A good day for love in Madrid
We curved and cursed
along new motorways,
wrong exits and eccentric
signposts. They’d hidden
that place where my old van
would be inspected for
road-worthiness and get that
coveted sticker ‘to be
displayed at all times’.
We finally got to sit
on those hot silver metal
chairs under the trees
on the Alcalá. ‘Two beers
and two gaspachos, por favor.
Make sure they’re cold.’ High noon
on the Castilian plateau.
The thermometer painted by Dali.
You had come half way around
the world to seek me, you said.
Those ice-cold Spanish beers
I’d thought more likely. A study
in amber and frosted opaque.
For a nano moment our hands
stuck to the glass.
Life became good again
under that ancient Acacia.
The occasional car hissed by
on the softening asphalt.
Aliens in air-conditioned tin cans.
Darkened windows closed.
There are no monkeys in Madrid’s
Acacias, I think. Still, aimed with precision,
a hard projectile splashed into my
soup from somewhere up high
in the canopy of leaves. From
shock to helpless laughter
I arpeggioed the full register
of emotions an ice-cold
gazpacho produces when it
splatters against your hot face,
sloshes all over your best whites,
and drenches your hair,
lavishly coiffed to impress the
potential lover.
I swear I heard a snicker
in that tree, and when I’d
wiped my eyes I saw your mirth
and fell for you.
Aum Manu Padme Hum
It’s not working. Have sweated
over it. Like a poor soul at heaven’s door
with a sledgehammer.
The others seem to be chosen. Golden
bridges, starlight, angels… All I ever
see is Marga’s buttocks.
Aum. Ohm. Oooomygawd.
Hum. I shift from lotus. My knees
hurt. My mind wanders. I kick the waves
walking along that North Sea island
beach. The waves eat my feet. Not
in an angry way. I look down at
the stumps where my feet used
to be and hop through the dry sand.
My hands in the pockets of the
too large shorts my brother lent
me. I need them for balance,
but the pockets hold them fast
with black rubber teeth. I fall
into one of those rock pools
where a transparent thing with legs
and big eyes is soon eating my thighs.
Takes big bites. I am relieved there
is no pain. The sun burns the top
of my scalp. Five vultures shift
from one foot to the other in ennui,
sure that I’ll give in soon. I can read
their minds. A seagull startles me.
Tries to peck at my right eye.
The tide is going out. My thighs
are numb. A voice gently asks me to open
my eyes. No way. That seagull isn’t very far.
Dead machines
At night, in the headlights ,
we see it at the entrance
to the dump, slightly off
centre:
the washing machine,
gleaming white in the dark,
invested with importance.
We pray that it grant us
success and everlasting
life.
Until we find new gods.
On a field dusty with grey
we discover the burial
grounds.
Tractors, diggers,
generators...
Bow deep and worship,
and grant us this day
our daily breath.
Goose lessons
1
Each flying goose creates
an uplift for the next bird.
The V-formation adds seventy-two
percent flying reach for each bird.
2
When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot,
two geese follow it down to protect it.
3
At Oklahoma State they study geese.
Discovered the ultimate in
supply satisfying demand:
the larger flocks will fly
to where more geese are eaten,
and where demand for geese is
less, the smaller flocks will settle.
4
Max Hauser died.
He was alone, no wings.
Fell out of a twelfth-floor
window one late afternoon
in the Tokyo Ward Shinagawa City.
It made me sad to think
I’d never met him
and I didn’t care.
Some of My Rains
Warm rain in the Caribbean,
giant bathtub abruptly
turned over by a tropical giant.
Rain that hurts. Rain that washes
away topsoil, flattening crab claw,
golden trumpet and scorpion orchid,
leaving the waxrose gasping for air,
fills all dents in every hotel patio.
Tennis courts become square lakes
of reddish, sandy mud. Every passing
car’s a drencher. Take off your sandals.
Let your feet transmit the moment
when a god created water and land.
A stifling thirty-eight degrees in the shade,
sabotaged for a brief, exulted moment,
soon reclaims its protagonism.
A dry spell on the Castilian plateau. Earth
crust breaks like freshly baked bread. All greens
from spring and early summer dusted ashen
by hot winds. The sky turns a metallic grey,
eucalyptus whisper urgent messages to
the poplars who bow deeply in acquiescence.
Fat drops explode on the patio roof, cut through the
pines, leave welts on the soil. Soon the rains break.
The world smells of summer
and wounded earth.
Squishing from the soggy wooden terrace
to the overflowing frog pond. Grasses bend
under the weight of the constant drizzle
of an English summer. Brushing past the dripping
hollyhock, it shakes its droplets onto my hair.
Peony’s heads hang low, the song thrush
shelters in the blackthorn. The shed’s rusted
door hinges whine. From my poisonous-orange
slicker dried earth from last year is washing off.
Into sudden silence the song thrush trills
an acknowledgement of a forgotten afternoon sun.
In the Peruvian coastal desert people know the
word ‘rain’. Sometimes a Lima cloud forgets its
miserliness and spits a little water.
Worn stone gets slippery.
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 fifth poetry collection, DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS, has been published by Kelsay Books and should be on Amazon in two weeks time. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
-Rosmarie Epaminondas (Rose Mary Boehm)
http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com/
http://www.bilderboehm.blogspot.com/
https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR9fygcz_kL4LGuYcvmC8lQ
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