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Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
If I could speak
I would spill these lamentations
cloistered sins and secrets
whispered vespers for wretched dreams
Retching sentiment
this malignant manifesto
a macabre mantra
eats my skin from within
transient refuge for temporal treasures
inexorable moments carry life away

tick tick tick
the seconds scurry
flurried ineffectual supplications
demigods of affluence
the cacophony of the machine
I spin within
cogniscient of my myopia
the funneled tunnel vision
drips from the end of a pen
furtive verses on paper
fading ochre moments
somber drops of ash and bone
poetic exorcisms
of wicked things unknown

phrenetic
sensibilities trickle
spilling life
black and withering
is the gain worth sacrifice
crackling fat of dreams
too costly
this shallow palette
self obsessed
eyes gouged out
hands shackled
to the reality
the immortality

trust the dust
the dust becomes me
soul focused on decay
spectre death
devouring this unsparked spirit
If I could speak
truth into your heart
would you
believe.....
in anything more than what you see
I trust the dust and dust will be
the remnant me
TL Boehm
042508
this is admittedly toxic - I'm actually quite normal - because I purge in poetry.
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
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
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
hey its almost a happy poem.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
In the solace
Drifting transient
Before the dawn
Quiet light
Scattered sentient thoughts
Dreams lift on gossamer wings
Effervesce on heady winds
Like milkweed fluff on a summer day
From the narrow path
I stray

Lost in thoughts
Consuming
Stones thrown from distant shores
Placid surface
Fractured
This undertow defines my mind
Spinning evidence of chaos
Purpose slips away
From the narrow path
I stray
  
Fogbound vessel
Aimless deadwood
On a restless sea
Storm tossed
Lost and anchorless
Victimized by riptides and eddies
Uncharted course each sunless day
From the narrow path
I stray

TL Boehm 040508
This is about the spiritual and not physical intent. I am guilty of the random "Godpoem"
Tammy Boehm Dec 2013
Cerulean breeze
on an indigo night
You flung starlight
on my stellar path
The aftermath
of lovin' on my knees
My aim to please
Falls short between wrong and right
Walkin' out my denim days
And flannel nights

Azure eyes
Serpentine disguise
Took fruit from you any way
Coiled yourself around me
In the middle of a powder blue day
Never felt the strike till you were gone
Poisoned by your midnight song
Skin bruised by scales so tight
Walkin' out my denim days
And flannel nights

I am your china girl
Your cornflower field your summer day
And you are my river flowing
My blue moment slipping away.
Walkin' out my flannel nights
Trippin' down my denim days.
TL Boehm
you know, coulda woulda shoulda been a country song - but I don't sing anymore and when I did, I thought I was Stevie...not Shania....So.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
Everywhere I go
There I am
Casting shadowed glances
This periphery of lies
And smiles that grace the face
Gazing out from my mirror
Is it fear or something sinister within
Where does the image end and the girl begin

Everywhere I go
There I am
Cracked lips pursed in condemnation
Glass refracts the dissonance
Of this existence
Etched memories in skin
Furrowed face and furrowed mind
Beauty lost when the world is blind

Everywhere I go
There I am
Familiarity a festering wound
From love to loathing I’ve come undone
From creation to forever
Everywhere I go
I am my destiny
I can’t get away from me
TL Boehm
01/22/08

© 2008 TL Boehm
another archived work. and where would I go if I wasn't where I was when got there.
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
Tammy Boehm Mar 2014
No bits of lace and ribbon
No flowers for your hair
Just tiny trucks and airplanes
Toy soldiers everywhere
No ruffly pink cotton dresses
Pearl buttons sewn with care
Just big Tshirts and faded jeans
That’s what you’ll choose to wear

You won’t understand the love and ache in my heart
As I help you grow up to grow away
Bu I would not trade you for a ray of light
In a life of black and rainy days

Hey there rock and roller
My little toy soldier
I watch you dance alone
You’re my ray of son light
But one day you just might
Burn brighter than I’ve known
Will you still be dancing
When you are grown

