"removable" poems
~
*stationary now
duct tape loves
mouth and hands
inside removable interiors
heliocentric discontinuities:
the racket club
and the backstroke
the rabid club
and the hallucinogenic backchannels
swallowing too many placebos
on his balcony
facing away from the sun
blank diary entry
open on the table
'from despair to where?'
stationary in the trunk now
he says it will all
make sense soon*
~
May 26, 2023
May 26, 2023 at 7:44 PM UTC
Memories of us as the sun set fire to everything I touch.
Hands to myself and forget the idea of love.
Our light has dwindled out.
All that remains is a broken bulb
hanging above
the bed, in the attic of my head.
Scattered shards of glass surrounding comfort.
Every night I walk on our broken dreams and bleed before I get to sleep.
I just lay in the shadow of my past looking for lines you once said.
Only to bury the words again.
Maybe it would make more sense if I stopped resurrecting the dead.
There's a piece of me, no longer alive.
From me to you is a far drive.
So I dig in the dark attic for old and removable parts to repair my broken car. Flashing my lights at anyone who could be you.
Because you're the only one who can see it too.
Our connection is as consistent as me quitting bad habits
For instance, cigarettes, but how could I know when I still haven't?
I crave but can barely manage.
I'm on and off in strange patterns.
A rusty pull chain hanging from the socket
Stuck with our questions to questions, irrational logic.
I asked "why do you always escape from what you wanted?"
You slowly whispered "how else would you know if you really got it.".
I guess I'll figure it as I smoke another cigarette.
I take a hit, before exhaling, i stare up at the sun.
Close my eyes and think of you.
I imagine the smoke soaking up everything I ever wanted to tell you.
Plans, ideas, thoughts, and the rawest feelings I have ever had.
Once it feels right I open my eyes to the empty sky and exhale.
An emotional release.
February air will condense these dreams on to your car window.
You will wipe them off to find your way home.
The last thing you said before you left, "Just keep thinking of me And We'll meet again"
There has to be another chapter before the end of this story being written in my head.
But love and love lost is the ink to my pen of thoughts.
Let it leak in my sleep. Knowing I'll wake up to her gone.
But its okay.
She left the chorus for my song.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
Tonight is a bad kind of nostalgic.
The music started reminding me of all you guys.
Thrift shopping and cooking in your stockpile kitchen.
And puking in public restrooms,
And late night fifty dollar tattoos
Are some of last years memories.
And those songs don't feel to good either.
And even last week's music
Makes me feel bitter.
And I tried to flashback from earlier in the 2000s.
But that was music from when I was fourteen.
The angst years will now be left alone.
Jesus I have the shakes again.
Bad night.
Bad night.
A splash of coffee in my whiskey.
It's not alright.
It's not alright.
I'm not alright.
Alright?
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
~for SPT~
whose poems transform with lovingness
~~
*distinguishing, extinguishing,
the knowledges to retain,
reuse daily, mightily,
pleasures insights beloved,
honored with the stripes of daily use
then there are,
the knowledges to retrain,
non-removable, rising up from your
edges
of the very fine line
tween
pain and experience
they must Main Street remain,
be thankful for that,
for love regained,
needs the benchmark
of having lived love,
the loss of loss when recalled,
when new gets a turn, reinstalled,
is now twice sweeter*
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 8:19 AM UTC
I got this glittery, ruby-red, smudge-proof lipstick the other day
and I really have to say technology is what separates us from the apes.
Well, technology and hair.. and.. - ok, let’s not dwell on the ape thing.
Remember when lipstick smeared like news-print? Well, neither do I - it was one of those old-timey things you hear about somewhere like phone-booths, CDs and smart republicans.
What about the young teenage girls who aren’t supposed to wear lipstick - who put it on, in the morning, at their locker, at school only to discover - seconds before their mom picks them up - that it's practically non-removable? Try hiding your lips from your mom.
I want breath-freshening, pizza flavored, jerk-repelling, morning-after-pill lipstick - that glitters, irresistably, like cotton candy ***
snort If men wore lipstick I’m sure we’d have all that by now.
