The missus wanted to go out;
I wanted to stay in.
So I did the washing-up
And emptied out the bin.
But still she wasn’t too impressed;
She was determined, I could see.
I needed to improve my odds
And it occurred to me;
Perhaps I should just toss a coin
To have an even chance;
So I suggested it to her
And she gave me such a glance!
She said, “You are so tight;
Have you a ‘double-headed coin’?”
I asked, “Would I do that to you?”
She said, No!  Use one of mine!”
Then she handed me a ten-pence piece;
I tossed it in the air.
It hit my thumb as it came down
And bounced to who knows where?
Deciding it had found a crack
Right beside me in the flooring;
I went and fetched my tool-box out
And soon began on sawing.
“Leave it!  It is just ten-pence!”
That’s what the missus said;
But I said that we didn’t know
Whether it was tail or head?
Seeing how determined I’d become
She left me on my own;
Went off in a strop
And soon began to moan!
I heard her say, “He’ll wreck the house
Just for a silly coin!”
She came to offer me another
But still, I did decline.
I smashed the tongue and groove
And slowly lifted up the floor
But when I looked into the space;
I took fright at what I saw.
There was a cavity right below;
Between the house-brick void
Because the coin was not around,
Well it must have fell inside.
So off I scurried down the stair
As fast as I could go
And with my lump-hammer and chisel
I gave such a mighty-blow!
About an hour later on
I’d smashed out half a brick;
The missus was annoyed with me
And said, ‘I made her sick!’
I pushed my hand inside the gap;
Then I ferreted about,
Got my hand stuck sideways
And could not get it out!
The missus grabbed me by the belt
Then she pulled with all her might;
She could not move me anyway
So she disappeared from sight.
She returned with Fairy-liquid
And squirted it on my wrist;
Pulling-it and pushing-it
I soon regained a fist.
But, there still appeared no coin;
My hand was black and blue!
The missus asked me to give-up;
There was nothing else to do.
She said it was too late now;
Even if we wanted to go out.
We might even have enjoyed ourselves
If I hadn’t mucked-about!
It seemed to me, she’d took the ****;
I disliked her attitude
And after all the work I’d done
I found it very rude!
I said, “It won’t take long
To put it back together.”
She said, ‘she didn’t give one,
She’d reached the end of a long-tether!’
Off she went to bed
Without wishing me goodnight!
I followed her just after,
‘Cause I sensed things wasn’t right.
She was lying there in bed
With a face ‘as dark as sin’;
Said she had a throbbing-head
And that she didn’t want me in!
Off I went into the spare-room
Feeling like a condemned-man;
All I’d done was for the best,
If it hadn’t gone to plan!
At times like this, when I feel down,
I fancy something hot
So off I trotted down the stairs
And boiled-up the ***.
Back inside the bedroom
With hot-chocolate in my cup;
I threw my trousers on the bed
And something fell from my turn-up.
Would you believe; it was the coin?
It really made me smile
After all the fuss I’d made
It had been there all the while!
I dashed right in to tell the wife
Thinking she’d be ‘chuffed!’
I said, “We’ll have to toss again!”
But she just yelled, “GET STUFFED!”

"They're selling postcards of the hanging" Bob Dylan


Frolicking in the Hague festooned
as if some monarch's golden jubilee
not a room left empty in all the land
queues for miles to get a ringside seat
at what is billed as The Trial of Man
as W, ****, and Rummy sit chained
to the bionic calves of barstools while
Condo Lisa bears witness atop a piano
ferreted throughout the conurbation
breadlines and circuitous routes
recalling the Nicaraguan case
low on the radar of short-term
the disunited states of disarray
vetoes its own trial's outcome
and it is business as usual

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

Was getting ready
To interview
Someone
Who goes to and from the office
Daily in an ambulance

All questions
About death
Were interrupted by life

So I changed track
And ferreted about for questions on life
Then death too barged in

About an ordinary vehicle becoming an Ambulance,
About an ambulance becoming
An ordinary vehicle

A casual end,
As if there is no homework needed
For the world’s most boring interview.

