I Dreamed a Dream

he thought the thoughts he'd always thought he'd think
and though the things he thought were quite the same as always
the way he saw it happening had changed

because he'd never really thought through his fantasy
his fantasy was a fallacy he'd never seen through to completion
he didn't know how to end it

so he'd think it through
or so he thought
but he really had only done half the journey

but when he finally thought his way
all the way through
he found himself thinking something he could never have anticipated

he wasn't interested in the fantasy anymore

because of lazy incompletion or self abbreviating deletion
lies he told to himself or imposed upon the universe
the ending was nothing like the beginning

and while he thought he still liked those thoughts
really
now that he had completed them
they left him feeling quite incomplete
and he couldn't compete with the overwhelming sense of emptiness he felt

now that his fantasy was through

And On and On

I've given up on the rest of my life
I've figured out I just can't do it
It's too much to think about
Too much to worry
It puts my mind in a constant state of hurry
And that's no way to live
In fact
Its a good way to die
And nobody should be thinking about a good way to die
Unless they're about to

I've given up on the the rest of my life
Because its making my insides hurt
Thinking too much about the future
Is like thinking about too much about the past
It makes you miss the present
So if I worried about the rest of my life
For the rest of my life
I'd have no life left to live
I would only worry about a good way to die
Because I'd be there

I've given up worrying about the rest of my life
Because it hasn't gotten me anywhere

-RTB

Information

It's easier to be afraid than informed.

- RTB

Stutter Start

I'm timing my haircuts
Around breakups
Self inflicted
Emotional Hiccups

Be it a fuckup
A loved one
Be it my fault
What I've done
I'm starting myself a new
The only way I know how to

A visceral emotional purging
Or just a painful manifestation
A latent insecurity surging
An emptying of mind and feeling
Hitting my maturation ceiling

I''ll change my look
I'll change how I see
I'll change so hard
I'll barely be me
I'll work on the edifice
What's easier to do
Easier than getting past, over, or beyond
You

Lost weight
Faux swagger
An ignored fragility
I'll keep moving faster
Pretending I have something to offer
Not an emotional pauper
Not a shell of a self impressed former self
Pursuing the illusion of fine over health

And ignored pain
And skipped over tears
Circumnavigated discomfort
As I've done for years

I'll busy myself
With things that don't matter
Treating myself
As moldable matter
That's lacking a center
That's lacking a core
A soulless self center
That will always need more

Just furthering along a me
That I no longer need to be

-RTB

Quality

Its not that I need more time to write quality. I need more time to write all the drivel that comes out of me so that I can get to the quality.

-RTB

Demix the Remix

They say its been
Remixed
and
Reimagined
But is it really
Or is it just
De-imagined
Unimagined
A village of ideas
Just
Feeling Famine

They say its original
Or
Unbelieve-a-ble
But I don't
Believe that bull

Because what I see
Just
Doesn't seem new
You,
Redo
Renew
I'm tired
Aren't you?

What is wrong
With an original piece of content
We're a whole continent
Without consequence
And this lack of new content
Makes me incontinent

And if you want to
Create then
Create for me
But you've got to think more
Creatively
And if that doesn't make sense then
You can't see
But when you do the same shit so
Lazily
There's no reason for your
Work to be
And if its parody
Or you just parrot me
Or you've ironed on irony
On a pair of tees
And you call that new
Well then your the tease
But don't tear us down
With your snark and sleaze

And I am not saying its wrong to
Recreate
And I'm not up here
To bitch and hate
Give me a mashup
A mixtape
I'll take what your giving
Just make it
First rate

And if recreate
Is what you do
You don't need me
To say
That's OK too
I am saying what I have learned
Is that
Old is new
is New
is New
And we're afraid to try
So we just reconsume
And we resume that tune
That we've already consumed
Scratching out the
Same old
Rhythms and Rhymes
100
200
300 times
And its cool that you've
Found a
New way to do it
But if it's
Already been done
Don't
Make me sit through it

As art is made
With a brand new reason
New fame unfolds
With
Every season
Full of
Tear him down
And take her tooLets
break off branches
Two by two
Because
They don't
Meet you standards
Strand her
Just because
You can stand her
Because you think
She's a faker
And if he sticks out
Well that wont fly
And its all
Condescension
And
Impersonations
Just blog and vlog your
Indignations
And dig nations
Holes to shit in
Spit in
And keep all our artists
Truly hidden
And if you
Say that
You want some more
Put your
Own pedal to floor
I wont you give you more
To pick your bone
And make your home
On what I've made and
You don't know
Because it doesn't matter if I am
8
18
Or 85
Or you're
An impostor wasp
In my
Jumping hive
So please
Demix the remix
Kick this
Overused content fix
And if you're
Looking for some new picks
Well
Pick me
I am all the content you'll ever need


-RTB

Always/Never

There is little perfection in never.
There is less humanity in always than first imagined.