Dec 6, 2021
Dec 6, 2021 at 8:26 AM UTC
This antique mirror boosts no confidence. Concave
reveals its magic tricks with an incurvate
red surface. Some human hair
blending braids are there to fancify your boxers, your removable
metallic silver suspenders underwear and
her red bra underwire slips. It is a new style.
I feel anguish, when I touch the pull locks. Her picture
of the antique statue is hidden between all those things. She
enters the mirror to kiss you every time you look at it. Like jelly candies
are her lipsticks on that silver, but
they have different taste. For me,
they look like isoquants, or indifference curves. I want
to leave you. What do you think?
The water that drips from the mirror, when I wash it, is like crimsonblood. Scary
optical illusions split the reality into two variants through my woe,
and create a much looser and less direct relationship
between us than ever. You live for
your comfort and versatility. You cannot change it.
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 9:32 AM UTC
Let me replace the filth
with something more beautiful
(when i did it was peaceful)
I'd like to erase the guilt
but i can't
cause it's useful
and you
you're not truthful
at all
you're removable
and that's all that I need
to prove that I can move through it all
and thank god I learned fast
that you're not who I thought you were
cause there's better than you
everywhere that I've fallen
& even when I stand up
& dust off
I laugh at the silly stuff
when your words mean nothing
and everything turns back on
when I shut you off
& you were my rock
that I just threw down a mountain
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 4:49 PM UTC
this title has begrudgingly waited for some loving kindness, fulfillment-needy, since October of Two Thousand and Seventeen
which is not quite as long as the decades I have been waiting to
accumulate the words to provide us both, an inspired solution
my days are numbered
in decades, decals, varying lengths of hair,
belts with notches that ain’t reachable,
suits various, both too big and too small to fit,
the who who used to own them,
begrudgingly, writes this
city born and bred, with the pale skin needed to prove my urbanity, each day came unto me begrudgingly,
even, especially, the good ones
when I was ten and rode my bike from freedom to mystery,
and back again in a city that was ok, if you stayed out of its way
and knew the city’s vocabulary and its erogenous zones
when nothing come easy, when even the easy, when it comes, comes begrudgingly
when you think of love, and the next immediate thought is:
how great the cost - recalling too well,
the pain of childbirth and child rearing
and the staining, paining fluid is in perm-attendence,
that doesn’t ever fully departs and
is not never entirely stain-stick-removable,
and the children come ‘n go according to their schedule,
someone else’s vast eternal plan
life in the same apartment
where my parents died,
listening to the stories of joined lives,
listen to the sisters telling them
over and over to a stream of visitors
earned from and of a 98 year life,
given up willing but, begrudgingly as well.
the story-telling skill because of them,
my mist-matched parents who did ok
and their very best,
gifted us hyperbole innate genetic
and all of us now registered
tall tale tellers;
some write for a living,
some live to write,
some write to make themselves clearer,
after honestly confronting their subway reflection
words acquired bot ‘n sold,
they too are stains unerasable,
very always handy,
the one thing we shared, word skill,
was never at loss, words never held a grudge
no matter how long they waited to serve
this fact, begrudgingly confess;
all my-word skill was freely inherited...
and I hope it satisfied the title
and you, those that waited patiently but,
begrudgingly
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC
What if removing unwanted feelings was as easy as coughing up the mucus stuck in the back of my throat? I close my eyes, breathe in, and cough as your germs travel through the air away from me. I don’t want to think about your pristine perfection anymore. The thoughts in my mind clog my brain and blind my eyes. I don’t want to love you but you are simply stuck and not simply removable. Like glitter glue on pink construction paper. I try to pick the hardened glue hugging the paper but the sparkles seem to stain. You shine and I wish upon the star that you were dull. I wish I could stick a little blue sticker on your forehead and write fifty cents. I wish it was that easy. Like a house opens its mouth to throw-up the unwanted knick-knacks on the driveway. Maybe some little old lady could walk by, hand me two quarters, and take you far away so I would never see you again. I want it to be easy. Just one cough, some dried glitter glue, and a garage sale later. Then maybe these feelings would be gone.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
take off your mask
Halloween isn't every day
you're shy
but you're brave;
I'm still trying to figure out
how
to get over you
I'm shy
but I'm brave --
though I suppose that when hearts are haunted
with feeling
unwanted,
you are less than you can be
it makes it so hard to be free
and I suppose that when hearts are haunted
with feeling unwanted,
there is nowhere else to go
besides a labyrinth
down below.
