"vortices" poems
i shouldn’t expect
to stand still
while the untethered
and unbothered
wind demonstrates
the power of the universe
as it sends the rain sideways
twisting dead and
soon to be dead leaves
in its playful vortices
because my roots
are brand new
my limbs are still
thin and delicate like
soft green saplings
for awhile
i will bend
and shake
and fear
the thunder
until i dig down
far enough
in the dirt
the bending
and the shaking
is part of
the beauty
if stay here long enough
if i let the storm soak into me
instead of letting myself
run for cover
i will become
strong and steady
like an old oak tree
i will wear my growth rings
like gold metals
proudly parading
the proof of
what i have weathered
—there will be
too many to count
and i will find myself
smiling at the sky
when the dark clouds roll in
because i am
still here
still standing
after all this time.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 2:31 PM UTC
changeling
evolving
journeying
from
pre-conception
mis-conception
immaculate conception
to post-partum
afterlife
travellers
engaging with pilgrims
seeking direction
trying to understand
nuances of relationship
between themselves and humankind
spiralling through vortices
and
mirrored portals to
a life of
clouded memory moments
lions salivating
blooded claws
eager to rip the straightjacketed soul
open
to explosions of truth
and invert the inverted drawer
exposing the convenient
lies that protect us
from the self-accusing soul
knowing we are born of choice
and sin
inevitably our bodies betray
the creator's design
through his eye of perceived benign benevolance.
empty dreams and visions
of moments
before time made us grow old
dimming vision of past joy
indulged, saved, in a treasure chest
with
baubles , bangles
beads of sweat
dripping relentlessly through
our hourglass
puddling in our slowing wake
up and know that love is tainted
before it begins.
before it started
after the dream of you
was the single star
beside the morning moon
that we shared
even when apart
was lost
in the tattered vision
of
perceived beauty
love died
reduced to triviality.
history killed it.
buried it, beneath a mountain
of hallmark cards
and internet memes.
this is the stuff of nightsweat dreams
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 11:12 AM UTC
I hear guitars a’ calling in the gloaming’s final fling
when sinking suns subdue their flames and fairies take to wing
as day departs, a yawning ash, beneath a dusky haze
igniting one by one the jewels of midnight’s diamond blaze.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the clouds within the skies,
with tunes which trill like welling tears from somber misting eyes
of misplaced muted homeless souls who drift alone in grief
beneath the silence of the stars that offers no relief.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the beat beneath her breast;
their murmur throbs with passion’s pulse and sensuous unrest
that rumbles deep in worried woods before impending storms
and splits the air in morning meadows, ere the sunrise warms.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the pitter-patter rain
which summons with a soothing sound upon my window pane
evoking bygone childhood dreams within a vagrant breeze
engulfing me in gusty swirls down misty vortices.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the waves on distant shores;
they’re crashing out a monody upon the mystic oars
of phantom ships within the dawn, like speckled caravels
a’ sail on seas of raven wings to moonlit citadels.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the morning’s reveilles;
they’re pouring fires in the skies and burning up the seas,
while waking flowers in the fields and setting trees ablaze,
and closing one by one the eyes of midnight’s starry gaze.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the deserts of my mind;
they’re nullifying hollow realms that time has left behind,
where pathless sands are blazing hot, the sun is set to die
and weary hounds are panting faint’, their tongues hung long and dry.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 5:44 AM UTC
Here in receding darkness, the sky meets the earth;
In waning hours, here the music of the waves
consoles the mourning sands; here I go pursuing
the citadel of mists, rising lotus-like from clouds
hanging on rugged mountains in the distance.
Maelstroms in the desert carry vortices of sand
and moist fragments of mirages of oases;
The fury of the sea brooks no contenders:
***** make home the sands levelled flat of my
feats; Again the uproar of mist-filled thirst.
Invisible companion, tonight, in moonlit silence,
will you come walking waters, like those ages
many, of Galilee ago? A storm is brewing.
