Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen

No we're not learning about inventors.
No we're not learning about scientists.
If we were, that would be great,
But we're not,
Instead we're learning about lying thieves,
And overrated ones at that.
We should be learning about real inventors,
That didn't steal ideas from others,
And were lucky enough not to have ideas stolen from them,
Like George Westinghouse.
We should be learning about real inventors,
And real scientists,
That sadly went unrecognized,
Because their ideas were stolen,
By so called inventors,
That were in reality total jerks,
Like Nikola Tesla,
And Rosalind Franklin.
However, instead of learning about true inventors like them,
We're learning about the likes of Thomas Edison,
Guglielmo Marconi,
James Watson,
And Francis Crick.
Here's a "fun fact" about Thomas Edison,
He promised Nikola Tesla 50 grand,
In exchange for fixing his machines.
However, when Nikola Tesla was finished,
Several months later,
He not only didn't pay Tesla,
He mocked him for asking,
He said that he was joking,
And according to some, he was offered a raise of 10 dollars
According to others, he asked for a raise, and was denied it,
Either way, Tesla quit.
Here's a "fun fact" about Guglielmo Marconi,
He didn't invent the radio,
Nikola Tesla did.
However, Marconi pulled an Edison,
And stole Tesla's invention from him.
Luckily, although sadly too late,
Tesla was rewarded the patent.
Here's a "fun fact" about James Watson and Francis Crick,
They took credit for Franklin's discovery.
Why do we have to sit in social studies,
Listening to Youtube videos,
And reading books,
And doing plays,
That people created for school kids,
About so called inventors.
When instead,
We could be reading books,
Listening to Youtube videos,
And doing plays,
That we created ourselves,
About real inventors.
I want to get a real education.
I want to learn about the truth,
Instead of lies.
So please teachers,
Principals,
Superintendents,
Common Core Professionals,
State Test Professionals,
Please let us learn about the truth,
Please don't make us learn about lies.

KISSING MR. CHELIDON GOODBYE

**...**.  . .oh!
I don't know

if I should be
telling you this.

I was just sweet
as in 16 &

never been kissed
and my *******

hadn't yet arrived
though I prayed and prayed

to a God who did not
heed my girlish plea.

All the girls in my year
had already budded.

******* to the right of me!
Breast to the left of me!

Into the valley of despair
I rode my Raleigh

alas alas
breast-less!

I practiced kissing
by kissing

the you know
inside of
( the whatchamacallit? )

my elbow the
chelidon so called

by an old falling-apart
medical dictionary.

I clipped some hair
from our Yorkshire terrier

stuck it on the crick of
my right elbow

so that it became
my first moustache'd kiss.

And so, was born
my Mr. Chelidon.

Pathetic...yes...I know
but the year after

my bosoms arrived
with a suddenness

that took my breath
away.

I breasting the waves
like a ship's figurehead

as I dived into the sea
a Venus for boys to see.

I was my *******
and my ******* were me.

Somehow I could then not
stopped being kissed.

And once kissed
grew addicted to it.

The bliss of the kiss.
I was my own drug.

I gave Mr. Chelidon
the elbow.

Discovered the joy of boys
inventing various uses

for them
as they

discovered
me.

I'm not one of those people
Who can bury that itch,
So very down deep
That they can't even scratch.

Certainly, most days, I'm satisfied with Me,
Just can't seem to be satisfied with Just me.

I want four hands, not two,
And four feet, covered in warm woolen socks between sheets.
I want clamoring voice from a throat that's not mine.
I want two heads, two hearts,
Two toothbrushes.

Different length hair in the shower
(You clean it out)
Accidental-shrunken work shirts
Cussing fights while I finish the laundry
Surprise apologies later.

Nights of scheduling compromise
Days of scheduling compromise
How many sick days can we skip work with?

I don't need some long-distance,
Not-a-relationship
Just-friends-with-benefits
Bull­****.

I cannot hug me
I cannot bury my face in my chest
And just breathe.
My arms don't reach far enough,
And I get a crick in my neck only to find that
My shirts just smell like cheap soap.

Not looking for marriage.
Ten years until kids.
Maybe a dog later on.
We'll walk it together, and you can bag the poo...