take off your hurt,
it's removable just like a shirt
and hang it to the side;
look in the mirror,
your mother could not have been more clear:
beauty resides --
yes, I suppose that when hearts are haunted
with feeling
unwanted,
you are blackened to the root
going rotten like a fruit;
and I suppose that when hearts are haunted
with feeling
unwanted,
there is nothing but the blues
so there is nothing left to lose.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
squadrons deployed. everything permanent is still removable if you ignore it enough. revising your lackadaisical list of priorities. repeat play and an ashtray full of roaches. at this point even nostalgia feels classic. cross your t’s and then just x out everything. circle the names of your favorite cities. hands held, grudges kept. i swear somewhere i’ve got something left. in my head the rescuers are always gonna be the ones who go down (under) in history. everyone else is just running their mouth or grinding their teeth. there are some lies left over but who cares? this might be the worst ever. or the best yet. i guess we’ll know for sure soon enough. i right clicked through this like five times because of what i’ve got flowing through my veins. sidenote: i miss you.
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 1:42 PM UTC
you are the lump
preventing my swallow.
& nausea,
now a familiar friend,
feebly attempts to collapse your solidity
in the back of my throat,
as do the lies I tell myself aloud
in order to forget.
I wonder if you remember,
or does your new sun shine so bright
that she blinds you from your own past?
perhaps she's more of a
supernova, like you said
& so I'd like to think;
something temporary.
still, she came amidst fire & light
while I came with a
removable bow on top;
received pain on a similar platter
as that of my uneaten dinner;
I understand.
my final question is if that sort of
amaurosis makes you dizzy;
tell me,
what effect does she
have on your
stomach?
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 10:36 AM UTC
It’s their clothes
That’s the worst thing of theirs to get rid of
Each removable of a garment from their closet
A different scent hits you in a wave
That you have to push back just one more hanger more
But then after the scent passes
You remember Easter
Christmas
Thanksgiving
When they wore that blouse
Or button down shirt
When you go through their drawer
The one you couldn’t a few months ago
Because then it was still too private then
That watch that was probably a few links too small
You remember the sides of skin around it that were
Lightly suffocated highlighted the veins that flew through them
They seemed so alive then
It’s their clothes
When you pack them into boxes when you
Donate them to charity because the sight of them on anyone you know
Would send you into a spiral of remembrance
That you’d rather not slip into
Those truly were the slippery slopes
Ones that tiptoed on a double take
Ones that made you think if only for a devastating moment after
The initial realization of those clothes on someone else
That they were no longer going to wear them.
Yes, their clothes are the hardest part
Not wanting to slip into everyone
Garment they owned when you were forced to pack them up
Jealous of that cloth that touched them last
Them after you did for the last time
Yes, their clothes are the hardest part.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 2:40 AM UTC
Everything is normal
so not much to sing or say.
No summer thunderstorm,
the snow was magical only for an hour.
Old men
aren’t removing women’s ******* with removable dentures.
A belly laugh now and then,
an empty belly’s holy.
With simple joy
mortals may forget to fear their deaths.
Simply put,
we do not survive. But what an adventure!
I heard an archangel cry
Don’t hurt the trees!
Also, save democracy.
Also, stop barking, believing in that higher power.
What’s Ken doing today?
Watching TED talk lectures,
planning next Spring’s garden.
It’s Death, not the Jewish king, in your rose garden.
As climates change
species escape predators
and predators chase down prey.
Choose sacrifice or blame.
I look at faces
and they look at mine, mute, animated spirits,
black wet rocks,
victims among flames.
I embrace my anonymity,
lost in my own city,
in the shade of a gazebo,
a mosquito’s acceptance of its position among a million mosquitoes.
Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 at 5:52 AM UTC
blue sky
holo sky
egotica
gentle clouds
delicious sides
I look at you
and I see the water
through her excitement
transparent ghosts
reflective consciousness
on removable media
free hard drives
from sadness and longing
empty place holy
They lie on a torrent gifts
Life is made up of images
Music is Life
no mystery
all on the surface
offensively
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 6:02 AM UTC
Machines roaming
More cloning
Perfect droids
Being deployed
Off the assembly line
With a set time
Before self destruction
More under construction
Programmable
Flammable
Almost animal
Is there free choice?