A labyrinth of seasons in the Catherine-wheel
of life, growing and swirling out of the haze;
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 7:50 PM UTC
Ever decreasing circles
Tessaracts
And mine fields
Hindsight blind sided
Ostensibly this funneled
Tunnel vision
OCD in oscillations
The vortices surround me
Gravity
On my event horizon
The memory of sunlight thins
This meridian
Soul and spirit intersect
At the latitude of foolish intentions
Emotional circumspect
The absolution of revolutions
Pull my fatal focus center
Enter in
To end
Where I begin
*aufero vestri cranium ex vestri ****
whispered litany
reverse reverberation
In that space between statis
And 360 degrees
Stretch out my arms
And I am free…..
Ever increasing circles
From the epicenter
To destiny
TL Boehm
092809
*remove your cranium from your ****
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC
Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay,
To rise and follow the ways that wend
Over the hills and far away?
Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away.
Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,
Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are:
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It calls you, calls you night and day
Beyond the dark into the dream
Over the hills and far away
1.4k
at a turbulent vortices of chance,
a backyard funeral,
shoebox burial
following immediately thereafter
last copies of a body
of work,
so very human
some really bad,
most highly
average
amidst the occasional
how-did-that-one-get-overlooked,
all human, all, time yellowed
some on paper napkins scribbled,
some as typos fired by a Remington,
some lasered, some inkjet sprayed,
all stored on papyrus memory cells,
but all
born,
all common ancestoried
in the dust of
turbulent vortices of chance,
all to the dust of loam and sand,
returned,
returned to sender
my shoebox of poems,
will soon to disappear,
following on and hard by
their author,
who like any poem possessed,
mad, insane, life cycle victims
defying,
nay denying,
the notion of
sustainability
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 11:16 PM UTC
A shock of venom
oh, succulent hate
like honey to the most avid tongue.
We could turn away
carve a shallow life from the thin bone of oblivion
construct intricate vortices in which to endlessly swirl.
We could withdraw
terminal distrust gradually withering our lives
it would not still the voices screaming.
I seek the source of my own complicity
backtrack to the point at which I swung
from disillusioned to disengaged
my apathy mistaken for acceptance.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 10:24 AM UTC
I can't believe my own voracity
I sit here trying to think of something worthwhile to say
Black holes gut the universe
Sometimes, it's hard to feel alright
When we're running out of time
And I'll never be that young again
I don't think I'll wake up
I...
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 1:47 AM UTC
where the dark night of the soul
("half-seen on the edge of air")
meets
the dark soul of the night which
("from the throat of cosmic vortices")
stands in
the charred ashes of surrender
("like a jack-lighted deer")
greeting.
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
My poems come and ask me
After you set us free
You just forget our pain
And act apathetic alien,
When thoughts in you burn
Inside in vortices churn,
It’s us coming out in streams
Relieve your burden of dreams,
But you never enact your life the way
What through us you say,
Delivering us you stand aside,
Turn away to flow with the tide!
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 4:50 AM UTC
listless clouds clash
remorsefully bright
in contrast to the darkness
of the sky behind them
poised to invade
when the darkness has won,
evil stars
strike up in flames
overtaking our dreams
through which we witness
furrows creep and widen
across the solid earth
ingesting clusters of ****** souls,
their cadaverous shades perfumed
by the misery of hell
and undermining tall cathedrals
which plunge with torrents of masonry
into the abyss,
their unfastened bells clamoring
out of sync and out of key
through the acrid dusts of hell
trudge trolls who,
bored and longing for meaning,
pilfer the cathedrals' rugged remnants
lying in slanted piles
we come to realize
we are the ministers of dead nations
for which any hope of renewal
has finally been extinguished,
masterfully deceived and depleted
by an anarchic emperor
who caresses the strings
of a dismelodious lyre
his lyre invites
the clouds to return,
this time energized and organized
into desolate vortices
that twist without purpose,
where even infinity dies,
the same multitudes of nothingness
in which we're finally overtaken
as befoulment is woven between us
and we are choked into sleep,
vainly we ask,
"why?"