It could be I'm just too addicted to ***.
Or maybe I wear too much lingerie.
My corsets and evening gowns show too much of my flesh?
I know too many good random subjects for conversation?
My **** looks too good.
Your **** looks too good?

Pick one and tell me,
So I can  find that one thing
That keeps the timing from not lining up
Or lets me meet men that aren't married, or
Under 18, Under 21, Under-able to carry out a conversation with words longer than 2 syllables.

I probably won't even see it coming,
That day when I find that someone who satisfies Just Me.
But for now, can I please find
Someone to just satisfy me?

The root
Of ambition
Is ambivalent

There's no “one cause”
No one causes
A man
To make life decisions
In a day

It takes
Much more
For
A man to be successful
And real
With his inner-self
Accepting
The cards dealt
With the stamina
To play through
Exercising his will
With the feel
Lingering in every pore

Unsure
Of obstacles ahead
Headstrong
Through barricades
Bearing the bruises
Trampling
Over your own
Feet
Defeat
Seen in battle
But the war’s on

And the war zone
Isn’t limited
To a few
Years
Like ages 19-22
Whose to do
Worse
Who has more

Money
CARS
Clothes
And hoes

And whose vision
Is so small
To tack them
with success
All in all

And attack those
Who lack the
Wills
To move forward
And ignorantly
Attach it
With a phenomena
Of
Your unknowing

Root of ambition
Can spread
Like weeds

And weeds
Can **** ambition
Or spread
Like seeds

How many men
Dive
Head first under the influence
Or rise above
High
From the same drug

Barack Obama
Michael Phelps
William Shakespeare
Bill Clinton
Lebron James
Pablo Picasso
The Beatles
Jay-Z
Bob Marley
Conan O’Brien
Dr Francis Crick. (Nobel Prize Winner)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Salvador Dali
Victor Hugo
Kareem Abdul-Jabar
Snoop Dogg
Dr. Dre
Stephen King

Just to name a few
Maybe
Just maybe
It has nothing to do
With success

Or you.

I cried so hard with you before i fell asleep,
and when we finally did stop crying
I laid my head on your chest and tried to sleep
but then i kept crying and tried to hold it in.
When i woke  up the next morning
i was on the other side of the bed,
i had a crick in my neck and you were over there on your back.
I cuddled with you again even though it hurt.
I just want to love you without pain.

once in a town not far from a crick,
lived a young man by the name of Jack
Jack visited this crick daily,
it made him calm.
it gave him happiness,
it was his way of getting away from the town.
Jack had  a fear,
jacks fear is water.
He knew someday he would have to over come this.
That was the same night Jack decided to go swimming,
after he said goodbye to his family and friends.
He then left the town.
The next day he found washed up onto the meadow
next to his favorite crick.
Jack was dead.

i am every unfinished poem that sits in piles of crumpled paper by your waste bin and every crowded thought in the cranial space above your neck. i am every word that begs to be free from the tip of your tongue but remains just out of your memory's reach. i am comprised of the colors of sunrise but am more the mood of a sunset. i am the familiar  fingerprints on your favorite coffee mug. i am a wicker rocking chair on somebody's grandmother's porch. i am bite marks on your pencil and the crick in your neck. i am the vacant blurry buzz of an old television set. i am all of the places i have never been. i am lovers' names carved into summertime tree bark, promising "forever" - only to fall short of that promise by the time the leaves change. i am here. i am not where i belong.

you are the gravity that keeps my feet on earth. you are the atmosphere i breathe. you are the rain that feeds my soul & makes flowers grow. you are my revival and my revolution and the courage i kept hidden inside of closed fists for so long i formed crescent moons in my palms. you are an unstoppable fire that is burning me alive in the best way. you are the only rooftop i have ever visited that i haven't felt the urge to jump off of. you are the gentle hum and rumble of the washing machine i used to nap beside when i was a little girl. you are the creaky wooden swing in my backyard where i sat for countless hours and smoked and cried and pondered. you are all my favorite odds & ends bound together by my wildest dreams. you are sometimes so beyond my understanding, that i wonder when i'm going to wake up; and if i ever did find out that you were just a dream, i would bang on heaven's gates and plead with god to let me sleep. you are there. i am here, you are there.

one of us needs to move.

- m.f.

