Tyrannosaurus Rich

This incredible piece of artwork find me using both Microsoft paint and the cut and paste feature of a scanned picture of myself to play beast master and create a very frightening creature that is apparently attacking South Park? Created July 28, 1998.

10 New Band Names

Casey Babylon and the Dutch Dinosaurs

Controlled Lunacy
Slightly Asian
Weapons Up Your Face
Ibuprofen for Life
A Hangover Named Yeti
Two Slug Explosion
Sweatshirt Cult
It Doesn't Even Feel Good To Sniff
The Beer Comes Out of Jesus

Phrases and Words I Started Using in 2003

Dig this
Bugger off
I'm keen on that
Savy?
Do we have an accord?
Boogered!

A Story

And just like that, the wind opened the pages of his book. Not just to any page, the wind is strange. Her page. Silly wind playing with his head, playing the raven to his mock Edgar Poe life. And so he read, he had to. He tempted not the mistresses of wind, fate, or scorn. They are best let to run their path. And he read, he read the page he'd read a thousand times before, from the book he'd vowed to dispose of 20 score more. He read it because he had to. It was an addiction, a habit... something just short of a tradition.

That word makes it sound too glorified... "tradition." It was equal parts joy and pain. The joy was just fleeting, reminiscing, used-to-bes. And the pain was wrapped up in it. Or maybe those memories were wrapped in pain. Liar man, they weren't happy, they were just... they just were. They were all he had. Had he something else, someone else, she'd be a twinkle in the Arizona sky. But she had; rather, he had built her a nest in his mind. And so that is where she lay, without really knowing he hated her for moving on, or not thinking about him.

He hated this damn book he couldn't throw out, this un-novel novel. He hated this redundant expeditious track to mental anguish. His whole train of thought, derailed by a simple, deliciously evil breeze. He reared back and twitched slightly, made as if to throw the book into the lake, but paused. And instead just closed the cover, tucked it under his arm, and walked away. He wasn't ready for that yet.

But he was getting close.

Summer Shifts of 2003

My life is a series of 4 hour shifts
At least in the summer of '03 anyways.
Wake up early
Drive to work
Dale Carnegie
4 hours
Tick
Tick
Tick
9 o'clock
3 more to go
10 o'clock
I can't take this anymore
Get me out of this box
10:30
I need munchkins
I'm starving
Somebody get me some god damn...
Ooo thank you.
11 o'clock
Almost there
11:45
What's wrong with this damn clock?
GOOOOO!
11:59
Freedom!

Back in the car
Drive home
4 hours of free
Kind of free time
Lunch
Email
Reading

3:30 Pool attendent
What a joke
I can't opena  band aid
Never mind save a life
Why is this time moving so slow?
Little kids in the pool
Always little kids
Where are the hot girls?
WHERE ARE THE HOT GIRLS?
Oh hell
Tick
Tick
Tick
Check the chemicals at 5 and 7
The highlight of my night
What?
Towel?
Did somebody say something about a towl?
Who needs a towel?
Because I can GET you a towel!
I AM TOWEL MAN!
Oh where are the girls?
7'oclock
I'm so hungry
Nice people
In your nice clothes
Won't you please bring me a plate?
LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M THINKING AT YOU!
Damn it
Oh Pepe` you are so kind
With your plate of sushi and shell pasta
A true friend in good service I have made
Tick
Tick
Tick
Oh sweet joy and rapture
8 o'clock has come

In my car
To home?
The gym?
Some wild party with playboy bunnies?
Per chance all three!
Alas bed time after 12
Only to extend my 4 hour days
I can take this no longer
Signed
Your friend,
Richard Boehmcke

The Future

This seems to me a commentary about me being able to glimpse my brilliant, fantastic, future but not being able to get to it because of an obstacle. Heavy right? Created March 17, 1998.

Sorrow and the Pity

Pity and sorrow are strange bed fellows, they are ok to fall asleep with, but never wake up with them for they should never spend the night.

~RTB

Wonder Years

I wrote you a poem
So write me a song
Make sure it rhymes
Make sure not too long
We've come a long way
Notched a large belt
We've been through so much
Seen, heard, and felt
Fork in the road
Knife in my back
Too little you have
Too much I lack
Choices to make
Reason to speak
Tell me the truth
Lies make it weak
God knows I love you
God knows I care
It's slipping away
See how we fare
Make a choice
Made a decision
No choice, just a scratch
Every word, an incision
No time on the clock
No fear in my soul
Time for a climax
'Cuz it's taking a toll
So take a number
And fall in love
Choose them all
Or none of the above
Side with a sinner
Or dance with a saint
Be who you are
'Cuz I know you ain't
Your heart for my flowers
A kiss for your tears
A hug for your love
My love for your fears
This moment in time
This day in your life
This friend of all friends
The love of my life.