Rubber scorpions in your pocket
Mario world in your dreams
Catching stars and crashing cars
A warrior on the TV screen
Pokemon are the only monsters
And when you fight you always win
Will your real world be as cool a place
As the digital ones you’ve seen

And I offer up a little thanks for you
Every time I close my eyes to pray
Keep on dancing to your song boy
You’ll never grow to old to play

TL Boehm
9/95  3/17/99  10/25/99
For Fred Boehm " watching Fred dance…
some cheese for my elder spawn "Fred"
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
Matthew 19:5 …a man shall leave his mother and father and be united firmly to his wife and the two shall become one flesh…

Are we simply stardust
Celestial fallout somehow sentient
The connection that effervesces between us
Happy accidents
Or is there that spark of the divine
Helixes and Holy angels
Spin a different plane
Eternal DNA
Existence beyond physical
This side of forever

Sacred accretion
Boundaries blurred
Do I begin then where you end
The weak made strong
Sight to the blind
And love the ultimate healer
For hearts torn asunder
Broken parts made whole
Bound by ties that set us free

I cleave to you
Under sparkling stars
Gentle passion envelopes us
Pulse and breath as one
You surrender pleasure to me
Wild moments sublime
We scatter seeds of immortality
Fertile earth
Breath over water
A single spark in darkness
And the universe
begins anew
TL Boehm
11/3/07
a little poem about creation that went off on its own elemental tangent
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.
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
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
chiaroscuro moment
molten chords
in golden glow
titian ringlets cascade
from linen shoulders
as your hands bring liquid color
to idle black and white
chorded words of three parts
Not easily broken
Ebb and flow as breath over water
a shift in timbre
resonant teak fettered in silver
heady scent of resin and balsam reeds
echoed drones the cantored dance begins
Taking flight the quiet arias rise
coursing low over open moors
Eyes veiled green
a fog shrouded shoreline
We leave transient prints
In damp sand...
Sonorous notes
From kilted pipers
A flash of tartan on thistled field
Drummers pulse the motion of life
You raise the standard
This ancient song is yours
and mine.

Open eyes to desert sky
Burning blue and empty
As fresh pages fall un-inked
on thorny ground
Only the ache of a melody remains
Lost refrains
broken notes in my DNA
Inspiration drifts away

I used to have a recurring dream of me, and two other friends - in a recording studio with the complete sheets of music in front of us - which we were singing...and when I wake up...I can never remember the song.
03/2008
© 2008 TL Boehm
*in high school I had the opportunity to play a bagpipe that had been made in Pakistan....the drones (for those of you unfamiliar with the instrument - drones are the three pipes sticking out from the top of the bagpipe) were made of teak with silver joints. In each drone there is a reed and you tune the drone by adjusting the wood pieces at the joint. the lining of the bag - and the joints of the drones are resined - so a set of pipes has a specific scent to it. - Pipes are instruments of WAR....and I loved playing them)
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
I want to live life fearless
I want to live life brave
I want to live a legacy
This soul you died to save
Electricity you’re life to me
Free forever from the grave

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

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

TL Boehm
Feb 2015
This is one of the last of its kind I suppose. I was inspired by a worship leader who said that God's love was like electricity. I wrote this and sent it to the worship leader and absolutely nothing happened. I now am in a place where I no longer attend regular praise and worship. No choir, no joy....I go to a church out of obligation and because of this and so many more reasons - I no longer praise. At least not like this. I believe it is integral but I am currently unable to do it. Just rambling.
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.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”

The witching hours between
Onyx nightmares - and dreams that sparkle at first light
Find me catatonic amongst my secrets and inuendos
Ragged shell
an insinuation of skeletal existence locked
Emotional rigor mortis
Hushed, suspended and supine
Stasis waits, hesitating
For the thrumming drums of life
a message of motion
sensual resurrection
That whispered music
melodic song my confidant
The rush of blood
This exhalation across lifeless lips
Speaks nothing into the void
So I do not breathe
In my skin that crawls beyond darkness
Recoiling from oblivion
I thought you loved me
Yet you are without utterance
And my heart breaks straining
For a note of music
and the silence ringing in my ears
A regretful requiem
Careless undertones
mimic this rumor of survival
Suspended I am
Unsung
TBoehm 022008

