"the pen is mightier than the sword"
but "actions speak louder than words
I tried "beating around the bush"
even though my hands held two birds

i've played "the devil's advocate"
and i tried "sitting on the fence"
heard it "straight from the horse's mouth"
the horse made "horse sense"

i'm "letting the cat out of the bag"
i can't "let sleeping dogs lie"
you "barked up the wrong tree"
we will never see "eye to eye"

is there "a method to my madness"?
"your guess is as good as mine"
i'm listening to "the voice of reason"
the one "i heard through the grape vine"

I don't know how to tell you that I have found the love of my life in the corner of my hospital bedroom. He stands patiently. Watches me eager. Feeding me his hand-me-down depression. He could make me feel at home in a roofless shelter, make this rain feel like soft kisses along my skin, he could make razor blades feel like feathers. I have never known the true definition of flirting until seeing the hunger for my soul in his eyes. I don't know how else to tell you that I've found the love of my life. All I can say is that death has been begging me to stay the night, I've been choking on apologies. These days he's the only one who knows how to hold me.

THE GENTLEMAN OF SHALLOT

Come Spring...

I paint my little room
all yellow

fill it with
daffodils & jonquils

drag in a giant
mirror

(left in the back yard)      

so large

it takes up
all the wall

giving the illusion
of another room

as if my room
were now not so

small.

Sometime the trompe d'oeil
fools even me

& I walk into
the imaginary room.

'Ouch! '
my reflection shouts!

Come Spring...
...came you!

(totally unexpected)      

& my playing with
perspective

hath you enthralled.

I'd catch you
catching your
reflection observing you

observing
the mirror couple

as they
mimiced us

watching our every
more

you thought it so
sensual

or could pretend to be
at a small ****

when it was only
us

again

&

again.

Bodies of flesh & blood
bodies of glass.

You breathe
upon the mirror

tracing our names
with a fingertip

fragile words
made of breath

'...this love...will last...! '

*

When we break
up

the mirror
stayed intact

except for a jagged
lightning crack

& now it was I
who watched

like a gentleman of Shallot

the couple
in the mirror

(the ghosts of
memory)      

making love

bodies of flesh
& blood

bodies

of

glass.

Bones forgot the pull,
the tug and the grimace
that happens
when someone burrows
between the lungs to live.
Bones forgot the burn and sting
that heart feels when it stops,
when it jumps to throat, skips.
Body forgot that emotions
meant brain AND heart,
eyes, tongue and lips.
Girl forgot that boy
could kiss and make
her forget
all that was forgotten.

“Graceless Ravens Envy You,” by Eric Robert Nolan

Revel in apostasy.
You are the black dove, hovering
High in an inklike arc.

Blacker, even, than
coal-colored wolves in onyx lines seeking
quarry at starless midnight.

More ebon, even, than
narrow sable blacksnakes staying
cravenly in shade at noon.

Darker, even, than
murders of crows, newly legion at Autumn, amassing
among saw-wing martins at dusk.

You’re blacker, even, then the rooks.
Graceless ravens envy you.

Remember your rebirth?
The sun rose,
Your birdsong changed and then
the questions flew from your beak
faster even than the wrens?
Faster than you could fly?
For a moment, they rendered
all the world obsidian.

Remember your feathers burning?
Sunlight striking your wings and then
all the slow alabaster there
singing, quickening into
aerodynamic black?
Remember the flock’s suspicion?

Remember your siblings, the nest?
Remember when
all their pearl heads turned
their backlit crowns in morning sun
ringed so thinly in shining ivory?

Their song was interrupted,
Yours was made a query —
empiricism’s aria.
Flustered, they fluttered
at all the low notes.
There were all immaculate;
you were the color of night.

Now you arc alone —
soar and sin and sing,
unrepentant one.

Somewhere an ordinary dog,
awakening from shadow,
howls at the sun.

(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2015

Run run run run run run.
Thoughts thoughts thoughts

Take me away.

Help help help help help

Wake up, wake me up.

Savesavesavesavesave me.

I’m drowning,
Aren’t I?

I’m dying*

God, I think I’m dying.

But I can still feel the blood in my veins,
The air in my lungs.

Remind yourself, Destiny,

“You are alive.”

But…I don’t think I am.

The scars on my wrists tell me a different story
than my heart.

I’m leaving, I need to go.
I need to find my home.

I need help. I need saved. I need happiness.

I NEED HELP. -DDF

A candle went out
A little flame on the tabletop dancing in the reflection in the wine glasses
hot and molten and fragrant, nights spent behind lightly-coloured veiled curtains
Mysterious, dancing, floating shadows through the curtain are glimpsed.
Tales of mystery, magic, agelessness hints in the small flame.
Scandals in the dark.
Wax seals on yellow letters
remembered by the candle;
the only light there to see on those nights
In stone castles and in hot bedrooms,
On steel blades of kings to their steely gaze,
to nervous eyes and shining lips
All reflected the burning candle's wick
Whose warmth and flickering glow were taken for granted until
a candle went out.

Do yourself a favor.
Don't think of the little bit of food that got on their chin that one time in the little pizza place you stopped at together, and how you both laughed.
Don't think about the night you laid on the roof of their car with them, looking at the stars, pointing out your favorite constellations and listening to cheesy love songs.
Don't think about the morning you woke up to their smile when you least expected it.
Don't think about the mornings you woke up to their voice.
Don't think about the long drives where you'd sing at the top of your lungs, for hours and hours.
Don't think about the shows you went to together, and how they cried during that one song, and tried to hide it, but you held them anyway.
Don't think about the moment you made the promise of forever, whether it was the ring in the glovebox they tricked you into finding, or the slow conversation at 2am.
Don't think about the time their car broke down in the middle of town and you helped them fix it.
Don't think about how empowered you felt knowing you could help fix something with them, for them, and made them so happy.
This is something you can't fix.
You can't fix everything.
Somethings are meant to stay broken.
Like the first place you made love,
intimate, raw,
it's not a place you can go to anymore.
Their love does not belong to you.
Yours does not belong to them.
Think about the moment they did the unexpected--
the moment they ended it.
Think about the fact you were expecting a life of happiness, memories, a family, a happily ever after.
Think about how they took that away in a matter of seconds.
Think about how you still deserve that.
Think about how you didn't deserve to get that taken from you.
Think about how they don't deserve you.
Their eyes will forever be your favorite shade of whatever,
but for their mouth to convince you this would never end,
know it's better you got the truth now than later.
Close your eyes.
Put their things aside.
Trust me, you'll get yours eventually.
Lay down and sleep.
You'll dream of them for weeks, months,
you'll think you hear their voice when you don't.
It's for the better.
Your heart was never meant to endure such torture,
and as fragile as it remains once they lift their foot from the wreckage,
why let them have the opportunity to put it down again?
Lift yourself up.
Dust off your coat, your shoes.
It's a long journey from where you are now, but happiness will reappear.
When you're least expecting it, you'll find it again.
And they won't be there.
And that's okay.
I promise.