the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.

Sundaes,
The sprinkles on top makes me drool,
on top of the table of wool
The chip ahoy cookies are best
with the people who use the good words which are the guest
The fudge on top is so delicious
that's why its makes me grow fat cause it has no nutrients
DON'T YOU THINK?

The lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.

My Ideal Man:

1. Watch nerdy movies with me, you'll get my heart quicker if you love Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and superhero movies along with me.
2. Be a Bruins fan please. Or at least a hockey fan, but Bruins is preferable.
3. Be kind. Don't do things just for yourself. If you see someone struggling help them.
4. Be patient. My family and I are nuts, and I'm so sorry about that, but we love with our whole hearts, and you'll never find people who care for you more, or will do anything for you.
5. Tolerate my musical preferences. I listen to quite a wide range of music, so bear with me.
6. When I'm sick, just let me watch a Disney movie, give me space (because when I'm sick I feel far from pretty, and have a tendency to not want to be around people) and I will love you forever.
7. Have faith. You don't have to be ridiculously religious, but believe in heaven and God.
8. Please have a functioning moral compass.
9. Don't question the TV shows I watch. (Ex. Game of Thrones, Project Runway, Friends)
10. Have a good relationship with your parents and siblings.
11. Be a dog lover, I'm going to want dogs when I live with someone (and I'm so sorry we can only get hypoallergenic ones)
12. Accept the fact that I tell my mum almost everything. If I know, likely she will know unless you make it very apparent that you don't want anyone to know.
13. Don't lie. Just don't.
14. Don't cheat. That should be obvious, but I've been through it before and I don't think I could handle it again.
15. Yes I'm a child when it comes to the little things in life. I love ice cream sundaes, coloring, Spongebob, and most adolescent things. Let it be.
16. If you have something bothering you, talk to me. Communication is key and I can't read minds, no matter how hard I try.
17. Be able to laugh at yourself, I do all the time at myself because most of the time I know I'm foolish.
18. Never underestimate snuggling. Unless it's really hot out.
19. Be spontaneous. Lord knows sometimes I do some strange things for no reason, but as long as they bring joy to someone or yourself, then do it.
20. Love with your whole heart.
*growing list

i always find you in the strangest places.
i find you in song lyrics, dog toys, and timber old spice.
i find you in chicken flavored ramen noodles, every shade of blue and purple, and horror movies.
i find you in rainbow coloring books, permanent markers, and colored pencils.
i find you in the grass at memorial park, folded slips of paper in my back pocket, and gourmet lollipops.
i find you in hot fudge sundaes, too-big tshirts, and icp snapbacks.
i find you in chik-fil-a receipts, gumball machines, and arcade games.
i find you in white roses, blue ribbons, animal crackers, and sour gummy worms.
i always find you in the strangest places.
but these strange places are everywhere.

When at first it happens I want none of it. I even say no. I discard the plane tickets, the train stamps, the envelopes of money into a safety deposit box some train station off The Embarcadero and just head East. It frightens me, I'm horrified. The potency is developing in my inner organs, I can't cough right, sleep right, I just suffer and complain. Instead of doing things differently, they've made it so you can soak right in. Just strand yourself on the side of the roadway and they've got rules for you too. The sounds are torturous, the rooms are empty, and the men grow complacent and empty. Nothing is as serious as this. Four years ago a car, three years ago a plane, now I just shuffle and complain. I search for a key to my happiness. I look for it in desktop monitors, caramel apple lollipops, new cashmere vanilla candles, consuming six or more bottles of water a day, E-Cigarettes even, even those, I use apple juice, lychee nectar, mango sorbet, and chocolate fudge sundaes. I'm 40 up on the 140 I went down with. All the miles I'd walked in a firm step, a fever, a bag full of cheap wine for a man that works the car park. 43rd between 8th and 9th. Every thing is bright lights and theater nights. More pacing, there is gum stuck to every square of sidewalk, men and women wheel around a block away selling discount drugs in the streets and outside the Subway on 44th, in the Chinese food mart on 7th. They blow blow blow in their little plastic straw tubes and for $12 a drop they ask you to reach your hands inside their pockets, "take what you like and leave the rest. No one remembers it like this, the girls laugh practically upside down, they wear sky-blue light dyed denim overalls, covering all the parts of their shoulders but exposing their ****, they have plastic bags in their boots, and cute bobby bobbing hair cuts like water crest shoots exploding in lime juice. They pace too, but their legs are shorter, their conversations longer, the horns in their heads grow slowly out from midnight. The devil put the hate on them too.