Diggin' in the dirt
have a little fun
drink a little beer
have another one

Sun is really hot
and I just want to play
gotta go outside
gotta get away

Go swimming at the crick'
Maybe catch a fish
cook it on the bank
we don't need a dish

Get a little tan
get a little burn
Doesn't really matter
cuz I'll bet we'll never learn

Grab onto the rope
and come on for the ride
It's way too nice out here
for you to stay inside!

Cherie Nolan © All Rights Reserved 2016

OHIO MY HOME

Ohio my childhood home
a simpler life
an innocent time
a place where corn fields go on for miles and miles
the fields wave and sway beckoning you
to make secret forts in their midst
the original corn maze
in there we eat cow corn
never thinking to ask
was it fresh or clean?
it was organic at its best

playing in the water down at the “crick”
no such worries of a chemical spill
no one got sick
no parents around
nobody drowned

tornadoes come by
what a scary thrill
mother nature at her worst
toppling trees each way
providing us a strange place to play
in between the branches
we made our mansions
safe maybe not...
but we played anyway

far from the city lights
we spend our nights
watching natural sights
fireflies glowing looking for love
the tree frogs are singing out for a mate
mother raccoons bring their young from the nest
skunks delight us with their odorous best

in an eerie alien fog
ufo’s hovering over
tall trees in the front yard
all under the moons sight
as i close my eyes i can see
Ohio my memory home

Crick crack click clap snip snap on the concrete
The city is on the move and to stand would be
The slapstick comedy of stopping a treadmill.
Acceleration animation gravitation from the rotation
Apathetic friction that is devil-may-care like your heart
Dragged down on the gym floor and the sweaty men laugh.
Tick tock nonstop the clock hops and bops away the time
Of the day and eternity seems like a fairy tale
Because this era is neverneverland faith, we are young.
And getting younger, we plan to die naked as we came,
Lounging in retirement, the summer that knows no end.

But sighing the dying are crying relying upon our move
And we move past, this blur of momentum that the city has become,
Because stillness is for the hippies and the natives and we are neither.
Capitalistic colonial conquering captains of industry we charge
Credit or debit because it isn't ours anyways and the bank is moving.
Down the street in the heat can't beat the beat of the sweet treat
That the homeless remember the memory of the taste of mercy.
Like dogs in heat they pant and beg and we shake them off our pantleg
Because it is designer and the label buys manhood cheap and sells it high.

We split hit and quit and never commit because we spit words like blessing
Out when we wash our mouths out every night and every morning
Because it is the only way to get the taste out of your mouth when you wake up.
As if the jacket I wear can't clothe a man from the cold or sell for more
And my closet is lined with the clothes I don't remember to forget about wearing.
It is not hate that congregates or abates the rate the weight is pulling me down,
But fear of the immensity of impossibility colliding with reality inevitably,
Because one man's sacrifice will suffice to pay the price of my vice.

Yessir hearts are racing toward the first heart, we are collaborating.
That the dying need not remain the dead but know life to the fullest.
The poor and the sore need not abhor or war with the rush of the city.
Because saints and saviors are not just bedtime stories as long as my life
Has the power, no the will, no just the faith, all it needs is faith.
The sick have been tricked that their wick runs quick
Like crick crack click clack snip snap on the concrete
These hearts are moving this city on a hill.

Meteoric Buick
Slick *****
Frantic frenetic
Majestic kick
Chick shtick
Shashlik

Nicotinic stick
Lick flick
Hermeneutic heretic
Magnetic rhetoric
Hick logic
Strategic

Plastic music
Tick click
Bucolic Bardic
Peptic druidic
Rustic emetic
Sceptic

Polymeric quirk
Sick trick
Turmeric trimeric
Septic *****
Wick crick
Derrick

The mind the heart
War in despair
Voices humming
Loud voices
Confusion in the diaspora
Don't do it or else
Do it and so?
Whispers there and now
Up down up down
Mix of hot water and cold water
oceans can talk
Wild wind around the corners of mississipi
Alarm rings crick crick
Oops!it 10am in the morning

I only know to cope in a couple of ways
- slam up some walls
pretend it doesn't hurt
move on
innocence is a mockery on my face
my lips twist into grotesque resemblance
of long-gone smiles
It is difficult to remember
to relax
to be normal
'normal'

you come back in flurried recollections
blurs
and
heartaches

a pain starting from the middle
of my forehead
to the crick in my neck
right to my wrists
softly rotating trying to relax
i smile

this is normal

A little girl with eyes of blue
You were your mother's prayer
You are your mother's daughter
With ringlets in your hair

But...

