember the warm wet earth?
That held it close
The scent still clings to its petals
Does it remember the morning dew?
Trickling down its leaves
Like droplets of liquid laughter
Spilling from my eyes
As I held it to my face

First love fades
Like the flowers crimson hue
But this rose
Like a dear old friend
Remembers

TL Hughes (Boehm)
1987

Your voice fell in whispers
With the cadence of rain
Thrumming against the windowpanes
The rush of mourning doves
And albatross dreams
I am the storm tossed
Sea inside
Angry skies
Breathe me in
And I become gravid
With the weight of your soul
You are cool blue water
Gentle surf teases
This fractured shoreline
Scuttle up ancient things
The tide brings both sorrow
And exaltation
Let me drown in you now
Carry me out to the depth of you
Lift the anchor
And cast me away
03/14/13

These breathless moments

Dreams flutter boundless

Pinioned on stellar winds

Constellations rise in indigo eyes

And I pull in spinning

Euphoric aspirations glow

In vertigo as the accretion heats

Birthing a new universe

I am astounded by the light



Interminable epochs

Found me comatose

At the divination point

The juncture of the void and life

I dance the staccato steps of departure

Memory of thin skin disappears

Beatific vision shimmers

In glistened entreaties

Lacrimae sunt arma femina.

Console me with forever

The emulation of flight defines me

Zenith in your twilight skies

On Heaven's breath I rise

*tears are the weapons of woman

TL Boehm
2/22/08

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

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

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

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

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

So I’ll tell you I’m a beautiful disaster
Stained glass prismatic in torrential rain
But the truth is I’m dull mortar and plaster
Crumbling walls in a house of pain
And the foundation sinks so much faster
Than I can shore up again

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

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

Set fire to the tapestries
Where the spinner spun her tale
Destruction has her mastery
Burned out husks of walls so frail
I’d say I’d won but for the life of me
I only know how to fail.
TL Boehm
07/27/13

“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

This woman’s love
Never caught up in the honeyed rush
As his gaze rests on the rhythm of her
Breath caught faltering
Lace at her breast can’t hide the fervor romance
The ephemera of blushed lips at fluted throats
Where bejeweled birds hover
Translucent
The summer luster of flitting wings
A dalliance in honeysuckle heavy with nectar
Fruited blooms and dew drop studded vines
The promise of heady mornings resonant with expectation
Of the day.
A fawn panting at the feet of Diana
Chase this dreamy ecstacy
Fling logic from a cliff with eyes wide open
Braced for impact and giddy for that little death

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

This woman’s love is birth and death
And all the sobbing chaos kept from you behind clenched fists
I would rather drown in the maelstrom than bring darkness
To blue eyed hope
This woman’s love is the slow decay
Of selfish dreams
The sloughed off mantle
Little girl dreams and daisy chains in trade for knowing
We created something beyond our selves….
Life will not be denied its effervescent bloom
As halos form in our hair and life becomes the salient blur spinning
Remembrance and forgetting
This woman’s love was worth the battle
Days settle soft at my feet
I obey gravity and the hope of little things
Babies in my arms…
Your happiness is my own and I win
This woman’s love
Is you.                
TL Boehm
09/27/2013

"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

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

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

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

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

May be you see my life
Across miles and years
The gentle rolling hills and valleys
Verdant earth that ebbs
And flows
Summer grass cool beneath
Wearied feet
Lazy sunsets slip soft and smoky
Rest for another day
Quiet against my breast
Breath measured
I treasure you
Sheltered in my embrace

Is this your love
Blinded to the rifts
The ragged cliffs
Barren and ravaged
Weathered scars
Torrential rains and landslide chaos
Define me
Canyons so deep
Light never descends
Do you find beauty
In my weathered soul
The rush of ascent
As you fly from this valley
Pinnacle bound
and breathless
Love is rarified air

I am your oasis
In the shifting sands
Drifting dunes and valleys
I shimmer in your love
Your mirage
A vision of shelter
Beautiful
Forever....
TL Boehm
051308

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

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

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

".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

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

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

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

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

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

TL Boehm
1/1/15

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 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

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

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)

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

Will you carry on
Over open water
Will you go
Toward the rolling shore
Will you fly high
Ever rising spires silent skies
Rush of wings brings you home

This is the moment
Smile and cry
Goodbye
Will you leave me for ever
Little girl no more
Sail far from this troubled shore
Broken wings can’t fly with you

If I could be your light house
Shining bright for you
But I’m only the mirrored darkness
Reflecting torment we go through
One faded image shattered
By the stones thrown from passing years
Bruised and broken on the highway
Washed away by blood and tears

Will you carry on
Through windswept waves
Will you go
Til you find your way
To a harbor safe and dry
Spread tearstained wings and fly
Until you find your way home….

Leave me lost
I stand sentinel
On this troubled shore
Alone
© 04/01/2006
For buffi and beth

Will you will or will you won’t
Will you do well when you don’t
Will you look right up and see
The mighty presence that is Me

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

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

I’m on your side as you run this race
It is my will to give you grace
No Hell no earthly place
Separates you from this grace
TL Boehm
January 2015