-RTB

Funny

Being funny often entails nothing more than waiting until somebody has a mouth full of water before telling a joke.

-RTB

Fiji

Featured: Richard T. Boehmcke

Photo: Lauren J. Aguilar

Lost Bible Readings

Jesus said to his disciples:

My friends... this loin cloth is itchy

Doesn't anybody have some red meat? I am frigging sick of all this fish.

Why do we continue to wear sandals in the desert? I would sacrifice one of you for a sneaker.

Doesn't anybody know any chicks? People are starting to spread rumors about us.

I give you peace, my peace I give you, I have some peace and of that peace I hereby bequeath a lot of it, so basically ya know, what I am saying is ya know... peace.

Tomb party this weekend?

I tell you, I slept like a dead man this weekend.

I think this "peace" thing is going to be really popular in one thousand nine hundred and sixty years.

I feel like this whole carpentry profession is going to come back to haunt me.

Ok OK, how about, instead of my disciples we call you... the hipsters of Nazareth. No? What about the desert bohemians?

What's with all the wine? I would love a beer.

Red wine and fish? This doesn't go at all!

Does anybody know a good shroud cleaner?

-RTB

EE

I read them the way one should eat dessert but doesn't, a little bit at a time, just for taste. And to let that taste linger, resonance and echoes on my tongue, so much more appreciated because of it. So much more.

-RTB

The Line

The line between ridiculously beautiful and painfully awful is often nearly imperceptible, practically invisible.


-RTB

Mexican Cooking

A good script is like Mexican cooking. It may seem like it is the same basic ingredients re-used over and over again, but really, it is the layers of seasoning and flavor built in that actually make it good.

-RTB

History of Life

It was trust

Emotion based on memory

History based on truth

Intrigued but not yet invested

Engaged but not yet immersed

The promise of a thousand missed connections

The hope from theory, thought, and more

Possibility based on fortune

And a future made of maybes

-RTB

Lynn

I remember you
Before we knew each other
Before we saw each other for the first time
Before we said hello

I remember you
Laughing and smiling
Making fun of the world
Us against them

I remember you
All eyelashes and twinkles
Seen by everyone
While you were seeing me
And not being able to see anything but each other

I remember you
Ridiculous and embarassing
But maybe that was me
But I remember you loving me
Regardless

And its been 17 years now
But I still remember you
Laughing and Smiling
Wherever you are
Whomever your with

I still remember you

-RTB

Finish

They tripped over each other

In mid thought

In mid exhalation

Both unexpecting of the other to be there

Surrounded by their inability to escape

Blinded but for each other

Incapable of alternatives

In love with it

Engulfed in it

And blissfully

Utterly Blissfully

Happy

-RTB

JB

She didn't look at me
She didn't care about me
Not really
Tango and Tease
Alarmingly Aloof
She treated me with dispose
Not caring but not uncaring
Involved but unattached
She was finished with me before I could think more
I was her memory
Before she could even fully become
My present

-RTB

The Mistress of Diamonds and Mystery

The bayonet in her hand reflected the moon upon her body like the mistress of mysterious misanthropy that she was. The blood in my bones ran as cold as the memories of my frozen December youth. My cigarette clung to my lips like a suicide jumper without cause. I twisted my head towards Devandara and looked at the bag of diamonds she held. “Where did you get those” I queried her, struggling to maintain my gaze on her gun and not the maid’s uniform her bosom was squeezed into. “These are the diamonds I stole from the corpse of my dead husband” she laughed, snarling at me every so slightly. I gently took Moses, my parrot, off my shoulder, fed him a piece of gum, and put him back in my breast pocket. I could tell, this would be no easy case. 

-RTB, My entry into the Bored to Death Worst Opening Paragraph Contest.

I'm Still Here

I gave her my memories, all of them. Every one I could have ever had the energy to make, I had made with her. But she took them all when she left. And stranded me with just... with just a pile of sand where our castle had been. And I found myself wanting. For the person she once made me be. But I could barely remember him. Because with my memories went my hope. And with my hope went my possibilities. She had it all. And with all of that she had me. Except she didn't want me, not anymore.

-RTB Entry into the Spike Jonze 100 Words or Less Contest

Hunger

Our desire to consume has outpaced our desire to create.