Even the children are bigoted in this bicentennial. The ******'s nook is no longer the sewing shop in the corner of the strip mall up by Deerbrook Mall. I haven't seen a fountain with change in it since the 80's. The newest thing I heard about imaginations are that, "They come out the first and last Wednesday of the month, you gotta check with Game Stop if you want to pre-order the right ones." I think we must be on number 18 by now. There were four of us riding shotgun in the boxcar up to the valley last month, now they don't even run the trains anymore. One third of everything left to go.

I'm growing quiet; if they can't tell it's not my job to teach them. If they can't spell, I ain't gotta word to word combat that's going to come down on 'em. My brain is so uptight I can't sleep before sundown or sunrise. I see legs and oil futures with every blink. I listen to the old phone messages constantly. I make up stories to go with the missed calls. Still I hope everything will work out okay, because nothing is as serious as this. It makes me sick. It makes the guy undo itself with a brass nail, the blood unclogged from the rash from last month, I find out I'm toxic to poisons, and then I'm told that they're a prescription for that too. It wasn't a ******* rumor. The time to back up or move is now. A idle figure in an orange shirt, a tapestry that moves with every hallucination, forty, fifty, sixty hours I've never slept. I may have been years. My stomach is rusting from water with nowhere to go. I feel sick. I feel woozy, but I don't believe in feelings. I sit upright because I'm uptight, I turn my head around and look over my shoulder. But I know that any friend that's worth looking at me wouldn't arouse my spirit at this hour. There is a net that they speak of when everything's gone. It's the madness that transforms nothingness when the devil's around. Whole empires are crashing. Whole bottom drawers of unworn clothing, tagged and abetted stuffed into black crape garbage bags and drove off into the moonlight. I'm sweating and soporific, living half by half two in and two out, if I had the chance I'd try to remember just which way I get out. When I check on the rumors, when I say my goodbye, I know that I'm the only one sitting in this room of cocksure spirit animals and half-plastic book casings, and that no one whispers and no one cries, not even the bereft can produce a lullaby. I am dying to figure out how to move voicemails from iPhones to iTunes, I googled it while sitting down in the city last night. Poor service. 10 months. Not even one blame the famous few.

After tired comes guilty, after guilty the shame, after that apathy, after that I'm awake. I've never been good at being better than me. But those voicemails, I want them somewhere permanently.

Somehow, I managed to get to my thirties
without eating a cherry --- a fresh one, anyway,
raw, untamed, unshelved, and forgodssake,
unmarischinoed.

I had them in pies, gooey, sickening, too much
syrup, and in sundaes --- again, not real, a turn-off,
saw people tie the stems in knots,
I had the impression, I think, that if people
had to do all the things they do with cherries
to make them flavorful, they must be really
**** straight out of the bag.  
I made my mind up that they were unpleasant
and I would have nothing to do with them.
Even, or especially, in chocolate-covered cherries,
which my mother loved, so I wanted to love,
I could at best eat the chocolate around that
thick viscous sugary embryonic fluid
wherein lay the embittered, unborn and unloved cherry
and not the coveted prize.

So imagine that day when, careless at a cocktail
party, or at someone's house, hungry, I nibbled
at a fresh one, deep red and whole, gingerly working
my way around the stem and coming awake
to ohmygod what have I been missing all these years?

They still seem brand new now, every time, a delicacy,
something wealthy people indulge in and so not really
belonging to my world.  They beg for the company
of wine and the most delicate cheeses, they ask to be shared
and doted on.  The keep revealing themselves,
on the plate, unadorned, and they keep reminding me
to try something else that I have never tasted,
like complete and utter honesty, or looking at myself
naked, without judgment, even at the innermost
feminine parts, upside down with a mirror until I see why
they say making love for the first time is giving away
your cherry.

You hear their siren song in the air,
before you ever see the truck.
If it is “The Rolling Cones”,
Then my friend, you are in luck.

Where "Mister Softee" use to be
an old bald man down on his luck,
“The Rolling Cones” have sweet young things
Make **** sundaes in a cup.

These ice cream ladies sell the wares
while wearing frilly bustiers.
Men of a certain age all troupe
to wave their dollars for two scoops.

Curves and ice cream swirls can be
****, yes, but not obscene,
It’s a profitable duopoly.
They use hot babes to sell ice cream.

