"milkweed" poems
A dream tree, Polly's tree:
a thicket of sticks,
each speckled twig
ending in a thin-paned
leaf unlike any
other on it
or in a ghost flower
flat as paper and
of a color
vaporish as frost-breath,
more finical than
any silk fan
the Chinese ladies use
to stir robin's egg
air. The silver-
haired seed of the milkweed
comes to roost there, frail
as the halo
rayed round a candle flame,
a will-o'-the-wisp
nimbus, or puff
of cloud-stuff, tipping her
queer candelabrum.
Palely lit by
snuff-ruffed dandelions,
white daisy wheels and
a tiger faced
***** it glows. O it's
no family tree,
Polly's tree, nor
a tree of heaven, though
it marry quartz-flake,
feather and rose.
It sprang from her pillow
whole as a cobweb
ribbed like a hand,
a dream tree. Polly's tree
wears a valentine
arc of tear-pearled
bleeding hearts on its sleeve
and, crowning it, one
blue larkspur star.
3.5k
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
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 5:07 PM UTC
At sunrise the dew melts into nothing
and the field loses its silver glow
while retaining a tranquility
unbecoming of most minefields.
Brushing his face against
heavy denim material
the curious son hears his father's words,
*Soon you will walk across
this field. I will educate you
to step here and step there,
to avoid the hidden dangers
beneath the grassy slopes
and native flowers.*
Trust flows from innocent eyes,
uncreased by worry
or the wear of fear,
as the son requests,
*Why are there mines among
the lavender and milkweed?
Because the fox must be hunted,
and the deer harvested
as food for our hungry ambitions.
These mines are triggered
by those who justify their sport
as signs of bravery and courage.
At times crazed men ignite the mines
as a show of their rage. They ****
others among us, even children.
What if there were no mines?
We must keep our freedom,
freedom to walk anywhere,
to say anything
and to plant mines in the field
despite their dangers.
The eye of the eagle
will guide you each
step amid the lavender
and coneflowers until
you are safely to the other side.*
Glancing upward, gazing ahead
the boy shares his wonder,
*Will I continue to plant mines in the fields
for my children to walk?*
A heavy masculine voice
cracks the north wind
*If I train you well, . . .
If I train you well.*
(*with Eddie Eagle)
* http://eddieeagle.nra.org/
(information about the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program of the National Rifle Association,
Eddie Eagle is a registered trademark of the NRA
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 3:33 PM UTC
the house was painted
a soft hue. an old tobacco trap;
discolored white where
pictures once hung.
in the kitchen, grease stains,
faded bluebird wallpaper —
long since ceased it's song,
and one cast-iron skillet off to the side.
pale and forgotten,
the fine china shrieks!
my barefoot innocence
is lost as the cold-colored
porcelain eats at the floor.
sometimes when I lay there covered in
turpentine, stars usually topple
out of the cabinet,
and my gas stove aspirations are botched.
the sink drain moans with the silent
invectives of an impure saint…
her rosary still atop the mantle.
just outside, a stone angel
that smells of lilies, —
savagely eats rosebuds over
an autumn bonfire.
from time to time
her face is one of lament…
it follows me from room to room,
and my hands shake for hours
while holding little antique figurines
in a basket full of milkweed…
they’d tuck at the curtain,
their little music box voices
complain about her eyes...
they'd scurry up the ivy on the side of
the house to avoid her
disappointed glance…
there was a sad wingbeat as
I stepped out on the balcony to collect
them one last time.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
Therein lies the fur, filled with running wind,
Milkweed in the scruff, the scent of wild-wood,
Some mystery-hearted forest where pulse begins.
Therein lies the Centaur, satyr, and god-disguised swan,
Ageless wonders prowled upon by an age-old Parthenon.
You broke your wolf’s tooth through those haunches of lore.
Therein lies the fur, filled with barking dust and dandelion war,
With a spine that stretched back to the she-wolf and city-birth,
The peeled nerve of a howl once tremored your Aurelian lips.
Therein lies the serf, hunter, fairer hand, and lord,
From wattles and daub, the wandering-sands of Saracen, or Crusader’s moor.
You kept the path beside to remind that instinct shines as the holiest earth.
Therein lies the fur, the warm, ungovernable peasant of sleep,
Ever prophetic in your skies by eyeshut-trace of the hunting moon,
Twitching at the day’s thousand faces, all asleep in themselves.
