Do I write about poets with red holes
in their forehead? Students whose eyes
have been shot out, the mother of four
small children is rotting in a cell full of other people,
excrement, wails, the sounds of metal and wood
on flesh and bone.
How can I write a love poem when
all I know is that planets no longer align,
that war has been declared on peace,
that all the crystals disintegrate into millions
of nano shards, shaken by the vibrations of hate.
How can I write a love poem when
I am no longer allowed to trust my eyes,
when blue is red, up is down, no means yes,
when, while I am hollow and starving
a blonde demon laughs and tells me I have riches
to look forward to. Perhaps even in this life.
All I have to do is believe.
And haven’t we all been taught to believe?
To believe that there is a big old man on a cloud
somewhere, an old man with a long, white beard
who has a big book and writes all your
little misdeeds in big letters,
and who they say is love and who asks you to love
‘the other’ as you love yourself.
So, for many it’s easy to believe that in his name,
in the name of love, you are being hung
upside-down by your feet until you
confess how much delicious hate you feel,
and that you never had it so good.
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her work has been widely published mostly by US poetry journals. A new full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2026.