© 2008 TL Boehm
its more about the relationship between writer and writing than about a physical relationship
Tammy Boehm Sep 2014
Skeletal babies too weak to cry
Hollow eyed mothers
Fractured families scratch pits in fallow ground
Earth and hope
Dust scattered chaff
Rice in bowls for ***** hands
And hungry mouths
Cracking smiles optimized
"Mister Christian" done a good thing
Sign your name and look away
Feed a family of four for the price of a gallon of milk
Minimize your guilt
Clinking trinkets in a rusty bucket
Change the channel
Change your mind
Envision God and mother Africa
Doe eyed and grateful placing the crown of the faithful
On your generous brow
While another woman silently screams
Integrity leaking
In the baptism of red earth
And *****
She sleeps outside tonight
No shame for you the miniscule
Separation of virtue and flesh
The seeping reality
Scarred body and mind ravaged to feed
The baser needs of a man
Who will no longer have her
Worthless animal that she is
Brittle field unripe for planting
Seeds of life burst the seams
And she only dreams of a day
Unstained.
Untainted
Waste no meditation on the knowledge
She won’t bring another child into THIS world
For you
Insular in your indignation
Recoil at the colossus of poverty
Knuckled clicking at your heart
While you coddle your conscience
With spare change offerings
Consider dignity
At what price
Small sacrifice to you
Another mother sentenced to desperation
Crosses her legs and prays
While her integrity leaks away

TL Boehm
061108

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

See the two agencies below for further information. or google fistula foundation - or clean birth kit.  
www.fistulafoundation.org
www.path.org
Peace
a rare "protest" poem. They don't happen often. That's probably a good thing
Tammy Boehm Mar 2016
Put my petty dreams on the altar
My wasted time at your feet
Set my shattered soul before you
And this body worn by defeat
On my knees and I surrender
The battle lost now i retreat
And you meet me in this chaos
In the dirt and the tears and pain
In the middle of my humanity
Remind me who I am again
I’m your child and you’ve adored me
Forever loved since time began
In you I am beautiful
In you I am free
Only in you do I shine true
Your light bright in me
I’ll live this life reflecting you
Grace is my destiny
TL Boehm
02/15/15
Last God poem. Peace.
Tammy Boehm Aug 2014
His matriarch set off in the brilliant burn
Pre-monsoon summer skies as she flies
Home to Big Blue and strawberry fields, rolling sand dunes
Studded with peaches and cream stalks full corn ears
Past the gunmetal  hulls - Motor City madness
Send that cheap crap back to China
Import ratchet dreams that obsolesce faster than a preteen’s
Boy band crush
We left our polite goodbyes on padded benches in the Sunport
Trekked the cement labyrinthine path back to the car
Sprawled myself out in the backseat
Marinating in my bipolar haze of relief and regret
Two weeks of my soft under parts presented  
Respect for the Alpha who never hacked up a rabbit
At the mere sound of my keening cries
Sate the pack tomorrow I’m off the forest floor
In all my ears back, feral, foaming at the fangs glory
Salient thought abandoned on the crest of a stressed induced migraine
And the whelps yipping for pricey coffee with caramel drizzles

She broke my bleary eyed unfocused reverie
Wrangling two carts corralled by bits of ragged twine in the parking lot
As she ferreted through her peculiar tinsel adorned collection
Scraggly plastic wreaths, sad ghosts of Christmas past
And her grizzled locks wound round a red velveteen door decoration
Muted hues against her transient mantle
I caught myself looking away…
A triad of flies buzzed her presence
The dull thrum of something important forgotten
She shuffled to a center table
Arranging dusky floral skirts and kohl layered clothing
With hands caked with cracked black grit
Fingers studded with grimey chunk costume jewelry
Dug at the lid on a generic bulk bowl of noodle soup
While baristas and capri clad patrons skirted her table
As though they were restless waves
Fleeing before the power of God across the Red sea
And me ******* spun fat from the top of an overpriced iced concoction
Without pittance in my pocket
Caught myself staring…
Waiting….
For someone else to do the Christian thing