To differentiate their trucks
From the ******* coffee vendor “Cups”
They needed a name all their own
That’s why they’re called “The Rolling Cones”

you deserve flowers on your doorstep
     and coffee in the morning
you deserve notes left on your dashboard
     and ice cream sundaes at 3am
you deserve honesty everyday
     and to be kissed every hour
you deserve to be reminded
     how beautiful you are

Red. Blue. Green balloons skip from hand to air.
Their buoyance pulling taught on string without a care
For cutting of birthday cake or pink frosty icing melting
In the sun, party plates pass from Nanna to Papa.
The sleek magic man pulls another trick, waves his hands and ‘ta-da’.

The birthday boy sits unblinking,
Whilst those around make merry clinking,
Stupor with drinking.
Unmoved in his party of one.

Pink candy, fluffy pillows, sugar spun round like may pole in June
Sun, gliding through shrouds of baby blue glue on the day when somebody loved you,
The faded scent of burning popcorn scars memory.
Faint, old, warm voices rise in chorus of lukewarm water, embrace the scene
As children in play, chase white rabbits through hedges all summer day.

The birthday boy sits with guard folded,
and his mind is moulded,
his memory of play is shrouded,
thoughts making merry grounded,
unmoved in his party of one.

Sweet, suckling, pig aroma, dancing through the air and making merry
all the guests, with hustle and bustle, meeting and greeting with every
burst of laughter, rising and drowning in the air like Ariel,
Enchantress of Garden chairs, thin napkins caped in Tomato,
Children bounce around on castles, kings clinging to memories of tomorrow

The birthday boy sits far away,
Where his thoughts are free to flay,
All memory of that savage day,
Where innocence and virtue lay,
Unmoved in his party of one,

Ice cream Sundaes glitter as diamonds, yawning and smiling
As cream floats down the exquisite vase in timing
To lecherous looks promising requiem to appetite,
A chorus of laughter fills the air with, pop- another bottle,
Warm embrace of familiar friends, we smile soft as a bubble…

The birthday boy,
with stern and solemn stare,
Dares not cut the air,
Or insist on what is fair,
But sits to fester in the sun’s cold glare,
Looking like he does not care,
Unmoved in his party of one.

Sun flakes leaping over my neighbour’s
Stubbly white palace, beams trickle round its walls in party favours,
Death lightning blinding, level-climbing, stupor rising, smiling clowns,
Gracefully rummage through pockets for silver-shining keys,
Embraces kind faces with kinder eyes and another cherished memory leaves.

The birthday boy sat silent as the grave,
His parents want him to behave,
No boy like fancies left to save,
Stooped low in his plastic cave,
Ruing the knife that thought him brave.
Unmoved in his party of one.

Something without a definition, I guess,
is one of the most curious things about this world.

Something that isn't in the dictionary of words that overwhelm and pour
over and over and over again
in your mind, like a water spout
cannot be stopped sometimes-
You just have to accept that

It's amazing, really.
How many words that you cannot simply "define"
Like 'sweet' 'salty'
and
'sadness'
words that are in your brain, but no matter how you dig and uproot the word
it's not there anymore.

Leaves, trees, and infallible, useless things
they all make up the world as we know it,
millions of little things upon little things
sugar crumbles and salt sprinkles
upon salty and sweet caramel sundaes.

What is love,
it is everything...

The good and the bad,
sharing, learning, comforting,
no sides, no boundaries,
understanding,
even if you don't,
arms open...wide,
mind open...wider,
heart always accepting that
not everything is easy,
the bed of roses comes with thorns,
but you endure,
scars will show,
yet are considered beautiful,
skinned knees, bike rides,
mis-spoken words, well meaning
badly timed, hurt feelings,
chocolate covered sundaes,
picnics in the park, yardwork,
lost keys, little lies, surprise parties,
(when you specifically said no,)
breakfast in bed, arguments,
making love, making the bed afterward,
bad movies, dead cell phone batteries,
***** dishes, headaches,
eye rolls, laughter, hugs,
poetry,
being far, being close,
sweet kisses, feeling wanted,
nothing is ever too much,
tough decisions, agreed upon outcomes,
looked forward to moments,
tears, smiles, big smiles, bigger smiles,
holding hands, support,
truth, long days,
passionate nights,
taking chances,
dreaming,
rainy mornings,
bad moods, good moods,
really good moods,
candlelit dinners,
promised forevers,
(meant)
hot coffee, chilled wine,
warm affection and
brain freezes...

What is love...it is everything,
if it is you and me

I have never held your hand
but rather only experienced it
when it danced tight
ellipses
on my scalp.
I have witnessed
its mistreatment
and the sudden removal of layers;
the acidic outbursts of peroxide
pink sundaes of pain.
the constant pick of ***** fingernails
they will never be clean.