Or follow the voice?
The largest illusion
To demonstrate power
Building on delusion
That we think it is ours
My hands have holes
In which they bore
To run the strings
To make play things
Run by shadows
Whispering powers
Hung from gallows
By deadly flowers
Usable is useful
Worn out is thrown out
Void and null
When the light goes out
Disposable, moldable
Rogues removable
Cast out into the flame
The mentally sick and lame
Underground insurgent
Hiding behind the curtain
Waiting for the time
To betray their design
And face their eminent doom
For the masses leave no room
For individuals
Pulverized and destroyed
Any short circuited droid
Maybe for the better
No longer a debtor
To the society that razed them
While trying to "save" them
Jun 28, 2015
Jun 28, 2015 at 12:48 AM UTC
There would always be a she. She was irrevocable. It was no more plausible to remove or separate one’s self with all certitude from her than the notion of removing one’s organs was plausible. The possibility in theory, existed, as with the removal of an eye or a kidney. However, it was impossible to sever these aspects from one’s self without crippling self-injury and irreparable damage. No, she existed, or must exist in an auxiliary sense. She must be muted, though not wholly removable. She would always exist, but most bearably so, on the outside, that hint, that shadow of something that exists at the corner of the eye, one that exists at the periphery, ever present and always fleeting. She was best glimpsed intermittently and with doubt. There in that place between places she could remain an ideal, a fantasy, an illusion rather than a thing ever to be experienced. But as usual, we are such weak creatures, and as irrevocable as she is, so inevitably we languish in her. Too often I have abandoned my autonomy for the illusion of her favor, only to be burned again, and again and again. Too often I have seen her face change in too many eyes. To succumb to her was futile. She had no favor to pander to, however ardent the will. But then…nonetheless.
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 7:29 PM UTC
When the hand chaos forged this world god was not yet a dream. It was knowledge’s burden that drove us to make in the world what we could not discern from it, purpose.
Now we live in sculpted lofts set in fabricated foundations hiding from the gods we set loose and the freedom that allowed us to do so.
We hide from the responsibilities that come with knowledge, from the possibilities it can represent and from the world it describes and resides in.
We hide in comfortable niches of ignorance and arrogance, where the heavy questions dare not be posed.
We float on the surface of our humanity far away form the denser things of substance, things held deep below by the fluff of our surface encounters—our small talk and our bullshit—our consumerism and our averice—our sedition and closed minds.
Pushed deep below, these things of substance may starve for light, beg for attention, but they are non disposable,, non removable—fixed—and they shall not be overcome by any level of trifling, but can be addressed, answered and even solved.
We need only to look through the dreams we have woven to see—to be—this reality we have created—this plane in which we are the construct—the point at which we are the alpha and the omega, the point where the stillborn we call humanity finally claws for air and either finds it or vanishes form this earth forever
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 9:07 PM UTC
When I was nine years old, my mother threw me into the shower.
Holding the removable shower facet in my face and proceeded to drown me.
This wasn’t a regular occurrence, fully clothed body and screaming for her to stop.
Choking, crying as this water cascaded into my open mouth while I struggled against the grasp of a plump body.
This scene, shattering protrusion of fear and betrayal.
A woman clawing out of flesh from the inside. “Don’t hurt her, she’s your daughter” one voice said but the urge was too strong.
I knew this woman, as she ripped me sleeping from my bedroom.
The smaller room in a two bedroom duplex adjacent to the bathroom and not very far.
“God wants me to do this”echoed repeatedly.
My brain registers the reality that she doesn’t intend to hurt me but I can’t breathe.
This only lasts a few minutes, she has done the lords work of cleansing the evil from me.
My mother apologizes profusely, but she is still my mother.
She holds me and dries me off.
I cry.
The moment passes.
And everything is normal.
Jun 18, 2019
Jun 18, 2019 at 5:40 AM UTC
She came into my life, like a tsunami.
Crashing down on everything around me
Every negative she created a positive
My emptiness, she refilled with flowers.
The shallowness like a bird bowl without water
She made deep again
The grey cloud around my head, vanished.
And there was only a beautiful blue sky.
