bio

art by paradoxius

    A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels and a poetry collection (Tangents) have been published in the UK. Her latest poems have appeared - or are forthcoming - in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene's Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel's, Avatar, Verse Wisconsin, and Naugatuck River Review.

We the People

We the people -
insignificant
in the grand scheme -
quietly colluding.

We the three monkeys -
no see, no hear, no speak.
Achieving a momentum
of minimal effort,
experts know how
to make us shovel
the guano in their back yards.
No charge, boss.

We the blockheads -
marginalized
because we too stand
awestruck at the altar
of the bottom line.

Ignorance does not absolve
us from the burden of accounting
when someone asks one day:
- and where were you?

copyright 2013 Rose Mary Boehm

Waterways

The green girl waited at the pier.
Hovered around the black pylons,
wet and rotting, lashed by the waves,
painted in abstracts
by sea moss.

Fernando pushed out his boat.
Young, brown, muscular and carefree.
The birds screeched in anticipation
of his return. Sea lions pretended
not to notice. Nets neatly rolled,
ready for an early winter catch.
Oil lamp in the bow.

She slid into the lancha. Undulated,
coiled beneath the tackle. Weeks later
they found him washed up on the beach
near turtle rock, a smile on his blue lips.

copyright 2013 Rose Mary Boehm