Save my life
        It's nothing but wasted.
Pull aside
     the green, leaden curtain.
Of envy, it fills my
            every move with deadened motion.
          Come inside, won't you?
Save my life
From        a c c i d e n t a l        hurt
        From despair too
   Carelessly placed to
Be on       p u r p o s e.

What if it was?
Would you trust me?
Enough to relax,
eyes rolled back?
I don't promise much,
and I can't promise
a soft place where
and when I drop you.

              I'll d r o p you.

celine wrote some thick books
'Death On The Installment Plan'
'Journey To The End Of Night'
my plan was to read them but i never did

i got as far as the titles
then got stuck

they've been packed away in boxes
for the past 5 years,
i had no need to unpack them

maybe if they had been  thinner

what can i do
what can i do
i just don't want to
i just don't want to

everyday i feel so unheld
together

life after life

True love could be,
just a brilliant,
& rare,
beautiful mistake,
setting my heart,
setting it all aquake,
& it's nothing that I can fake,
with so much that I've got at stake,

So please be gentle,
cuz' that thing can really break,
so take a chance,
cuz' life's a dance,
& one I am so willing to take,

In every single moment ,
that I am awake,
in a feeling I just can't shake,
waiting,
in a deep & endless ache,
baby this thing,
it ain't gotta a brake,
& for everybody else's sake,

One day,

I'm just hoping,
just hoping,
that it's just one,
that I,
can finally,
make.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

She was a little stick of a thing
More of a twig than a branch.
She had freckles instead of makeup
But man could that girl dance!
She wore a sack of a dress
With simple holes for her arms
But I was immediately captured
By her open-hearted charm.

It was an accidental meeting
And a charming mental greeting
Two strangers seeking seating
That did not end up as fleeting.

I didn’t own a crystal ball
So I could certainly not see
What this little bit of a girl
Would come to mean to me.
She had beautiful eyes
The color of aged whiskey
That could make a guy
Want to do something risky.

A lovely accidental meeting
And a charming mental greeting
Two strangers seeking seating
That did not end up as fleeting.

So I took her with me dancing
As a harmless thing to do
For two people who are strangers
To whom everything is new.
I expected it to be awkward
Could this beauty even dance?
How was I to know that this
Would be the start of romance?

A simple accidental meeting
And a charming mental greeting
Two strangers seeking seating
That did not end up as fleeting.

They don't speak, all the long,
winding bus journey.  They are
strangers, with nothing in common
besides the No 50 route
and the free travel passes
afforded to them on account
of their quietly advancing years.
She sits in the seat in front of him.
Their eyes never lock.  His myopic
gaze through thick NHS lenses
rests neutral on the back of her head,
her softly blue-rinsed curls and the collar
of an eminently sensible overcoat.
They sit, both silent, as
- outside the foggy bus windows -
winter has one last chew on
time's bony old carcass.
She has a slight stoop which
she's doing her best to hide, and his
shaking hands make his liver spots blur.
They stand - the bus stopping at their
mutual destination - shuffling sideways
into the aisle, and something
unexpected
happens.
The bus jolts suddenly forwards,
then lurches to a startled halt,
and she falls backwards
into his arms
and he
catches her.
For a second,
strange gravities assume control.
There's a moment,
governed by different laws of
physics and chemistry
and half-forgotten, half-remembered biology.
She flushes, infused with something
warm and thirst-whettingly girlish, and he
surges with a newfound potency,
standing taller, the woman he's supporting
somehow lessening the burden of his age.
Her spine straightens, and
she laughs.  His face, smiling, youthens.
His hands hold her unstooped shoulders and
don't tremble.
Sun breaks through cloud outside the window.
They remember it's spring out there somewhere.

you held my hand,
and, with that, my heart skipped a beat.
don't fall in love with me
i whispered.

you showed me the world,
and, with that, my lungs gasped for more air.
don't fall in love with me
again, i whispered.

you took the stars and gave them to me,
and, with that, my knees felt weak.
don't fall in love with me.

i warned you- a lot of times, yes.
but i forgot to warn myself;
i forgot that i am but naive.

and after all my precautions,
it was i who fell.
i fell in love with you.