-Rich Boehmcke, Age 17

Laughter

And they laughed

They laughed like they’d never laughed before

With tremors of hilarity

And the shine of royalty

They laughed themselves into a forgotten past

That only they’d remember

-RTB

Quote

Never assume somebody could care less, because when you do, you are telling them you want them to.

-RTB

Featured: Richard T. Boehmcke

Photo: Megan ___ Grebitus

10 New Band Names

Cholesterol Is Off The Hook
A Bedtime Purchase
We Do Not Throw Corn
Kung Pao Disaster
Platter of Homosexuality
Spank the Genius
Get Up for Frocks
Soup Fight
Thoughts of Bar-B-Q
A Very Jewish Appendage

My Thoughts on Wine

I like to drink wine out of a water glass. Not a wine glass. Who do you think you are, wine, that you must be elevated so high above the table in your receptacle? Are you better than me? Are you better than your other beverage friends? Beer has no problem standing on the table. Liqour either. Well, MOST liquor anyway. (I'm looking at you Martini and Cosmo) Why must you be so elitist? Come down to the table and hang out with your friends. I promise we will have a good time. I like a grounded wine, or one that doesn't mind having its feet on the ground. I promise I wil like you.

-RTB

Instinct

Instinct isn't necessarily truth
It is more convenience

-RTB

The Sweater

"It's cold" she said. He turned to look at her and his eyes drifted to her goosebumpy arms.

He looked her in the eye, "Do you want my sweater?"

She barely turned to him before deadpanning, "But you don't have a sweater."

He turned away to look back at the bridge. "Yea... I think I was using sweater as a metaphor for love in that scenario."

She shifted her weight before tucking her hands into her pockets, keeping her elbows close to her body. She turned back toward the bridge. "That might be nice."

He pocketed his hands in the same way. "Yea?" he asked the bridge.

There was a pause.

"Yea." And she leaned ever so slightly closer to him.

-RTB

Precious

Photo: Richard T. Boehmcke

Crap

Climb out of your own poems
The Spanish conquerer said to me
Engulfed in flames and eating a green banana
He spoke in tongues
He must have
I understood him
Though I didn't comprehend him
I under listened
So I really did under-stand him

A tiny mandolin playing potato bug stopped walking across my living room and looked up at me
SHUT UP YOU NARCISSTIC BOOB
What?
A potato bug is yelling at me?

And just like that a polish fortune teller burst in through my apartment
This poem blows he said
And I went to bed

-RTB

Pool

If you don't make waves, nobody will know you were ever in the pool.

-RTB

Acceptable Choices

I trod the same tracks

Back and forth across a city that knows routine

But no repetition

My bland sameness

Lost

Amongst a sea of bland sameness

Always happening in the same general way

But never ever the same

In a city of millions

I lead a life of 1s

1 store

1 work

1 way to get there

1 place to stand and wait

In a city of infinity I am making a careful study of the finite

The seasons change their clothes around me

While I stand

Nearly stagnant

On the same street corner

Pondering yesterdays

At what point will I have more yesterday than tomorrows

And will I know that day

The city can buzz around you like a hive

But it can’t give you wings

You can be the only ant

In a city of bees

And nobody will know the difference

In a city where factors have permutations

There is so much acceptable vanilla

We trod the same tracks back and forth

Across a city that knows routine but no repetition

Or repetition but no routine

Repetitive routine.

We change ourselves within our lives

We change our lies within our lives

But we rarely change our lives within this life

Our lives change us

We tan

Fade

Grow

Whither

On the backs of our own lives

Our own

Only because we cling so tightly to them

Not that there need be anything so uniquely US about them

And yet

It is merely because we say it

That it makes us so

Our lives water for ourselves

Like a tongue not pressed firmly against the roof of one's mouth

We swallow our lives whole

So that we don’t have to taste them

There is no option beyond those first decisions

They poke irreparable holes in the cloth

Forever permitting the light to finds its way through

Even if it does nothing but

Point out very specific special parts of our darkness

The clouds illuminate our sameness more than our sun ever will

And it is for this that we hate them

They cover our streets with obvious sameness

Irreparable routine

In a city of millions our worst days speak loudest

They us whom we haven’t become

And what is left to be.

-RTB

The Boy on the Train

He just stood there with his forehead pressed up against the window. Shaking and bumping up against it with the motion of the train. His tiny feet planted on the seat. Watching the walls fly by. Chunks of darkness seasoned with patches of light. Seeing nothing, seeing everything. Maybe wondering what he was missing or maybe thinking he was seeing everything. It was incredibly rote for me, but for him, it was fantastic. Comforting enough so that he did it every time he got on the train. I wondered if he'd ever stop.

