Jamey Boelhower

Hastings, NE

April 21, 2016

To Write To Live 4ever

Poem · 2026

April 21, 2016

You sang that it sometimes snows in April. Did you know we would feel that cold the day you died? The wheels sent red corvettes into tailspins. A violent purple rain stained our skin. We did not care if the thieves stole all the diamonds and pearls. Our souls lost in chaos and disorder, remembering tape recorders, mixtapes, and when our life was whole.

To Write To Live 4ever

I always give in when the muse calls. Half asleep or stuck in a checkout line. The chance that I will finally write the poem is a siren call. I give all I have to the muse. I am a puppet. But the strings get tangled up in knots if I force my will onto the page. I end up bruised and all I get is a promise that someday a line, a word, will be the chance to live forever as a poet. To be at the table, words known by all.

Jamey Boelhower is a poet and independent author with numerous published works to his name. Jamey's most recent works include Life in Poetic Form, While Death Waits, April 2020: A Poetic Time Capsule of Writing and Living During a Pandemic, and These Words Believe in Ghosts. As a loving husband and father of six, Jamey enjoys spending his free time with his family and listening to Prince. I keep the ticket stub from the 1997 Prince concert in Omaha in my wallet.

April 21, 2016, was written in a classical poetic form, Decima, for the Poetry a Day challenge during April, which is National Poetry Month. “To Write, To Live 4ever” is a Golden Shovel and the last word of each line is a lyric from Prince's song "The Max". The poem is about how I handle being inspired to write and how our art lets us live forever.

ExhibitionsView the exhibition at Roberts Gallery Way Back Home · Minneapolis, June 2026

Image credits

Installation photography: Daniel R. Pratt