Therein lies the soldier, nurse, chaplain, and fell-prayer,
Mange-like war is the whimpering season with its flea-bitten welts of stars.
You struck blind but true at the throat of gas-hissing war.
Therein lies the fur, outracing the rain and the spout,
Nested with more birds and Autumn song than rain,
Your sleeping ear pooled like cool eaves of the barn.
I sing once more like a boy into your unfolded ear.
Listen always for my ancient, choral voice and your chores of play,
And race earback to the sun in the belly-grass of your free-eyed fields.
Leave your last paw mark, torn on the red clay of my hand.
You are forever wrapped in human touch, ageless and aged,
And if ever the dark in madder darkness encroaches,
Leave black eternity to my faithful eyes.
Jul 24, 2019
Jul 24, 2019 at 1:23 PM UTC
Your eyes mirrored pools of black
ink and I never knew that the flask
in your pocket would keep me wide
awake into the morning.
The olivine porch outside your country
home was shaped with darker thoughts
and milkweed seed that left me
wondering how you wake in winter.
You lived as a sleeper in the valley
with a zirconium smile and when light
rained down the glass of your hanging lanterns
would break across the sky.
The smoothness of smoke that wrapped
around my lungs kept me lurking
in the corners of drowsy living
and drunken rainbow fires.
You could never offer me more
than what I already had.
So as with everything, the end came
and now the wind is blowing prismatic stars.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 10:12 PM UTC
two lovers run blind
through the meadows in the sun
milkweed and clover
breathing fast and just for fun
still it’s cold inside the thoughts
which palpate for tragedy
so we'll speak of heaven in human form
beneath the willow's wishing tree
tell everyone how it hurt
lover, it’s the only way
make sure they know its soft-
the wound you bare for me
i’ll tell them all you tried to swim
but pointed fingers turn to fists for you
in an ocean full of mutiny
the bad man beats the
weak mans blues
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 10:15 AM UTC
I like to watch them,
as they fold gently,
Into newly found realms,
Of softened happiness.
Scents of lavender,
and milkweed,
Blaming their aches,
Until they fade away.
I am selfish enough,
To seek comfort in them,
I am selfish enough,
To pretend I am part of them.
Part of this ever growing bubble,
That is verging on delirium.
*But I am not,
I know I am not.
This I hope,
Will be unnoticed.*
It's easy to mimic,
Or fake your behaviour,
If the outline of what,
You hope to achieve,
is merely,
A heartbeat away from you,
It's easy to colour,
between the lines,
Even if my pencil,
is shaded melancholy blue.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
I look towards Spring
Of growing things...
With Gentle winds
Caress the skin
With Windflowers
Fluff of Dandelion
And Milkweed Seed
***** willows, Cattails*
And cotton woods
On warm spring Breeze
They can tickle your Nose
And bring on a sneeze
As they sparkle in the Air
As Faeries had tossed them there
In Golden Sunshine
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 5:46 AM UTC
I carried you on earthen wings
and when we began
the feathers that fell sprouted
fish which flew within our trail.
Milkweeds grew from the red-soiled banks. Their tops
spout like tiny fountains. The Birds bathed within
pink milkweed pools.
Downstream
a chained woman cried,
her blouse coated in sweat and her arms
pulled tight.
Her face lifted towards the sky,
and her mouth dripped thick saliva.
A broken windmill
floated in the gusts of wind
And the current flung us into space.
You gripped my neck
and ran your hands
to my chest. Your fingers stopped
at the pulsation
and you delivered a pin
to my left ventricle.
Poised and clenching we watched
the continents turn grey
Jan 28, 2011
Jan 28, 2011 at 4:45 PM UTC
Move about with bended knees
Eight eyes, but can you see?