by the symptoms
ferreted
the causes came out
  one by one
in dreams

The ferreted blade
The nave, unafraid
Of insanity, of screaming
She wields her sword
This Universe, our bruised Lord
Wrought with the battle of gravity
Blue robes woven of eternity

A single gold band atop her Crown
I peel the skin back from my hands
Place the pieces upon the ground

Her gaze unsettles God
A truth to refute the Infinite Lie
My body will mend what I have stripped
(Love being the chemistry of reprise)

Already noticeably marked
increase in daylight
yours truly courtesy affected
qua heliotropic phenomenon
finds me noggin gently being tugged
upward and westward ** toward sun
after dark mine talking head
rests downward and eastward.

Soon very indistinct
environmental intimations
regarding onomatopoeic
ubiquitous murmurings,
whereby old man winter
ever so faintly
relinquishes, loosens, forsakes...
Judas Priest iron maiden grip
upon emergent biosphere
suddenly awakened when
Mother Earth generates

invisible signals transmitted
across world wide web
analogous to conductor
standing on podium
with baton in her/his hand
orchestra playing on cue
perhaps choice selection
Rite of Spring
work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky
or Flight of the Bumblebee
written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Soon dormant species will exhibit rebirth
out their linkedin hibernation
flora and fauna tentatively
begin to issue forth out their slumbers
shoots poke thru across terra firma
insync with twittering tweeting creatures
hint viz verdant and/or fecund potential
ready to burst forth and proliferate
instinctively trumpeting joie de vivre.

Sensational show stopping, eye catching
breathtaking... parade of sights and sounds
await buzzfeeding eyes and ears
about six weeks hence,
within mine home box office
here at Highland Manor apartments
quite affordable rent
allows, enables and provides
radiant quiescence, preponderant observance,
nonresistant magnificence, jubilant innocence,
exuberant deliverance,
concurrent buoyant abundance.

Accordingly and allegedly other than
meteorologists plenti schooled
ascertaining onset of temperate air
more particularly otter den non humans
unassumingly (ferreted out), who bear
the tidings, when that season

of rebirth dawns with crystal clear
blue skies, and terrain where deer
and antelope eagerly play without despair
purportedly realized, reassured, recounted...drear
re: days vamoosed foretold by
Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day

February second - requires one
with acute hearing to ****, and ear
turnips tickling the nose nostrils
delicate hairs (instagram ideal outlook) subtly,
markedly, lively..., yet gently flair
soon harkening shrieks

of delightful analogous funfair
no stranger to Renaissance Faire
of pitch perfect gamesomeness
will seem as... otherworldly pleasant
ah heaven sent giftware,
where all creatures great and small

sing psalms, upon arrival when hardware
trappings of winter shucked witnessing
unrolled welcome Scottish mat so hare
and tortoise can race,
cuz vernal equinox, sports a linkedin
improvisational, ebulliently

educational, cerebral, audiological...
twittering melange I will hear,
and grateful no defect doth impair
ability to revel silence, slake, soak...
insatiable thirst even prodding junketeer,
panhandler, vendor...
the last named,
perhaps selling kitchenware
knicknacks, keepsakes...
to hippies (think yours truly)
with long wavy hair
interwoven with Kahila
Garden Lily, Laurel, Maidenhair...
profusion of sensual delight
brings Mother Earth near,
the body, mind, and soul

espying frolicsome **** sapiens
donned with minimal outerwear
infusing all living things
common native plants and animals
in conjunction with resident outlier
particularly those pining
to answer call of the wild overdare
ring and bee zee lee court'n prepare

ring to beget young as
singular requisite quintessential profiteer
fluttering, instagramming emoji,
sans shutterfly puppeteer
as audience visually already reddit
regarding acting entire scenes,

viz Biblical Genesis answering prayer
particularly if gnostic, heterodox, queer...,
finally relieved, sans polar vortex
albeit somewhat rare
atmospheric phenomena, how ideal
if said rabid Jack Frost

would sink icy bite - part
and parcel green gang
at much more favorably time reappear
during oppressive heat spell during
sweltering triple digits temperature
summer re: time of year.