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

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

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

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

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...

The mother lode of nighttime verse,
   arriving late
    —by Satan cursed

The dreamer wakes, all sleep forgoes,
   old words unbirthed
    —in shadows grow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

The mother lode of nighttime verse
  arriving late
  —all Satan’s curse

The dreamer wakes, all sleep forgoes
  old words unbirthed
  —in shadows grow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Touch the depths of my ******* soul

Fill me with the very breath of your essence

Drink me with unquenched thirst

Draw me nearer as we collide in explosive exhale



Spontaneous combustion

Like a drag of a cigarette,

take me in,

smoke me out,

consume every crevic.



Speak in different tongues,

Let my name roll off your lips in an unbirthed language

become unwound with me.

Untangled in what we both know to be authentically unmatched.




Drown in my presence

Let My arms be a safety net that diminishes every uncertainty.

fear.

doubt.

The utter, hatred, at your core.



With the beloved you are safe.

You are whole.

I will piece you back together,

Piece by broken piece  

for all of eternity.


I will wade through rivers of **** in the darkest of night.

I will be beaten by the waves of your roughest winds.

Yet,

I will stand.


I will love you through it all.



When will you see that you are my sun,

My moon

and my stars?


And I,

the universe,

That you drift in methodologically.




The formula,

the compound.

We are engrained into each other.

Twisted.

Contorted.

Bent.


I desire nothing,

but all ,


of imperfect you.

Keeping emotion inside
   the words go mute

Casting decision aside
  each choice less acute

New feelings unbirthed
  words fatherless stray

The future untold
  —tomorrow, today

(Villanova, Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

I see all horizon’s of life at 5 AM
The sky smudged with black lipstick kisses
The creatures of the night cling to dust
That covers the eyes of birds and men
Awake to watch, to grasp dawn now.
The sun, unbirthed, crowns the sky
To stars desperately holding heaven’s hand.
Reason rests for cogs and gears
But spirit colors the breath of man
And gravity returns it to the earth
As dew nestled in the crannies of life
Whose blade slips between my crumpled toes.
The silver rose light raises my skin
And the world no longer hides in PM
Nor burns in the purging honesty of AM
But a mystic’s sand dazzles the horizon
At 5 AM

I have always had a knack for eavesdropping.
Tho I am not in the least 
Fancied by the distant conversation.
The corresponding voice 
Of the majority's cry.
Place me in a situation,
Shrouding me 
Corrupting my sense. 
The constant laughter
By sounds unbearable 
The foreign words I cannot understand 
Tho do respect. 
The gentle voice enchants me so 
And am saddened by cries of woe
I look upon faces of different races
Precise to their own thoughts. 
My father told me long ago 
The curious eye does not go wanting
And the naked ear is evil. 
Such curious nature
Tho strictly forbade. 
I am bound by sand and sin 
Not to wander aimlessly into that distance. 
My thoughts indeed carry
By the countless tongue.
I hearken close to the strangers voice
To long for something to drown 
Out my own noise. 
In heed of advice only this.
For the unbirthed feeling to belong
And the fragment of admiration 
Lay gently upon my ear. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​