Five Fabulous Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

 

Riding towards Inis Ceithleann

 

His horse shudders under

the lashing of his intention.

Moonlight’s feelers

stroke him with silken gloves.

He freezes.

 

Against the dark horizon

an owl stills in the headlights.

 

Show me the loom on which he spins

his story of Irish rivers spilling ichor.

Their depth filled with godly prophecies

leaking from then into tomorrow.

Inner earth opens its mouths

spewing untasted varieties of fervour.

 

Keep watch.

The wolfdog is on the prowl.

 

 

A bell rings

 

but whales no longer pass in August,

the end of summer when moon escapes

from the black hole, and seven orphans

enter into complex negotiations

with the outward-bound behemoth. Economy

Class. Near the engine room.

Plangent and suffocating.

Heat and fire.

Your shiv’s viscid consummation

lets her wake on a bed of liquid rubies.

Don't look back

or you will turn to stone.

 

 

Depths

 

At five-thousand meters deep I see your absent dance,

pale blue with emerald lining and hundreds of beaded frowns.

 

You refuse to open your petals to me or to the morning dew;

the night flyer’s plumed feelers probe the lips of your deep.

 

When you lie dreaming in the darkest well of fathomless waters,

do not light up for the passing voyeur who may well sever your stem.

 

Beware of those who would join your clouded voyage across space time,

pick wanderers who can measure the transparencies you weave.

 

You saw me across miles of ocean floor and bade me farewell

while countless floating diamonds knitted you a veil of forgetting.

 

 

Fever

 

He came to her nights

and felt her dripping from him,

white and poisonous.

 

She squatted obscenely

in another man’s head,

gorging on his satisfactions.

 

On the stump where they slaughtered

the chickens, white fluffy feathers

remained in the cracks the axe had cut.

 

He pushes her to her knees. Forces

her to embrace the stump.

Soon white feathers turn crimson.

 

 

Important Things

 

I

 

It’s ten below and falling.

Snow covers the firewood.

 

My grandfather used to have a barometer

and tapped the glass with his finger

when we passed.

We passed.

 

The stove glows red.

Combustion, the alchemy

that creates light, heat and smoke.

Expanding into my eiderdown jacket

I slide towards the outhouse.

 

The dogs huddle. Six pairs

of eyes watch me.

There used to be eight.

 

 

II

 

45 in the summer.

The incense of honeysuckle

under the dark roof of the walnut tree

makes one forget the small body

buried under 15 kilos of quartz

which wouldn’t allow inscriptions.

 

The evening sun blinds me.

A snake moves the long grass

and weaves its way, languid from

the heat, towards the small river

which has dried to a trickle.

 

Forgive my excess

of love and lack

of understanding.

When I dug your grave

death sat on the fence.

 

 

III

 

The water level of the well is falling.

Regardless, the goldfinches sing,

and the gatherers of songbirds

put out their cages.

They move on in haste

when I walk out through the gate,

shotgun under my arm.

 

With you under the quartz

I shall have to stay.

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fourth poetry collection, THE RAIN GIRL, was published by Chaffinch Press in 2020. Want to find out more? https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/