the night in which
the dead come alive for a while

only to be frightened
right back to death
by the terrible masks and pumpkins
of the living

White Converse shoes,
Pants pulled up like
You came straight
From the 50s.
McFly! McFly!
You were reading
The paper when
You got up to ask me
To borrow a chair.
After all, it was dark
Where you were sitting,
And it takes a healthy
Amount of natural light
To read the paper.
At least that's what you told me.  
Of course I obliged because  
It does make it easier
For me to write about you when
You're sitting right across
From me. Mr. Plaid Shirt with
A Pilot G-2 Gel Ballpoint Pen.
Maybe if you're lucky,
Your coffee won't be cold
By the time you read,
"Animal Cuisine, for Animals,"
Or, "This Sushi Waits for No One."
What does it say about me
That I would sit here
And describe you as you read?
I could interrupt you,
Asking you a few questions
To really get to know you.
I assume you're a kind person
Based on the laughter-lines
Surrounding your eyes;
Based on the way you smiled
At that young woman as
She walked by.

I set up a place
to mourn,
like a Mother & her dead,
a deep & sacred peaceful bed,
she sleeps & she weeps,
beneath,
a vigilia soaking moon,
a flickering flame
of love snuffed out way too soon,
& boy that thing can really croon,

Death of a friendship,
& maybe romance,
gone in the wind,
we hadn't a chance,
or a last dance,
a last shooting star
came in cutting in deep
left a painful, poignant scar,
dug it down just a little bit too far,
put it on the shelf and put it in a jar,

You're shining,
& I'm the one who's endlessly whining,
because your light,
your light is ever shining so very bright,
shining, shining, shining,
a heart is ever-pining

Cuz' I sit 'neath the florescent light
that took my sweet & needed sight,
exposed to your external radiation,
composed in your internal frustration,
imposed by your nocturnal causation
& endless is the aggravation,

Wanting to glow & wanting to go,
wish that I didn't ever know,
that florescent ink, I stare & blink
Never stop to wonder & think,

Hey I'm burned, I'm blinded
you think I would be reminded,
you know I never really learned,
such star crossed lovers
never under starlit skies
& star kissed covers,
over me they hover,
hover

I got a million reasons to let you go
& ya you know,
ya know,
I should run for the hills
take some kinda pills,
lose every bit of  my will,
I should just.....

walk away,

No I should never let you leave early
or stay, but anyway,

you come,
in lucent technology,
appear on the screen,
I think hold on, this must be a dream,
your not exactly what you might seem,

I know it's my voice, so yeah it's my choice,
& in its sound I do rejoice,

but I missed,
I missed,
as I kissed that passing tear,
but I've lived to fight another year,
as it travels here no more,
no, no more,
instead she's the one,
knocking,
waiting  at your door
your door, your door,

hey knock, knock, knock,
tick tock tick tock I hear the clock,
ohhhhhh...oh, oh,
hey boy is anyone with you
tonight?

Cherie Nolan© 2016

Up the steep steps
as you reach the age old fort,
you breathless behold
the green valley down below
and that magnificent mound of rock
by the name Robinson Hill.

In the sweet silence of birds' chirping,
the winds reek of rifles and gun smoke
and you hear not the rustling leaves
but bullets echoing all over the valley
one more down, another down
as they held the fort till fell breathless
passing into tombs and memorials
you read to pause for a breath
up above the green valley
where the grasses grew over the blood.

My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.