Casting line and tying knots
For lunch a meager flea
Daybreak bears your sovereign knack
Of pinning in a row
Dangling tiny diamonds
To adorn your bungalow
You ponder many buzzing bugs
Of iridescent jade
And wrapping them in blankets
Made of milkweed pod brocade
Sedated little damselfly
No, never getting loose
You're served this evening as first course
A succulent chartreuse
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 2:56 AM UTC
Don’t preen my wings -
I told you, even though
In the beginning I was just
a caterpillar crawling through
a sweeping field of chrysanthemums
Soft, fragile
were my dreams and hopes of
admiring the robins, as they
thrash by their nearby nest
nursing their young
as the babes chirp, beaks wide open
as their mum feeds them hope
that someday they’ll fly like robins do
I hope I can fly, someday
I told you that
the night we feast on the leaves
of Milkweeds
in hopes of growing wings
like those robins
that we admire the most
Little did I know that
You started chewing on what
was mine, my wings-
are imaginary, you said
that my hopes and dreams
to be one with the robins
are farfetched
And you chewed, and chewed, and chewed
till we grew hard and tough on self-loathing
upon the realization that your
words are always the truth that
we avoid since the beginning
when we got drunk on that
Milkweed
I admit, that you chewed
and it forced me to follow
Don’t preen my wings, I told you
that time when we hang up by the
branch of the fully grown Hawthorn
along the red, plump berries
We ghosted each other
on the shell we were forced to take
Like those hermit ***** that we used to watch
by the thorns of roses, seeing them take
the burden of one another makes us
laugh
But as we sit in silence as the
darkness of our own making envelops us,
but I was, contented
knowing that darkness
is an old friend
and you by my side
is a way - a company
to spend the time
blinded
What happened?
What happened that night when
a gust of wind flew
through us, I felt the
chill of the upcoming gale
I shouted
but you are too busy
dealing with the darkness
you’re in
Don’t preen my wings, I told you
as I detached from the branch
that we used to hangout
as caterpillars
But we don’t crawl anymore
Now I am nothing
but a fallen chrysalis
waiting for those mighty
wings of those robins
I admired so much.
I got the beak.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC
My Autumn is so bittersweet.
The bee will rest soon;
songbirds fly south.
The beetle's work is done.
Thistle blooms have gone to seed
and butterflies
have left the milkweed behind.
I stand among the costumed trees
and celebrate their colors,
counting time.
The year is coming to a close:
Nature's cycle nears completion.
How sweetly sad for the
days to pass...
summer's exuberance gave way;
winter's sleep is not far off.
Autumn's paintbrush
will begin to fade --
the bee will rest soon,
the songbirds fly south.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 8:40 AM UTC
the clear autumn morning
hides nothing from the crow
as the backlit sphere
of the milkweed spore
floats by
tumbling with purpose
take a look
at what fills the air
bird leaf tree debris dust smoke cloud sunbeam
invisible eddies
my intellect
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 3:10 PM UTC
Attempting to research healing herbs,
I can't forget your words
Or shake this feeling of self destructive hate.
You told me to accept me,
But I met that angrily
Wondering why my passions less than yours?
Was it you or I to start? Which one had a change of heart? Did I deny the importance of our origin?
When will I forget my ****
Leave it out there in the pit?
Bending back all my silver spoons..
All they say is: "yeah real cute."
Actions, words, and ideals moot.
It's why I second guessing to this day...
Sat back and just waited still
Spared me of the etox pill
Gave me space to let me find myself.
Outer space ain't big enough,
So you're back to actin' tough
And I seem to meet it all with a big
**** You!"
A dandelion punk,
A ******* ****
PMA* is all I need.
I'll unearth the roots one day,
Until then, bye.
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 12:33 AM UTC
Silky milkweed fluff
Dotted with sparse, darkish brown
Swept up from my hand
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 12:52 PM UTC
I wrote poems once
About blackberry picking with my children.
They were lovely.
The children, too,
When they were sleeping.
I thought about those poems
When I was stomping teasel and milkweed
In the field behind the barn
With my big green muck boots
So that I could get to ripe berries.
Alone.
Hawk dueting
With the two little goats.
You have to wonder why
In such a moment
That you would work and sweat
For two measly quarts of free berries.
When I was younger
It was not unusual
To get proposals of marriage
For cobblers and cakes and dumplings
From old men who were already married.
Two quarts down.
Several to go.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 6:58 PM UTC
i.
The notes are ingrained
by the blue petalled flames,
burning them into my bones.
All other colors fade,
detach,
suspended in a waking dream.
Here, in the lingering lucidity,
this maddening gnaw of pain
leaks the little whispers,
stealing rhapsody from pleasure.
ii.
Tightrope treachery,
a daringly dancing gypsy
spinning about on a narrow wall.
A burning star,
she leaps...
leaving shimmering stardust
in her wake,
balance risked for the
momentum of grace.