Her smile like the sun
Growing the flowers that filled my former emptiness.
Her voice like the sound of the birds and angels, singing.
She, nothing like the rest
To me, she was the wishing star
Rare to find and celebrated when found
She, nothing like the rest
To me, there's no greater person of perfection than she.
She, nothing like the rest
To me, was the strongest of all
She, nothing like the rest
To me, was the best of the best.
Free spirited but ambitious in what she stands for and believes in
A girl that is priceless would become even a billionaires actual wealth.
Personality like non-removable roots so she laughs even when there's people throwing shade at her.
Eyes like blue toned gold pearls, priceless.
Movement like the grace of a ballet dancing Angel.
Mind like an indestructible processor.
Heart like no one or nothing on Earth...
...so surely she's not of Earth.
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 4:21 PM UTC
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
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 1:33 PM UTC
I display
And when you choose,
I become the Love Bug.
I will take radical decisions.
I will trespass any removable plug.
I will submit myself.
I will lock my phallus in you,
And I will toss away the key.
Only I can inseminate you.
The rest of my life
Will be spent in copulation.
Only death will put an end
To my commitment.
Only death will do us apart.
And when I die,
You will be destined
To drag me around
Until you give birth to
Another Love Bug.
Oct 8, 2017
Oct 8, 2017 at 1:57 AM UTC
You were everything,
And so much more.
You were the pills that I take,
To heal my heart from the ache.
You were the hand that I held,
When I got scared.
You were the lightbulb in my head,
When I thought I was dead.
You were the air that my lungs held,
When I felt I couldn't breathe.
You were the pulse in my wrist,
Everytime we kissed.
You were the source of my sanity,
When I thought I was losing it all.
You were the thoughts in my head,
That left my lying awake in my bed.
You were my safety net,
The one I ran to when everything went bad.
You were the replacement to the blade on my skin,
Preventing me from continuing that ugly sin.
You were the happiness and joy I never found,
And I felt it everytime you were around.
You were my one and only,
Who would've thought you'd leave me lonely?
You were the warmth that filled my face,
Now it's cold, gone without a trace.
You were the waves that covered my toes,
The one I ran to when I needed my worries to decompose.
You were the wind that blew my hair,
Life without you, an impossible dare.
You were everything I ever needed,
But that boy disappeared, turned rock hard and conceded.
I'm left with the broken pieces of a love once beautiful,
Realizing now, that I am so very easily removable.
You told me that you loved me, and promised me the world,
Amazing how those words all got completely twirled.
You were the one thing that kept me from going over the edge,
Now I see myself leaning more and more over that ledge.
You were the one that stayed up for hours listening to me rant and cry,
Making me feel beautiful, and you didn't even have to try.
An effortless love on your part,
I should've known you were going to break my heart.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 3:25 AM UTC
Collapsible lungs
Bendable fingers
Removable teeth
But the pain still lingers
It feels like we weren't made long for this world.
Pluckable eyes
Breakable jaws
If we look past the lies
We know it's because
We know we weren't made long for this world
Carve up your pound of flesh
Take from me my last breath
Cause I'm a stitched up limping mess
And only you can cure my death
Inflatable pride
Debatable truth
Preferable lies
Reimbursable youth
I know I'm not made long for this world.
Surrendered pride
Rendered truth
We rended light
Cause the darkness is cool
I know you weren't long for this world
I Carved up your pound of flesh
Stole from you your last breath
You were a limping bleeding mess
And you carried off my death
The transaction was made
But no one but me
Could say fair trade
And walk away ungrieved
I don't deserve to be long for his world
I don't deserve to be long for his world
Mar 2, 2019
Mar 2, 2019 at 6:28 AM UTC
I'm not Santa Claus but I'm hefty.
I'm not jolly cuz life left me
navigating deftly
across time zones
where minds roam
while I dream of a present
that presents positive possibilities;
Not Marvel’s what if comic book realities
that I used to collect,
but issues that direct
my heart towards acts of compassion
as I ask strangers what they are lacking
that makes them malicious actors.
I have not discovered the ultimate factors,
or removable variables
that would enhance our ability
to be superbly gifted soldiers
of love and humanity.
Weary, I'm still searching.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 12:37 PM UTC