{"id":2888,"date":"2017-02-20T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=2888"},"modified":"2017-02-20T21:04:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T21:04:00","slug":"rose-mary-boehm-winter-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/rose-mary-boehm-winter-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Rose Mary Boehm, Winter 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear of Fire<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alone I am like a dry twig.
\nGood for lighting fires. Sparking
\nso easily, brighting so gloriously.<\/p>\n

The man who passes by the brook
\nat the bottom of the large meadow
\nevery afternoon. Will he search<\/p>\n

for my crackling gift at sundown?
\nWill he hear me snapping under
\nhis heavy boot, glad of the sound?<\/p>\n

He finds me and sees how bright
\nI burn. I shall ignite and kindle, scorch
\nand incinerate. He\u2019ll not contain me.<\/p>\n

Alarmed, he throws me
\ninto the stream,
\nfrom where I rise,
\nsoft and fresh, filled
\nwith vital juices.<\/p>\n

I know the perfect place for kindling,
\nfor consuming flames before the dowsing.
\nFourth Thursday of November<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Hello, Darling\u2026\u2019 Tux and slink. Come-fuck-me
\nshoes, heavy metal, precious heavy metal. Throaty laugh,
\nHysterical giggle, Intense seduction scene.
\nSix-figure sums float on the beat, champagne is de rigeur,
\nwhite powder parted with platinum and black credit cards
\nin baroque bathrooms. We are in the Savoy celebrating
\nThanksgiving with the UK branch of Glamour Inc in the most elegant
\nwhorehouse in town. I step out into the light-polluted night, lift my face
\nto a fine spray, smell the Thames, where
\nloaded barges manoeuver upstream. A dog barks
\ndown by the embankment, the street lamps spin haloes through
\nthe drizzle. I shiver in this London night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He’s losing words<\/strong><\/p>\n

They tumble from my keyboard.
\nWords, lines, paragraphs, pages.<\/p>\n

Gifts for my friend’s father. She said,
\nHe’s losing words.<\/em><\/p>\n

He remembers the weather. He’ll have a weather
\nfor you, for you, for her and for him.<\/p>\n

You’re worried about your son’s drinking habit.
\nHe says, There will be precipitations.<\/em><\/p>\n

For or against euthanasia, the tempers run high. He says,
\nEasterly winds of up to 80 km per hour expected.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then he looks up, frightened.
\nBites his cheek, asks his hands,<\/p>\n

Where are my words? Checks his synapses,
\nlooks at Prussian-blue horizons, cloud formations<\/p>\n

bunching up across the contrails, pixellated,
\nsomewhere beyond Orion.<\/p>\n

 
\nI never saw horizons until now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Between lightning and thunderclap
\nI counted time. You never know
\nhow far away are the things
\nthat burn, sudden flashes of insight,
\nblackened hopes for more.<\/p>\n

While rain cleaned away the dusty
\nsummer air, the mountains returned
\nto blue, the river swelled, I grew
\nready for harvesting. And still
\nI hadn\u2019t seen more than the valley.<\/p>\n

Via circuitous routes I learned
\nto say no which was not accepted,
\nand yes which was treated lightly.
\nBetween lightning and thunderclap
\nI stopped counting.<\/p>\n

I left the storms behind. The weather
\nis gentle and without surprises.
\nI watch the Pacific rise and fall,
\nbreathing slow and measured,
\nand the horizon holds no epiphany.
\nImmersion<\/strong><\/p>\n

So they\u2019re going to baptize them. Greek
\nOrthodox. I never really believed. Figured
\nit was up to the adults to decide the name of their god,
\nthe smell of their incense, which ring to kiss.
\nBut there\u2019s something to be said for \u2018belonging\u2019.
\nCongregation. Family. Group. Herd. Gaggle.
\nReligion. As long as the little ones don\u2019t mind
\nbeing dunked. All that oil all over the place
\nand the priest murmuring and mumbling
\nbenedictions (I hope), the icons scaring you
\nwitless. Their eyes follow you everywhere.
\nWhen I consented to offer my daughter on the altar
\nof medieval ritual, she carried the mark of fear
\nfor the rest of her life. She thought herself
\ncaught in a macabre practice of Satanism.
\nBelieve in one, believe in the other. The old
\ngrandpa from a village in Cyprus was happy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection (TANGENTS)<\/em> published in 2011 in the UK, well over 100 of her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a good two dozen US poetry reviews as well as some print anthologies, and Diane Lockward\u2019s The Crafty Poet.<\/em> She won third price in in the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (US), was semi-finalist in the Naugatuck poetry contest 2012\/13 and has been a finalist in several GR contests, winning it in October 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fear of Fire Alone I am like a dry twig. Good for lighting fires. Sparking so easily, brighting so gloriously. The man who passes by the brook at the bottom of the large meadow every afternoon. Will he search for my crackling gift at sundown? Will he hear me snapping under his heavy boot, glad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2888","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nRose Mary Boehm, Winter 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/rose-mary-boehm-winter-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rose Mary Boehm, Winter 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fear of Fire Alone I am like a dry twig. Good for lighting fires. Sparking so easily, brighting so gloriously. 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