Some sentences
just jump at you
attack you
for some reason
they inspire you
to do something
not always
something helpful.

I knew a holy man
in a sense
I knew him
as a child knows their pastor
I wasn't told the gossip
and we didn't share stories
I knew what I was told
that he spoke the word of god
god was rather dull so far as I could tell
maybe the pastor just had no passion.

A hand
The same shade
as space
with stars as fingernails
just floating
or attached to the body cosmos
god or just a dream
who can say
you
if you want
what does such a peculiar mitt do
the same mundane things
as you do
maybe not
who can say
apparently one thing it does
is guide us
not overtly
but it's there
doing things
bad and good
hopefully it has a plan
for our global tableau
that makes up for
the pain of existence
not that it needs one
what true artist needs to explain
all of them arguably.

Down the roads I've always traveled,
they keep me here inside these walls,
I know it's time to change the scenery,
as I hear that gypsy horn,
it calls,

Staying still is not my option,
There's nothing that I wouldn't do,
To have a place to call my own now,
A place to love and be with you,

Say the word,
& there I will be,
To fly there with angelic wings,
I'll call upon those native angels,
I always hear the song they sing,

If it should be my time to go now,
To join you in that earthly loam,
Finally my feet will have some rest then,
and nowhere left for them to roam,

It doesn't matter where you are dear,
beside you is where I'm at home.

Cherie Nolan© 2016

This elegant bloom
forgot the season
came stocked for summer idylls
picnics by the water's edge
scent of mowed fields
scent of love's flowering.

Pitiful rose
how did you become
so lost in time?
Nothing now becomes you.

So I carefully cut
the stem
placed your ******* vein
in a slender jar
filled with
the last spring's freshet.

You came to life
for us
at Christmas time.
A meager blessing
in a time of pain.
A frail totem
in a time of dread.

I wake each day
with despair eating at
my good spirits
the specter of
a new political order
crouching in the darkest corners
of my place of rest.

******* it!
Send that orange horror
into oblivion.
******* monster
robbing my nights of peace.

There is no sense to this life.
There is rhyme without reason,
pain without relief.

Just the same
I will slog on.
One foot in front of
the other.
Repeating as necessary.
And then letting it go
through the latched gate of time.

Think not about
the gossamer windings
of feeble minds
for our souls' inner
structure
is by sacred design
and as we roam
and spin and
consume in flame
we do our best
to soothe our
own inner pain
and when the seedlings
burst forth
their silken fire
and the dam breaks loose
with longing desire
    we strive to remain
on top of the tide
in undertow rush
and unravelling pride
It is these moments
that we snap into shards
in a  mosaic of selves
veins mapping
                heart
and our arteries  burst
into rhythms that slide
as shifting polar sparks
           ignite waves of time
tectonic plates quake
as we are torn apart
        from inside
our cells reconstructing
our fibers re-defined
This is spirit recreation -
a tiny flare in the dark
for we are dying to survive
our own inner hell
we are ******* the breath
of that life-giving spell
we do all of this and more
                    as we crumble
                               and spew
on our knees at rock-bottom
searching for new
So fear not
those depths
of the unlit abyss
for it's our own
shining eyes
that stir
light's
fervent
              kiss

Friday foggy night and I was wondering, just wondering
As I noticed how silent the city is that I once used to live in
How silent I was not anymore

This is not the place to be, I thought
As it only wanted me to lay my head on its shoulder
How loud I had become
The city I grew up in