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 5:50 PM UTC
Wounded lover
Wandering on the beach
There is no life here
Crustaceans
That is no life to me
But the sand is soft on my sole
Blank gaze of the pitiless moon on my back
Speaking of things that once were
And never will be again
Soft glow of the rising sun on my breast
Oil slick reflections in the sand
Dinosaurs scavenging for sustenance
Why am I here?
Only the meaning we give it
Only the meaning we give it
Only the meaning we give it
Devoid of form
Repetition like insanity
Vortices swarm my ankles
Icy cold grip of a long lost mother
Reaching to consume her
Blind and Reckless
Child
There is no life I know there
Incessant drone of the pitiless waves
Soft glow of the fading moon on my breast
Her power slipping
Devoid of life
A lone rock
Warmth of the rising sun on my back
The sand is soft on my sole
Porcelain mug dangling empty in my hand
Water droplets stain my spectacles
Looking down from the staircase
Bright rays of the sun dance across the waves
To my Eyes
Water folds softly around eager rocks
Colors fade from the sky
A clear blue overhead
Clear as my soul once was
Walking on glass sprinkled streets
With numb feet
The Sand was Soft on my Sole
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 10:15 AM UTC
In a state of suspended habitation- weightless.
The gravity of youthful expectations lifted
Swallowed glimpses of greatness and grandeur
This is it...I am already here.
Smooth illusory cohesion of being
Empty vortices of mild appetites & languid compulsions
Yet, while these puppeteers softly saunter me through it all, and nothing
Blue moons illuminate a reality of paralysis
Perched on the surface-
A vast cool reservoir of sorrow & despair
Serene in its dormancy,
Terrifying in its potential.
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 11:17 AM UTC
*Hour of terse movement and ambiguity
Gales rushing to secure their invisible voids
Anchored Goliaths pressure their manacles in turbulent , leaf -
revealed vortices , white feather cirrus highlight the blue crown of
Mother Earth as Elven cool day chant and witchcraft mock
the dying salvos of Lord Summer* ..
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 12:20 PM UTC
*Spider silk is alive , clinging to window frames on blustery air
as cold rain strips the trembling trees bare
The ever changing colors of November render thoughts free falling and
untethered , emotions under control by impatient winter weather
Dancing vortices , colored parachutes vying for the surety
of the uncertain earth* ...
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 12:59 PM UTC
Is it the heat that is spreading
hidden among us
vortices
birthing in our bodies?
The climate: it never changes,
it is not man, but Sol:
the winds that power our earth;
We must deny everything we do;
The heat out there -
vortices in here -
Man did not cause it
Sol cannot cause it -
who never existed,
but for the true God
Not true; Not true;
But the cancers,
they grow;
But our cells, they
cannot hold a lie well;
Feb 25, 2025
Feb 25, 2025 at 1:18 PM UTC
Felt Me Back into the Seat
I'm just Passenger on this Retreat
Quest permission for Revision of my Record. Was Reckless for good Reason, I thought so of back when I lost my heart and soul, my friend, so why wouldn't I flee fierce pierce through the Wind, air collapse upon I pass. A mushroom bloom, a ghastly rust, I oxidized the tempered dust, magnetized me any metal, Electrified the blooming petal, What good be Flower without Me thorn.
Spun Out Vortices, Afflicted Storm.
I was focus to test my fate, I had no care for my own state. I learned to walk a demons trail, they taught me well of how they hail.
I thought I'd surely reasoned, I had trespassed. However, was not the case..."jest how??" You Ask.
Well, let not such tales go to waste, put to good, quick, make haste.
