If you want to style listview items in arbitrary ways, put a
<div> immediately inside of the
<li>, and jQuery Mobile will not interfere with the styling inside of the
<div>:
<li>
<div>
<!-- jQuery Mobile won't mess with anything in here -->
</div>
</li>
Style your content any way you please with CSS.
We can't offer much more help since you didn't say what you tried.
I wouldn't bother using a listview in this case. Just style your own list, and you will get better performance as well.