A barter between freedom and fate,
perhaps circles of three
will bring it all tumbling
to the ground.
iii.
Ariadne abandonment,
I foam milkweed at the mouth
under the burning moon.
Casting aside
the anguish of this tether,
feeding tinder to an infant rage,
I let its coals singe my soul
while this blazing inferno
carries my fury forward.
I **** the marrow of courage...
Now, I shall deprive the Minotaur of his horns
and roast Theseus' heart upon their tips!
iv.
The flavor of innocence on my lips
has become a sorrowing memory.
In the waking moments, the world
slowly becomes unbound before me,
my wandering is done,
the final marks are made.
And the taste of one too many poppies
tingles on my tongue,
as my voice is laid out on a slab of words.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 7:36 AM UTC
In the starvation of exile
Gambling on bright colors
Rapt, ***** fate-accepting hunger
Tugs vicious on the leash
Faint taste of apples
And mistletoe cramps
Among the Cypress, Cedar, Pines
That cross my path
In fog as full as clouds
Fusion of memory and idea
Crowds the milky doom
Where monarchs relax
Strawing gaseous milkweed
I sip from the sky
And await my crown
May 17, 2019
May 17, 2019 at 2:39 AM UTC
I’d rather be an empire builder
a lonely artisan
in the deserts outside
of Las Cruces
with the sunshine on my back
chasing destiny down
a steep cliff of Mesquite
and milkweed
to Mexico City
where the children smile
in the streets
and then on to the Guadalupe Mountains
where I’ll feel
the loneliness of my dreams
and make my way back
to Small Town America
where I’ll sit on the front porch
and revel in
a much simpler destiny
as you walk through the front gate
to greet me.
Feb 4, 2021
Feb 4, 2021 at 8:55 AM UTC
Thirsty, a parched pale yellow
this milkweed, dandelion field
dried silky seeds blowing wild
hot cracking leaves
lightning trees afire
forests and burning meadows
with eyes that sting
I can but see, spectrally
the smokey sun
breathe a deathly air
that chokes the lungs
creatures gasp and run
in moments ever dire
they flee frightfully
amid falling trees
of fire.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
A solitary stalk of milkweed stands
ornamented with seed pods
most have long since burst
and sent their bounty fluttering on friendly fall breezes
But
one remains
half eaten by the elements
yet still crowded with seeds
Though the seasons have past
and the sun hints of spring
the winter wind still howls and taunts
"Come out, come out, come out if you dare"
but the reluctant seeds remain
huddled with their brethren
in the shelter of their cradle
Then comes a hand
a hand that cares about the butterflies
a hand that remembers warmer times
the fingers invade
and
after
a brief
affectionate
caress
pry the silky silver sails and their seeds out of their sanctuary
only
to release them
in the big
wide
world
where the fluffs float
buoyed by warm spring currents
finally
feeling
their full
Potential
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 9:47 PM UTC
Have you lost your favorite toy?
She failed you, disappoint you?
So now you stare.
So, now you don't care.
Hurt travels through tears like bombs,
Ruptures the landscape of loss.
Loss of trust,
Loss of dreams,
Loss like books in the Bible
You are tossed,
Across a Sea of Galilee,
A direction home.
Dry the well of deserved tears
Til they choke on brambles in the hills.
Murdered by descent.
Murdered by laments.
Ground to dust
They muddy
In the quick fire up there
As it slow burns your life
Down here.
****
Like milkweed in the breeze
Gone.
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 12:02 AM UTC
you're sleeping next to me.
shades of gray and shifting black
something i can reach out to
in the dark.
your steady breath
brings me in
and blows me away
like a tethered milkweed
a prisoner of the gentle tide
of your breath.
why are you here?
how did you get here?
it couldn't be because of me...
are you lost dearest?
searching out some daemon
or running away from one?
what brought you to my door
what will call out to you
till it leads you away?
what do i do
with these things you put into
my head and
that heavy metal slug
in my chest?
you make me think thoughts
i never wanted to think again
walls crumble and crack
breaking open
breaking down
and i'm too afraid
to look into the light.
i want to sleep with you
want to happen along you
during a dream.
maybe things would make
more sense there.
maybe i would understand.
how you
in all of your majesty
in all of your sublime
simplicity
can be here
sleeping next to me.
Nov 11, 2010
Nov 11, 2010 at 7:27 PM UTC