-RTB

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Self Portrait by Richard T. Boehmcke

10 New Band Names

Iberian Lisp
The Sigh of Ipanema
Take Your Banana
Fancy Arachnid
Goodlooking Idiots
Whole lotta Crazy
Pocket Full of Silly
If Dogs Could Dance
A Moderate Amount of Wind
Frayed Elegance

Chased

I chased her the way little kids chase pigeons
Flapping & flailing
Giggling to the point of hysteria
Running in circles
Without any clue where I was going
Not knowing
What the heck I'd do if I actually caught one

-RTB

So Pink

Her scent haunted my nostrils
Like some sort of olfactory phantom
Neither need
Nor want
Could make it dissipate

Whenever it came by
It twisted
And curled itself around
Those memories still hidden in my brain
Somehow always managing to find them
No matter how hidden in my brain

But it wasn't like
A silken feather
Dragged lightly across my face
It was
Asubmersion
A full cranial dip in my history
My supposedly forgotten
History

And it drowned me

-RTB

Red

Tallish with angles
Red hair and freckles
Character splashed on her face
Like epidermal spreckles
Sneakers and glasses
A bag in each arm
A subway creature
Never exuded such charm
The music she heard
And the rhythm she knew
Predicted her movements
And the things that she'd do
Stoic and still
Yet not angry or stern
Her motivations I pondered
I wanted to learn
Where was she going
And where was she from
Had she known many places
Had she seen some
The motions still hidden
Her interest still dry
The odds that I'd meet her
Were anything but high
So I'd wait out the train ride
Sneaking my glances
Hoping she'd notice
Sensing my advances
Ah but it was last stop, all out
She would dare not linger
And better she didn't
For there was a ring on her finger

Santorini, Greece

Self portrait by Richard T. Boehmcke

The Dress

It wasn't so much a dress as it was an idea, a suggestion. A pairing of tissue thin fabric and hope sustaining it upon her shoulders.

It probably wasn't fair to us for her to go around like that. But it also wouldn't have been fair to us if she hadn't.

-RTB

Belts

Some people are so busy putting notches on their belts that they haven’t even taken the time to see if the belt even fits.


-RTB

Second from the Left

Those left hands, boy,
They carry weight
They carry truth
They carry facts
Fact
Singular

They carry the undeniable heft
Of possibility crushing, hope squashing
Suck
Damn
Shit

They punch holes in your feasibility
Let the air out of an opportunity
And make you feel perpetually late

The good desserts go fast.

-RTB

Submissions

Submitted for your approval...
Me
Regardless of my feelings for you
Please...
Love me
Regardless of whether or not we belong together
Please...
Love me
You are attractive
And I am close to you
And despite the absence of true intrigue
And based solely on warm affection
I must reason with you to
Please...
Love me
I'm not generally needy
I just happen to be needy of you
I would love to pay attention
To the words coming out of your mouth
But it's damn near impossible
Because our knees are touching
And that makes me feel true romance
And if this isn't true romance
Please don't tell me
Just please...
Love me
It's unfortunate that it has nothing to do with you
Even though you are quite beautiful
I could explain it to you
But I just don't have the time
I am far too busy obsessing over the idea of you
To actually seek clarity
So if you don't mind
Please...
Love me

-RTB

Hvar, Croatia

Self portrait by Richard T. Boehmcke

10 New Band Names

Sexual Seizure
Philonuts
Non Violent Explosion
Medicinal Spearmint
Poodles!
High Quality Man Funk
The Hairy Legged Vegetarian
Fine Honey and the Skinny Pizza
Bring on the Bat Heads
Winter Swords

Faux Fur

I wanted to feel her arms around me in the worst way
I couldn't get close enough to her
Or breather her in deep enough
Four seconds with her was all I needed to know
That I'd never get enough of her
Looking at her made me crave insanity
The way people feel when they flee the dark
Every blink was the great escape
I couldn't take in enough of her
Couldn't hold her close enough
Couldn't hold her at all
I continued to try to breathe her in
Because inside of me
Was the only place she'd be safe from my advances
Oh god I wanted to memorize her surface
I wanted to write Shakespeare on her torso
And whisper Whitman to her knees
I wanted to breathe her in

Sweat

Dance
I SAID DANCE!
Because I won't know you're human
Until you dance
Robots don't dance
And if you are a robot
I need to know now
Human beings sweat
They breath heavy
And they look ridiculous
So if you are a woman
If you are a human
I must insist that you dance
Or prance
Move and shake your hands
And don't stop until you sweat
And don't tell me you can't dance
Nobody tells 5 year olds they can't dance
So nobody should tell you
Dance, damn it
Wiggle and shake
And don't stop until you sweat
That's how I know
You are the girl for me

-RTB

No One

Her lips wrapped around me like deep organ music
Low & vibrating
Dark & expansive
Covered and concealed by the darkness of her love
Each note a tremor in my body
Every hold an embrace
Every embrace an eternity
My heart was violet with love
Tickled and trapped in my own giggles
Softened and startled by her hands
My words were wonderment
My thumbs could only draw question marks on her body
Her eyes
Ending all my sentences with points of exclamation
Leaving me on the edge of ecstasy
She was a deep dark darling of desire
And me
Need I even tell you I was hers

-RTB