-RTB

In it

committed to it

hard and fast like lighning

without returns

without turns

without anything but forward

endless

ceaseless

comitted

without committing

just resigned

controlled by the lack of control

committed by virtue of resignation

involved viscerally

internally

carnally

in it

in it

in it  

all the way

everything for it

and nothing left

for me

-RTB

Yes

When I thought of you
It was never bad
Never sad
Stronger than a passing fad

And if its true
(Cuz I've known a few)
You are someone from who
I'd love to hear
"I do"

-RTB

The Gza

I find my strength in lyrics
I find my stride in rhyme
But the time it takes to find these things
Leaves me short on time

Because rhyme in stride brings no cash
It doesn't pay the bills
I can't cover utilities
With the hope of promised thrills

-RTB

Bullet Proof Youth

We are the Bullet Proof youth
We are immune to disease
Impenetrable to germs
We are unstoppable
We skip along the edge of the platform
Despite the coming train
THAT is how we live
We laugh in the face of the devil
And spit into the winds of danger
Give us your worst
You can't hurt us

We hurl ourselves
With reckless abandon
Off the cliffs of chance
Daring our parachutes not to open

We ARE the Bullet Proof Youth

We bring strangers back to our house
We make our friends wait for us
We ignore consequence
We drink too much
We download illegally
We cut corner
We hope for the best

We use our credit cards like safety nets
There is no plan B
There is only plan today
We dance like thieves on the edge of a knife
We push our luck to the end of our life

-RTB

Backpackers Code

Share everything you have
And look out for each other
And treat everyone you meet
Like you would treat your mother

-RTB

Crafted in some other country. Possibly Australia.

Playa Ritoque, Chile

Self Portrait by Richard T. Boehmcke

10 New Band Names

Muffins On Fire

We All Lie About Katanas

Powerbars and God Knows What

Who Is the Strudel?

Tooth Pulp

Chicken Rubbed in Death

Skinny Gay Hemingway

Fuck You I'm Made of Bees

Here Comes the Marzipan

Fun Imp Game

Long Island Rail Road

The ride from here to there

Took an hour at best

But I had arrived a different man

Nay

The fact that I was even a man was the most

Different

The most

The thoughtsploration that I had engaged in

Had been unintentionally incredible

Like the only kind of incredible I could be

Unintentional

It didn't quite make me incredible

Or

Halfway even

Nay

I had just finally realized why I was so unhappy

Yes

I thought the things I needed to do when

It was most needed that I do

Amazing

How amazing this had happened without my trying

My brain tried for me

Or forced me

It was a forced "to be"

But something that was necessary

And we picked up speed

Shedding angers and grudges

Sadness and tears

Well

Maybe not tears

But all those unnecessities for happiness

Emotional roughage

It passed right through me

And the only lasting impact on my body

Was a cleansing

It passed through me and pulled with

My naivete

of those nights in Beelington West Virginia

And all the weekends since

L.R.R.H.

Poor old Little Red Riding Hood
Fled her home and hit the track
Leaving her life and wolf
Never to ever go back

She rode the rails for many years
Her face grew old and shaded
She dreamt of her distant past
In which she thrived unaided

She had no home she had no goals
She just roamed further day and night
She just ended up deeper in to nowhere
Because she had thought it felt right

-RTB

Stabbing Pen

Pressed against him
For the first time
He felt it
Painful
No
Potent
Vivid
And terrifyingly real
A shot of life
To an extremity
That had been dead
For too long
Neglected by others
And forgotten by himself
Ignored and unacknowledged
And hence
Invisible
The sensation was piercing
Like an awakening
A rebirth
A baptism
A verification and validation
Of his own life
An entry to a beginning
And a beginning to a story
A story yet unwritten
A story in which
He was finally
Finally
Holding the pen

-RTB

Sydney

Self Portrait by Rich T. Boehmcke

Clasp

"Come with me"
She begged him
But he couldn't
He had already let go
Of her hand
And everything beyond it
Of her laughter
And her worries
Her insides and outs
He let go long ago
But it had taken him
Days
Weeks
Months
To let her know
To show her
That they were no longer
Holding hands
Together
It was just her
Holding his
Alone

-RTB

To The Sea

"We're Beyond the midpoint"

He said

To no one in particular

And that's what they'd become

No one in particular

And no one left to be

And that is why they fled

With no place left to go

Just some place they couldn't be

So he led them

Because they trusted him

Even if they didn't understand him

They had stopped trying

They all had

So they shut their mouths

And set to sea

Not knowing where they'd land

Not caring what they'd see

Only knowing

What they'd never see again

-RTB

Their Sins

He had arrived

It seemed as though

Nobody had seen him enter

And nobody would see him leave

His presence brought palpable foreboding

Fear in bulk

Insecurity like invisible spirits

He was haunting

They all knew

It had to be

It couldn't be any other way

They had bargained for it

They had asked for it

And it was they

Who would pay

7 Years 2 months and 3 weeks

To the day

They they prayed their sins be forgiven

And he told them

What they hoped he wouldn't

What they begged he didn't

He told them no

-RTB

10 New Band Names

Intentional Mullet

Ms. Hendershot & The Groovy Peruvians

There's No Shame in Munchkins

Ole` All Day

Cause of Death: Gummi Bears

Everything Good In The World Has Lactose

Cookie Casserole

Stinky Hippies

Drunk, Naked, and the Element of Surprise
Sophisticated Peas