Is that how a Freak rolls?
Tongue lolling for the opportunity
When crazy plants itself
In the high backed chair in front of you
And pops open a styro container of “stroke in a cup”
Do you flash that cash wrapped round a tract
Put a hand on her weary back and pray
Do you simply look away
Caught up in awkward indecision
Uncomfortable in your urban bubble
This is latte day at Starbee’s for God’s sake
And she never put a hand out for help
Or spoke a single word
As if a bag of Oprah’s cut leaf tea would
Change her world.
Or yours.
Pride goeth before Christmas wreaths, and shopping carts
And *** metal costume jewels

Under the cool blur of my ceiling fan I glance skyward for answers
Offer a smattering of plaintive prayers
For matriarchs
And mavens with dull velveteen bows in their hair
For my children
For release from the pain at the back of my brain
And the constricting grip of entitlement torqueing my brittle heart
God breathes in moments missed
When we simply look away…
TL Boehm
08/21/2014
The day my MIL left after a two week visit, we stopped in at a local Starbucks in the Burque and ran into this woman in the parking lot. She now has a permanent if cramped home in my memory.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
Descant of light

The raconteurs of spring
winging whispered sonnets
chase the woollen winter malaise
from silent skies
fluttered hush of doves
herald the nirvana of dawn
Shadowed palette of dusky hues
muted blues spun somber grey
give way
the subtle brush fades
to the rush
of insatiable light
the alchemy of day
and night
Dismiss this imbroglio
melancholy thoughts
Bitter vignette of lamentations
words chilled expire on lips
disappearing wisps
My spirit lifts
in the blush of sun
dancing across pristine paper
arias burst in the illumination
scattered saffron pollen
blessing multiplied
my hands industrious
I lift my eyes....
The avatar of hope supplies
this descant of light
04/12/08
TL Boehm
a shiny happy Tam moment.
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
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Cast one more stone
In a well void of water
To sustain you
As if your trebuchet barrage
Scattered talismans at my weathered feet
Will bring the deluge
Pour out sacrifice
Redolent offering to the god in you
I want nothing more
Than to sharpen my sword on the bones
of your unreachable dreams
Draw this blade across your saline skin
Etch my grievances in blood and mortar
The panacea of fools
Are you even capable of feeling pain?
What a waste
This dance
Your ineffable demesne
Is nothing but gossamer threads
Smoke and mirrors
Cannot contain me
I refuse to move to your
Susurrous litany any longer
I'll cut out your tongue
For my standard
And leave you silent
To decay
TL Boehm 11/09/12
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
Now that we've seen the true depth of evil
The cunning agents who wield the power
Set in motion machinery of destruction
The insidious shackles of war and death
Washed up on our shores
The crone in our own reflection
Can we abnegate the course
The blind rage that sets our mouths casting stones
Can we truly love as the so called righteous sanctify
Other lies
We condemn men, governments, religions
We ostracize, prostelitize, criticize
Until our eyes don't recognize
The dignity of 63 lives
Born into a world forever changed
By the sacrifice of mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters
Serenade the heroes who did not falter
In the face of demons and ashes
Falling glass and jet fueled funeral pyres
With the apropo of excellence they chose
To stay...to fight...to climb the stairs
The true bane in the battle is the heart
So scorched it cannot care
For 63 lives in the balance
63 sets of ancient eyes and smiles of a child
It is time
To rise

TL Boehm  
Originally written 9/11/06.
Celebrating life.....

