Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

 

The Ritual of Fallen Heroes

I have been fed the lie of the fallen.
Went back to my grandfather’s grave. Dead
heroes in all the graves.

Wars keep the young off the streets.
Their hormones can unload aggression
elsewhere in the name of some god
or the fatherland.

The war god is a whore. All parties
declare: ‘Ours is the right,
ours is the might, god is on our side
and we are the brave.’ And tomorrow

those who prayed mingle their
bones, their flesh and their blood
in that last embrace.

 

The Final Drought

The dry leaves of the bougainvillea rustle
as I walk past: barren… barren…

The fields reach towards the dry forest beyond,
breaking into crazy patterns,
empty veins filling the cracks.

A faint whiff of smoke is creeping
into my shrinking space,
the stink of rotting fish and carrion.
Small birds fall from the sky.
Over by the fence a dog in a last stretch,
a cat not far, their enmity died with them.
The cows are lying on the no grass,
listless, giving up.
I hear the occasional tired lowing.
Even the vultures have stopped their circling.

Houses seem diminished, the ivy losing its grip.
Empty pools look diseased,
crusted over with black and green, tiles falling.
A sandy expanse fingers its way into the dry brush
where once the wide river filled the space.
The bridge now spans a void.

If I peed on the black-eyed susans
would that lift their little faces to the sky for one more day?
Will someone be left to enjoy their easy beauty?

My blood seems to flow slow, viscous,
like molten lead,
my words are tumbling in my head
like thin black skeletons without voices.

Somewhere a bell tolls.