Turn the competition up
Turn the volume up to ten
You're a little tomboy
Your dads daughter then...

You can pick a squirrel from a tree
When you wrestle you won't yield
When you go and play at football
You're the best boy on the field
You can tear apart an engine
You act just like your dad
I've got to say my daughter
Is the son I never had

You dress up for your mother
Wear  a dress to go to school
You have manners like no other
And you know the golden rule

But, when the day is over
The dress is off and jeans on quick
Then you grab your rod and tackle box
And take off fishing at the crick

You can pick a squirrel from a tree
When you wrestle you won't yield
When you go and play at football
You're the best boy on the field
You can tear apart an engine
You act just like your dad
I've got to say my daughter
Is the son I never had


You are your mothers princess
You are your daddy's son
But you are our loving daughter
When it counts, and day is done

You make both of us happy
You make both of us proud
You blush when I yell loudly
That's my daughter....really loud

You can pick a squirrel from a tree
When you wrestle you won't yield
When you go and play at football
You're the best boy on the field
You can tear apart an engine
You act just like your dad
I've got to say my daughter
Is the son I never had

There's an ick in my crick,
that makes me feel sick,
my insides are taring in two!

I seek some relief,
complete disbelief,
this sickness contracted from you!

I put on my scarf,
am ready to ****,
my temperature rises above.

I'm ready to hurl,
my diamonds and pearls,
lost all of their their lustrous love.

It lays at my feet,
spread out on the street,
I told you that I wasn't faking.

My mind and my heart,
all splattered apart,
my soul lays there now for the taking!

Her hair was the color of cattails in Autumn.
She smiled widely,
Spoke too quickly,
And her hands fluttered about her face.

She said to me:

“So here I am,
Waiting for God to come,
But He’s too busy buying a pack of camels at the corner store.

“He looks at me like he hates me
But he doesn’t know me enough,
Not to hate me anyway.

“See my arms?
Here they are, fragile and dusty as butterfly wings.
Not as pretty though, never as pretty as a Monarch’s.

“See me?
Glittering, covered in diamonds?
But I laugh like broken glass bells.
You can hear the cracks in it, listen:

”Crick! Crick!

“Nobody’s perfect is what I say
But They had it first
So I guess I’m a liar.

“Whats the point of truth anyway?
Reality is the biggest lie,
Not like we’d die without it.

“Not that living’s all that great,
Especially when gods are at the corner,
Too busy exhaling this menthol universe

“Watch out for the flies they keep swatting away
Couldn’t have answered all the prayers.
Sad thing for the flies.

“And I’ll never have a Monarch’s wings
Or be covered in anything other than reflective glass
Its hard to get it all straight,
And remember what’s real.”

Ordinary people
carry action figures
on their dashboard
and stop in still traffic
on their way to work
to stare at the circus billboard
wishing they could be
the incredible flying man
who soars above the Ferris wheel
and disappears beyond the horizon.

The human cannonball lives
with his mother
in a musty basement
filled with old baseball cards,
beer can memorabilia,
an ash stained billiards table,
Chicago Bulls jerseys,
and pictures of Goldie Hawn
and Evil Knievel.

The human cannonball has
high blood pressure,
frequent anxiety,
a wheat allergy,
a jaw that pops
when opened too wide,
a crick in his neck,
a bruised shoulder
from falling
into the net
over and over.

I wanted to write about

The first

Time I saw a spotlight

And knew what it meant

It was in a theater

And

Smoke machines blew

The light into existence a light

I had never seen before the spotlights

They circled cut paths I couldn’t

Follow

Define

Shining through the smoke

Light made color made smoke made real

It wasn’t the light I saw it was the smoke spotlit but it was

Only the light I knew

Saw

Could see

Until I thought of driving

Home

Late one night in the front seat and falling asleep

As our headlights cut through the fog

And knowing if I could just

Crawl through the window and

Sit on the hood of the

Car and reach out my foot and stand

on the fog-beam I would

Be carried somewhere more comfortable than the

One crick-necked nook

I had found that would

Let me fall asleep dreaming of

Crawling through windows. I wanted

To write about that first time,

When I watched the spotlights draw symbols

A cuneiform language only the smoke could read and how the

Smoke danced and I realized

The only way to shine is to be

So

Small

That you cannot cast a shadow,

That everything casts a shadow that

To shine you must block something else from shining

Because we are not suns

We are not

We are small and

Lonely

moons.

