be a shame
to wipe the sweat
from your brow
look up from your desk
and realize you've dug
your own grave.

I can only surmise,
why people give up on this "wonderful" life,
& say such hard and violent goodbyes,
I've been down on my knees,
& they've heard all my loneliest cries ,

It doesn't really mean that I'm really so, wise,
& doesn't mean I got the magic seeing eye,

Seeing how someone could want,
to be a ghost who will forever haunt,
to miss this most golden "opportunity",
a do-over,
when hands are up in futility,

From my most painful of memories,

I try to extract the reason,
from so deep within,
way deep below the surface of my skin,

And I think it is just enough,
too much of everything,
shattered spirits,
turning into brilliant shining stars,
eventually,
& no longer can they feel those hateful
old scars,

Cuz,
it maybe is that time,
for them,
who are we to really say,
what's so right or wrong anyway?

It seems a selfish way indeed,
a warning for me perhaps to heed,
though by death they say we are freed,

It seems so fundamentally " wrong"
and yet,

I just seem to completely understand.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

My teenage guitar playing was a caterwauling wildcat in a feedback induced search for the cackling daemon Raum
Dad never made me turn it down* ...

Snow looks like popcorn falling
from the sky
Popcorn means a first crush at the
movie theater , a cold Dr. Pepper ,
a view from the back row armed with Raisinettes
and chocolate covered peanuts
Breezy Winter days are perfume for the soul
The returning sunshine recalls the power of a smile
Enjoy , for the snow will only last for a short while* ...

An existentialist farm boy with a severe case
of insomnia
Ratting 'round his kitchen in danger of
a *******
Happy with his honey and his biscuits
His chocolate milk and his Whitman* .....

Sometimes I smell your hair
and pretend to lay my
chest against you

like on those nights after
building  a pine  fence
around the yard

of  a Baptist preacher’s
house in Georgia
forty miles

from cold beer and café pie,
and then I remember that
was 20 years ago

before you and me
drove different
highways.