ABC NEWS - 9/11 babies five years later - google it
written for the 63 babies born to mothers who lost their childrens' fathers in the WTC  disaster
Tammy Boehm Mar 2014
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
another one from the vault. Before I really knew what "love" was.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
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
Another Godpoem of sorts.
Tammy Boehm Mar 2014
Today I found myself...chaotic
My soul the rogue wave
Rippling the placid ocean flow
Destruction a force multiplied
Swept away by the undertow

        Shh...I calm the waves
        Your restless soul
        I make you whole

Creation torn asunder
Ferocious surf
The thunder
Of a heart apart from you
Damage I cannot undo

        I cast the lines
        To draw you near
        Its your heart I hear

What angel in heaven cries
Sundown light slipping from ravaged skies
I lie powerless in the ebbing
Life of dreams slowly die

        I give new dreams
        Unquenchable light
        Illuminate your night

Cast ashore
Wrenching breath
I fight no more

        I am your breath
        Your living water
        You are my daughter

Writhing fright
This fear of death
This prison death

        Don’t struggle let me
        Hold you near
        I am the death
                            of fear
TL Boehm 2007
I suppose this is an "antiphonal" poem. a conversation between my soul and my spirit. The soul wants what it wants. The spirit is pure....I usually live therefore from the perspective of my soul.
Tammy Boehm Sep 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
Aegir is a norse sea god
the sun stone was a viking navigational tool - a stone that reflected light even in cloudy weather
The quote is from a Viking Burial Prayer. Contrary to myth - vikings were often buried in the earth with the grave outlined in stones in the shape of a ship.
I don't write pretty poetry - and this is a lamentation of sorts for my lack of ability to write something beautiful.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
If I handed you the knife
Let you cleave flesh from bone
Spilling blood
And broken promises
Fragmented thoughts
Fall where they will
Would you crack the marrow
Leave me dry
Pain the only release
In pieces of me consumed
Death is a shuttered room

Singing Psalms
Your Pollyanna mantra scatters rainbows

And dirges to the troubled skies
Revel in the celebration
Of a slow descent
Skipping stones across poison water
Wings of paper cannot save you
From the fall
Rushing pulse in my ears echo
This empty shell
Illuminate my way to Hell

Screams in silence
Lady Desperation

Behind my weary eyes
Ties another knot in the cord
Hold on a little longer
Let the words
Fall where they will
Vain resurrection of the faithless
Pain is the only force
Along the course with me exhumed
Sanity is a shuttered room
TLB 012208
Sometimes there are too many 'me's' in my mind

© 2008 TL Boehm
not knowing where to begin here - I'll just point and shoot and see what happens. I started writing in 1982 and I continue to write today. There's a lot of junk in between those dates...and there may be poetry.
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
Tammy Boehm Oct 2013
Got no use for aggression
Racial prejudice or abuse
Blamin’ everyone else
For your sorry self
Is a waste of breath a lame excuse

One day you’ll have to stand up
Face your Maker all alone
And all those losers wh
Ran around with you
Will fade away, you’re on your own

Got no use for whinin’
Spare me your tale of pain
We all walk the road
With a heavy load
We stumble and fall then get up again

One day perhaps you’ll listen
Your Maker’s burden is easy and light
You could share the weight
Yet you hesitate
Getting it wrong makes it feel right

Get up reach up get up
Stand your ground
Rise up fly up step up
Keep your ground
Step away from yourself
Step up to Him
Stand on Solid ground

TL Boehm
12/02
12/26/05
If I had any ability to write music - this would have a bit of a reggae feel to it. But Tam can't write music. Or lyrics actually
Tammy Boehm Feb 2016
Here is my broken heart
Here is my shattered life
Here are all my faults and failures
As a woman a mother and wife
All the promises I've broken
All the hateful things I've said
All the life I left unspoken
Wasting my breath upon the dead

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

Here’s the sum of my existence
Here’s the hardest part to learn
This wretched pride and persistence
Stokes a bonfire set to burn
All I am at the end of me
All damage done that I could do
All that’s left is the love that sets me free
Everything comes from you
TL Boehm 10/06/2013
another Godpoem

— The End —