"unbirthed" poems
what is the measure of sorrow
is there a standard unit
against which we may rule
an overladen mind
and a heart demolished
graphing with infinite precision
each shattered hope
and marking the dimensions
of dreams ground to dust
are tears numbered
or more properly
and accurately accounted
by volume
or weight
shall we assign a value
on a sliding scale
to the mutilation
of a human soul
can we make comparison
among various torments
or attempt to visualize
in a chart of bright colors
splashed on a screen
the lifelessness of one person
to that of another
is despair loss
or hope denied
might it be joy withheld
does suffering
have weight and volume
that we might
determine its mass
is it instead a void
where something which
was present
has been removed
is it possible to create
an image of wretchedness
a ruined and rotting
playground of lost innocence
a charred and crumbled husk
of a home shattered
an arid uninhabitable waste
of aspirations unbirthed
with what pigment
shall we produce such art
which color wheel
will be used
in what earthly perdition
are the gauges found
reading the depth of misery
or the height of anguish
what is the magnitude
of the grief
the touchstone of devastation
against which all other grief
must be measured
Mar 8, 2022
Mar 8, 2022 at 9:45 PM UTC
sometimes you wish things were different
that every day wouldn't wake up the same homely person
somehow you could be ****** into something less generic
less like your life, where each boring second
is dripping a canyon in your heart's ice age
theorize that maybe you speak a hidden language
something ancient, that can unlock dead secrets
by virtue of how your eyes drift in a set of hexes
if you drew white triangles on the right misty morning
you'd wake up anew to a beautiful sun dawning
and a garden of different faces to choose from
pick one that smells of fresh rain on iron
that never distorts into angry clouds spitting caustic words
you dream about that perfect jawline and how the hair falls just right
but then
you remember
oh
...
this isn't my perfect picture, this is human
this is
bleeding
broken
bruised
a flurry of imperfections
a talented accident
an impossibly improbable confluence of the shy words love speaks
planted by chance
abruptly lucky
forcing a hand out of the ground to grasp the air that flees
as though you knew this destination was perilous
by virtue of murky precognition through your electric embryo
as though your mother had muttered all the secrets before she killed you
and sent you again through the white door to cold air
so now you chant and you pose and you powder your nose
forcing yourself behind glass
into a frame
stood up straight
leering into the mirror just to steer yourself queerer
fighting natural finesse [in compatible] dresses
used to be so perfect
under the knife you're worthless
wishing in wells and walking on shells
someday you just might reverse it
Dec 25, 2011
Dec 25, 2011 at 12:27 AM UTC
Lost
I have found
Chords of Pathways
Home Again
Confusion of Disconnection
Swimming
In a Fish bowl
of Empty Desire
With the Worlds Eyes
A Peering Landscape
Dissecting Innocence
Of Youths Dreams..
Offered escape
By an Eagles Beak
Of Death
I choose it
And saw the World
In the blessings
Of Its Beauty
Children on playgrounds
That I never had
Lovers in friendships
That I knew awaited
Revealings of Gods Word
I was ever called To say
Heart Lifting Beauty
People from everywhere
Majesty of Life
The Grace and Joy
Of Goodness
........ Pergemome
Loves Hope
Unjudged
True Wealth
Once Held
Suddenly Taken
Family
God
Ministers Robe
Decisions Stole
Mind
My Beloved Freedom
My Lover
I seek
For this Walk
Gods Heaven
This Earth
Life
Sharing
Minds Eye
It is that which I seek
Home Again
One Voice
One Heart
Wonder
That I Am
Blessed Courage.. Faith
Lifes Eternity
Joy,
Loves Eternity
Bliss
....My Brother Called..
His name was Sorrow
They called him
Satan
His Love
A Mothers Love
It is She
Who Sits with Him
To Know Faith
His Fathers Coming
My Brothers Hand
Lifted
Vietnam
He
Cried
Forgotten
And
Unknown
A Homeless Boy
A n Unbirthed Man
Creator of Life
With Song *****
His Rememberance
Now
Reclaimed Presence
Volunteer,
Innocence Of The Yes
Murdered Creation
***** Indignity
A Prison
Of
Unbecoming
Our Tears
His Witnessing
And Freedom
Absolved of Knowing
Victory
Meant more
Than Life
For No One
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 12:08 PM UTC
Vultures would aim at the passage of children
they’d dive beneath garments and masks and myths
like you, they want truth, in its distant quarry
cut from loose disguise and weak belief
Yet, you are not content in the mind of a miner
to dig like a spear for warmth behind the armor
And when you have found some soft place of pleasure
You cant help but feel you’ve crawled back to the womb
so you won’t swoop down and peck the eyes of new life
for fear that in assuaging your hunger
you’re somehow giving in to the binds
of something unbirthed, primitive, weaker
I just laugh when you ask why
you’re eating scraps that are no more
then what clumsy vultures have dropped in flight
gristle that even the ants ignore
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 6:37 AM UTC
There is a secret place
Where I stumble over moments
Bleed out
Small tragedies
Ossuaries of unbirthed dreams
I pick the bones clean
Fat with the bitter marrow
I **** my own ego dry
Always hungry for more
Reality imperious with her stark sun
Will obtrude this paper veil
Lethal
Wasps in the wine
Sting my throat
Bloated
I cough out only lies
Transfixed by specters
The thin skin membrane fantasy
Effaces
I am so…
Disappointingly mortal
Transfixed by shadow Christologies*
This shallow breathing
Slow asphyxiation
Of mantras that never rise
Appropriate the faithless
Words that burn
Catapult my personal truth
Against your stone walled beauty
I am ragged
Broken
Imprisoned in this walking cadaver
I call soul
She wants what she wants
There is no beauty in this lie
Only the resonant sensation
Of the inevitable decay
When the secret place that is me
Turns to ash
And blows away….
TL Boehm
2010
*Shadow Christologies - is a term often used for Old Testament teachings that alluded to Christ - many Jewish Festivals were examples of "shadow Christology" - in this piece specifically the intent is to illuminate the futilty of chasing shadows when the real thing is available...
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 12:07 PM UTC
last night I sat in the dark
fishing for luminous words from
what seemed like a shallow furrow of thoughts
and I found myself stuck
between realities I dare not speak
allowing time to whisk me
to the edge of the world I only see in a dream,
indulging in calamities I cant seem to unreveal,
for Im stuck between two worlds of conflicting
revelations
The night with whom I conversed the
perplex complexities, mimicked the
unbirthed reality, leaving me in a pool
of confusion and a list of future uncertainities
again I find myself stuck between
worlds I dare not speak
The words I utter seem to fade
in the deep belly of the hours I sat, as
the only hope I hold on to,
is that of morning when a thick line
is drawn between my dreams and my reality
Last night I sat in the dark eluded by sleep,
swimming in a pool of written
ideas of metaphors, to undress the thoughts
that lie far beneath my sleepless nights,
and haunted by words I dare not speak
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC