Storyteller of the Week

Rose Mary Boehm

  

 Rose Mary Boehm at 35 years young in London during the baptism of her daughter in 1973

Rose Mary Boehm’s official bio with elaborations:

“Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru…”

Born in Duisburg, in the centre of the Ruhr area in Germany (the industrial heartland), Rose was just one year old when WWII started, and when the Nazis had already taken over everything. Clearly too small to understand anything much at that time, she understood from when she was two that something untoward was happening in her small world.

Her mother decided to leave the Ruhr with Rose and her big brother to flee to where she herself had been born: about 50 km from Dresden. Mother Böhm thought that the war would not last that long and would not ‘travel’ that far. (Talking about wishful thinking…)

“… and author of two novels as well as seven poetry collections.”

One of the poetry collections is called From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden and is the recollection of a small child who lived WWII in Germany, told in a small voice.

“…Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a ‘Pushcart’, recently for ‘Best of Net’.”

Another poetry collection no longer mentioned (for brevity) in the biography is Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t be Back, containing poems written during the first few years in Peru. Rose married – in second nuptials (she likes this word) – with a Peruvian and, naturally, ended up living in Lima, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. But Peru has its own social and political problems, and coming new to different culture, customs, and needs, the problems and pain of the new place are still rather obvious and often move hearts and consciences. Those early reactions became Peru Blues.

“Her latest collections are: Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books, June 2022,) Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit, July 2022), and Saudade (Kelsay Books, December 2022) and are available on Amazon.”

Kelsay Books has scheduled her next full length poetry collection, Life Stuff for publication in February 2024.

Approaching 90 (being half-way there and almost galloping towards that milestone the way time seems to have speeded up), Rose contemplates those early years, her travels (she was always hungry to see the world), experiences of a rich life lived vicariously. Those musings found their way into her latest manuscript Life Stuff which will be published by Kelsay Books.

Rose Mary Boehm’s website where you can learn more about her and her work: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

I see Rose Mary Boehm and I as soul sisters even though she grew up in Germany during World War II raised by a single mother and I grew up in Montana raised by my mother and grandparents for two years while my father was fighting in World War II. Born five years apart, Rose Mary and I are both survivors, feisty octogenarians and strong independent women who write poetry about our lives. We are also fiction writers. I love her direct, honest, style of writing powerful poems with a twist of irony.

I’ve been a fan ever since reading this delightful descriptive poem in Verse-Virtual.

Mining in Spain

Waves of aches,
dwarves hammering in my head,
whistling while they work.
Fever and nausea.
Meningioma, Señora.

It’s a healing fairy, my daughter smiles under tears.
Long dangling stripey legs.
Wings too small to fly,
the bumble bees’ dilemma.
My kids,
my ex,
my now,
my boss,
my friends—
all rooting for me in the clinic’s café,
cracking jokes.

While they dig for my hammering dwarves
on the operating table, I go on field trips.
Then I flatline.
That must have been the moment
when I realized that death does not exist.
It’s just stepping over the line.

Later I absented myself completely,
when my head weighed at least a ton,
the size of a Pilates ball.
Just pull in your feelers and pretend you’re not in.

But you can’t keep it up. Eventually
the stuff they give you wears off.
Pain. It almost makes you scream—
But you know it’s not done.

My love is smothering my face with moisturizer.
He holds me tight, walks behind me.
One step at a time old girl,
don’t worry, we’ll get there.

 I’m proud to publish these unpublished stellar stunning poems.


My Best Friend is Silent

You never wanted to talk, or share your misery,
always hid behind smoke screens,
perceived happiness. A life
on the opposite end to posting selfies.
You don’t even know
what a ‘selfie’ is.

Always hidden in your cocoon,
sure the waters would stay low,
the tsunami, the mudslide not touch you,
no wrinkle ruining that perfect skin.
Insolvency a disease
acquired only through contagion.
Quietly hopeful behind closed doors.

The terrace now bare and grey, no longer
an explosion of colors lovingly
watered, the dogs died long ago.
Your husband not only forgot who you are,
he barely recalls who he is.
Sometimes he remembers
that he loved you. While you wash
his pants again – they don’t dry
on these wet, cold days – you
look at your red, swollen hands
and remember when you were three,
when you could at least pretend
to have a dog in the form
of a match box on a string,
and you were very fond of it.
The house reeks of urine.

You count out his heart meds—
he’ll tell you he’s taken them already—
you add the two for his diabetes,
three for the prostate.
You try and get him to wear his
‘diapers’. He doesn’t see the need.
And he’s a big man.

I am too far away. You no longer call.
You don’t believe in technology,
your phone is dead.
My skin contracts in
subtropical summer.


Glamour

Aunt Lil wore her black hat at a coquet angle,
its little veil pulled over her forehead.
She was Arpège and blood-red lipstick,
long, pointed fingernails to match, nylon stockings,
everything I wanted to be one day.
She bought me ‘Schillerlocken’*.

My uncle was a lawyer,
a tall tree in a forest of lesser trees.
He seldom bent down to my ten-year-old,
somewhat undernourished body.
With a stentorian voice he hinted
that I was making a nuisance of myself
just by being a kid.
I found out later that he had always thought
my mother a creature of a lesser race.
She didn’t speak like one is used to hearing.

It was whispered behind fluttering hands
that Aunt Lil had been a barmaid.
Now she was the wife of a professional,
was perfume and lace, and a deep-red slit
replaced her mouth when she laughed.
Which she didn’t do often.

The idea that this childless couple would look after me
for ten days while my mother went back
to East Germany (in danger of being sent to a Russian
gulag if caught) to sort out the lives we left behind in a hurry
had been hammered out between the women.

Uncle Fried looked at me across the huge dining table
as he would a fly and frowned.
‘Has nobody shown you how to eat
with knife and fork, child?’
My voice not quite steady from fear:
‘We had nothing to cut, Uncle.’

Will be in the forthcoming Life Stuff

“Schillerlocken” is a sweet, cone-shaped German pastry. The name was inspired by the typical curly wigs that men, like the German poet Friedrich Schiller, used to wear in the 18th century.”


Every Day They Die

Louis, Ella, Aretha, Miles, Fred, Rita, Clark …
the list would fill a tome.
Having accompanied me with their art, they had become
friends, their obituaries showing them young and vigorous.

Silence has kissed them welcome, and silence’s
heavy fingers are teasing me.
I know that this road offers no compromise,
even though I feel immortal even now.

Every day there are more who leave me, and the earth
closes over them. I can hear it wherever I am:
thud, thud, thud… earth to earth, dust to endless dust,
and the kind lies told about the dead.
Dearly beloved…
The firm flesh that I remember compromised by age
if they were blessed.

The unquiet one, I left my loved ones when we were young.
Didn’t witness the destruction wrecked by time.
Wasn’t there to hold their hands, close their eyes, kiss a furtive
goodbye, felt the stab of the inevitability of it all.
The news of yet another death reached me via WhatsApp.
My condolences. Wish I could be with you.
Only the shadows of the night cut me to the bone.
 
Will the souls of the broken trees welcome me?
Will my hidden sins be laid open for all to see?
I can’t believe in oblivion.

                        
1941. Germany. The Ruhr.

The gentle odor of wintering potatoes,
the coal chute, noise of black, glistening coal
tumbling down the incline,
coal dust settling slowly.

A broom, an old stool, a box with red apples,
each one wrapped in newspaper.
Christmas is coming.

At least once per night we’d sit it out
in our basement, hoping we’d be overlooked
by the British bombers that came out at night.

My small world was a chaiselongue covered
in tough upholstery velvet, dark brown, with
tiny leaves in a soft salmon pink and a gentle beige.
My brother holding me close.
He would let me borrow his stuffed bear.

The ominous drone of the planes, the rumble,
explosions, windows shattering, shards falling,
a cry here or there coming from
a dark corner, a mumbled prayer.

A cake won’t take me back, I just need a whiff
of mold, humidity, darkness, and moist stone.