I could recognize your hands
from a distance
but would easily mistake their brush

The Others gathered around to eat ice cream sundaes.
The diversity and multicultural festival was crowded.
I thought how do the others relate to this unforgettable experience.
The flavors of ice cream was of varity and taste.
There was even an eating contest for a charity donating food and clothes from the others.
I sat at the picnic tables where an event would take place.
The family members from the others began to sit at the picnic tables.
It was my day off, and I looked forward to spending time with the others with familiar and unfamiliar faces in places I rarely attend, but I want to.

let's nap until the sun goes down

let's cook freezer pizza whenever we happen to wake up

let's make three ingredient cookies and call ourselves healthy

let's build sundaes
scoop
           scoop
                      scoop
let's stay up late and watch horror flicks
baba
         dook
                  dook
                           dook
after that we can watch kevin hart until we can't breathe


you can crack my spine, break it for all i care
anything is pleasurable with your company

(i miss you so much, i wonder where you are.)

i miss you the way someone misses a step on the stairway, a sharp jolt of realization, followed by a falling and crash.
i miss you the way birds miss winter, when they migrate to a perpetual spring.
i miss you like hot fudge sundaes in summer, sugar and sweet and all gone.

(i miss you so much, i wonder if you're happy)

i miss you like a favorite library book that has to be returned.
i miss you like a forgotten holiday.
i miss you like a lost love letter that never got sent.

(i miss you so much, i wonder what you're doing)

i miss the way your strong callused hands would wrap around mine, giving me strength. i miss your forest eyes. i miss the smell of aftershave clinging to my clothes. I miss the smell of us clinging to my sheets. i miss the way i once  kissed you gently, but you grabbed my face, hey, and made me kiss you more thoroughly, that's more like it, with a smug look on your face. i miss the feeling of your hands on my waist while you held me as if i was a tiny doll to your large frame. i miss the intimacy of our faces pressed close together and you tasting my smile as you touched my lips to yours. i miss your **** smirk. i miss your tattoos and tracing the indent of your spine as you let me explore you closer. i miss taking pictures with my old ipod and you'd kiss me with your eyes open and i would open mine and all the sensations that came with being around you.

and all of this is a stupid run on sentence and i am a stupid pining fool and you're somewhere, but i've been nowhere
ever since i started
missing
you.

you deserve flowers on your doorstep
and coffee in the morning

you deserve notes left on your dashboard

and ice cream sundaes at 3am

you deserve honesty every day

and to be kissed every hour

you deserve to be reminded

how beautiful you are

Once I believed I was destined for loneliness
Until you walked into my life like a sudden storm.
My love was like a calm breeze before but after you
It became a tornado on an open sea.
Few have found what I found in you,
A friend, a lover, a soul-mate.
You swept me off my feet
And let me dangle off a cliff,
Afraid to fall, but knowing if I did
You would be there to catch me.
My other half, you kept me at a distance
And that hurt me, because you didn’t know
That I needed you now more than ever.
After too long you came to me
Took me into your arms, held me, then kissed me
And told me you were sorry for pushing me away.
You told me you needed me
Just as I need you now.
Ice cream sundaes became our go-to thing
Our first real date, you were perfect.
Flowers, chocolates and many more things, too many to count,
You made me feel as if I was the only ******* earth.
Thank you Love, for everything
Even if it was only in my dreams.

She floated on air
As if suspended
By hot-air balloons
A spectacular ride

Her spirit as free
As seagulls ascending
Or eagles go soaring
Through mountain top clouds

Her laughter as joyous
As chocolate fudge sundaes
And time everlasting
In perpetual spring

The days rushing forward
And weeks disappearing
Time standing still
Yet gone in a flash

Like spun sugar melting
And reindeer descending
On rooftops at Christmas
A Santa Claus laugh

Today and tomorrow
Forever remember
The time shared together
A favorite repast

6/5/19

Couldn't have said it better myself.