I know mine enemy, and so have sworn, march until cast furies torn, the wicked from the weathered wasted born. Make great again, attest, transform.
I rest my case for being born.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
Sweat filled eyesight , loitering on exhausted knees ..
Stained , dirt calloused hands , overlooking myopic August heat .
Wet flannel misery , white hot Devil Star drying crippled greens ..
Heavy steps o'er crusted , bewildered loam .. Crows riddle power lines , ever inquisitive , question the dying man , locked in Sun confused circumstance . Contorted , weathered fingers on wood implements , blood entangled vortices mired in conviction , a cool spring well drawn from pure fable ..
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 11:16 PM UTC
1
‘Sugar Sugar burning bright.’
I will always associate grapes with you,
after romping at bus stops comme hares,
all in a state of disrepair,
paying the multiracial train fare while
tucking up the driver’s cozy, why trans
portability! Half-lloweens to Macy’s,
the dreamy honk fades into the moon,
behind gun cartridges of a Southern neck hair,
of crooning files in gregarious heads bared,
so to meet you there. Despite the polyester
uniform, the detergent-festered skin – ’twas
‘What an old school ***** your plump lips
in slightly cracking slant at half-forty-five
to the Jupiter’s Koran. Would it suffice?
My advice – to always dab your cherry stone,
so the taint of whirling frozen-yogurt
aren’t left for me to sip on.
I’d warn you.
None other than yourself who only invite,
through carefully calculated vortices,
coarse premises for me to fall –
within snuffed up ceiling in starry neon,
heroic chameleons in trompe l’oeil foolery,
as if you knew me to write, to be feathered,
simply within an inch of your maple fullness.
I will not.
run /
/ conundrum
formulaic /
/ sweet ***
anthrax /
/ angelic
acquiesce
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 6:28 AM UTC
Deep in my soul is a deep, falling cavity; I have piled up my understood memories: an Angel, the minutes of the Universe, the faithful promise of kisses! My thoughtful Rodin forehead is full of scratches! The half-truth of the True Beads wasted behind my eyelids is lingering! The Present also disappears my person as a coward as a silent curse! In human hearts, in the depths of nipple-staring star gazes, it is rare for a shipwrecked footprint to remain!
I pursue in search of eternal non-arrival! Asphalt sea road ripples to the rhythm of my steps! Behind my face it would be so good to get to know the other one too! Waves of vortices rupture, pull you down into the deep! They run through the channels of invisible veins, I am even enriched by the emotions that have happened to others! - Like the rock! I fall towards the captivity of yawning depths!
Her lovely butterfly pupil trembles inward; door handles always closed door snaps into my soul! "Pessimistic pain spins from my face like bouncing plaster of rain beads!" I always step back into myself; instead of being able to move! I'm falling out of the night! I can cling to the illusion of mirrors; after all, they show Reality and I would touch the receding candle flame: it is bound by the tough consistency of roots, the negatively charged atmosphere and Fear!
The crescents of your lips can no longer be nicknamed by the Dear! Living dream images invented in yourself are slapped in the face and then dragged back to the ground! - Everyday tempers are unspoken, until they are finally ground and squeezed! In the beginning it would have been the friendship of Faithfulness, and the consolation of Betrayal remained.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 12:21 AM UTC
*In my thoughts watercolor sphere, raindrops pressure the paint to smear
The cloudburst continues till the globe is clear , the prism in my piece of the world then slowly reappears
This January mindset brushes the morning black and gray
Frozen in herringbone horizons ..
Lifeless grass dappled in shadow
Brown leaf vortices
Aged hardwood and windswept -
duck ponds , killdeer and wild geese quietly call
Perusing the land of the dead from every angle , hilltop to
depression , marble bench to mausoleum
Every date , every unique bronze plate , verse , military branch and
belief , every flowered motif
Memorial gardens teach , I have the sensation of their ghost standing just beyond my reach*
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 2:54 PM UTC