"
'I love you.'
'How much?'
'SO much.'
'How much is so?'
'Way, way more than you know...'
I love you as brilliant as each sparkling star, and as way out in space, I love you that far.
I love you as gigantic as a great lions roar, and as deep as the ocean, I love you much more.
'That is a lot' you say, 'but how did it start? Where did love come from, to be in your heart?'
You put it there, really, when you and I met. And I knew with out certain, without you I'd fret.
From my head, to my toes, I was feeling inside a devotion for you so deep and so wide. And now it's enormous and wonderfully real, and hard to describe how much I feel.
I love you as awesome as a thunderous sky, and soaring as mountains, I love you that high.
I love you as silly as a puppy dogs kiss, and as quiet as midnight, I love you like this.
'Do you love me every day' you ask with doubting awe 'or does love go up and down like a teetering see-saw?'
I love you steady as the earth rounds the sun, though some days of life are the farthest from fun.
'Like when you feel mad' you ask with distress 'cause I've broken the rules, or made a big mess? Or when I'm unkind and your feelings are blue, do you love me although I do what I do?'
I love you being nice, and when you're cranky, too. I love you without liking the naughty things that you do. My 'I love you' doesn't change like the temper of the days. It's a certain kind of thing in many different ways. You're my sweetie, my dear, my smile, and laughter. You're my playmate for always, and my joy ever after.
Hanging out with you is where I want to be... Eating ice-cream sundaes and watching TV.
Under your umbrella, behind you on a bike. By you and beside you is what I really like.
'Do you love me just as much when I'm far away from home? Is your love still the same in distant lands I roam?'
I love you near or far. I love you high or low. My love is there with you wherever you may go.
'Even when I am sick and can't get out of bed? Do you love me better healthy, than with a fever in my head?'
I love you sick or able. You're always you to me, the one love forevermore undeniably.
I can't imagine life before you came along... me there singing senseless no meaning to my song. Call it meant to be, or simply blessed with fate, you fill my heart with love, and for that I celebrate.
*"

Gold and silver streaks of light across the night sky,
A city of stars, beneath her eyes they flash like neon lights,
Chocolate kisses and ice cream sundaes, tinkling ice,
Heart-shaped dimple, the curve of your cheek,

City of stars beneath her eyelids, flashing neon lights
Brick wall, bright sky, untied Timberlands, grip like a vise,
The heart-shaped dimple in the curve of your cheek,
Your breaths match perfectly with mine.

Brick wall and bright sky, Timberlands grip your feet like a vise,
Hiding in the back of the library, giggles and sighs,
Our breaths match, you’re perfect, are you mine?
Fingers slip through mine, soft fluttering eyelashes, a sign.

Hidden in the back of the library, giggling and a sigh,
Heads thrown back, hair twirling like kites in the breeze,
Fingers slip into mine, eyelashes softly flutter, give me a sign.
I can feel your heartbeat, we’re floating above the rest of the world.

Heads thrown back, hair twirling, flying kites in the breeze.
Chocolate, kisses, ice cream, Sundays with the sound of tinkling ice.
I can feel your heartbeat, we’re floating above the rest of the world,
Gold and silver streaks, together we light up the night sky.

Went for a ride
and out
down to St. Ambrose Church
For free community dinner
Barbecue
and make your own sundaes
Little girls
with pigtails eating watermelon
Magic
was the after-dinner entertainment
Made some extra *****
appear in your hands
read from the Flaming book
Have the Steel Police
check rings
magically
Made me laugh
from my belly
Nobody had eyes on us

Just good times
I don't think I've ever seen
a child laugh so hard or look so amazed
Thank you
Was a delicious evening
with friends
on a ride
through South Lincoln
Little Woods
Where the critters are
Moose, bear, squirrels and otters
swim and
eating berries
with Woodland Fairies
holding flowers I've never seen
except in dreams
Or movie pictures
Lichen glowing on the trees
and the Mist over the mountains
smiling down windy roads
Where Ex CIA
Artificial intelligence resides
and Randy Quaid and conspiracy theories
hide

Back through Bristol Gap
back home again
to do it all over tomorrow

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Eaty eaty
Bitey bitey
Eat up. Ignore the zombies
at the door
Icecream sundaes
fresh pulled brains
I bet you'll all want more

No one told me, that this would turn out this way.
Love was supposed to be candy kisses and gumdrops.
Love was supposed to be tea cups and cherries on top.
The key to all of heaven, The rose without thorns.

But they were wrong.
Our love was fire wrapped in stone.
Our love was the push and shove.
Our love was dimmed red lights and sun creeping in windows.
The hold on hang in there mentality.
The sweet passion of summer.

Our love was a rocky road, but not as sweet as the ice cream.
Our love was red lip stains on white collars.

Our love was like no other, and our love was there, oh it was.
But to you, our love was long car rides and talking about strangers with accents.
To me, Our love was warm fuzzy blankets on rainy days the same color as your eyes.

There's so much i want to say to you, but there's not much time.
Just know, that i loved you more than cherry lollipops.
Know i loved you more than Dots.
Know i loved you more than Chamomile.
Know i loved you more than ice cream sundaes.
Religion couldn't define my love for you.
You were and will always be, My rose.

like a week that's only Mondays
only ice cream, never sundaes
like a circle with no center
like a door marked, "Do Not Enter"