But what if we were so small we didn’t have to be?

We could be dust and smoke and

The light could dance through us

Together

And we would dance through it

And bring it to life

Write in a language only

We can read as we swim through ourselves

Ourselves the light we’re swimming through

Light is only light until it hits the dust

The dust makes the beam

Be small with me and build beams of light in a small theater

Hall where the dust has

Collected where

We have collected

Ourselves.

That is what I wanted to write

About but as I watched the

Beams moving

And learned the smoke of a

Dusty theater-room

And how it dances

Even after the light leaves it,

It must, even though

I

Cannot see

It, because it is

Always ready always

Dancing when the light arrives

The dust is a beam of light

Waiting

To be built, a boat

Waiting

To breathe an ocean into

Existence and float

Through it and

Be rocked

By it and

Be

It, is

What I wanted to write about but

As I watched the beams

Moving one

Met my eye

And

The smoke vanished

And

The beam vanished

And

There was nothing

But the light

Staring at me

Ripping my shadow

Out of me and

Hurling it behind me only

For a second

An angry and

Vengeful second who are you to

Tell me that I need the dust?

You are not a sun

You are barely a moon you are

So small

So

small

And still you cast a shadow you

Take from me

Use me

Know yourself

Build your world

By me with me through me

And you sit

In this dusty theater hall

So small

And want to write

That it is dust that makes the beam?

No smoke machine could

Blow the light into

Existence what would you call

Smoke if there was no light to

Pass through it to

Light it breathe it into

Existence now

Sit

Lonely and selfish

moon

And watch the show.

there's that crick in my neck I used to fish in and, that inch-full can of ginger-ale I left in the cup holder,
in the center console
of the car,
these last few nights.

let's swim in that.

Creek
I call it a crick
when I was ten- no eleven

Maybe ten and a half

My dad worked as a mechanic....like I do now

I remeber he came home one day and kicked off his ***** workboots by the front door
His hands were always dirtier than a *******

He always had grease and dirt under his nails when he got home
and would run them under hot water and glo-jo like I do now

Them hands were COVERED in scars
....mine aren't that scarred yet
and I'm hoping they never will be

I got out of this town once and made it half way around the ******* planet

But I came back when aunt mary-lou died
the only thing I remember from that funeral
....the girl across from me was wearing a red thong
her name was Megan (I had a dog with that name once)
She was aunt mary-lou's friends **** *** stepdaughter

She had that look like
"I am way too good for this trailer park *******"
And I smiled and thought
"I know you are"

Well my dad came home
To find out that I had broken the bb gun he got when he was fourteen

And instead of yellin' at me
or beatin' me
he told me to go get him a beer
and he let me have a sip

I thought he was gonna tear me up and down like a red headed step-child
Or put his cigarette out on my palm

But he didn't
He just sat there
and still to this day I wonder why I didn't get the usual


Truth is:
when I came back from getting his beer on that fateful day
I thought I might have seen my dad wiping a tear from his cheek

I laid across your heart like a bed.
Secure, soaring through the air.
Goodbye to the linen I left back at home.
Stuck in an room.
I felt at ease.
My back falling splat into comfort.
An endless supply of sheets.
Laying in complete peace.
My every woe.
My every ache.
Thereby at the door.
There's nothing outside this moment.
Soon I will be sleep.
That's all left to do.
Snore.
A dream closer than the eye.
Sandman.
Stay where you are.
Away from me and my cache
made of heart.
I hope you don't mind that I've laid here.
Contouring to your every shape.
To lay away in this elation I have towards you.
I hope to catch more than a decent sleep.
My neck twisted left.
In a deep sleep in the contours of your heart

Hectored by the pit-a-patter
of frozen pellets, you might hear
these dented eaves wheeze and sneeze
lubricious comparisons, but
it's a thickly frosted fiction
that their bulbous white noses
look anything like eggshells.

In springtime's crick-cracking they will
however birth a frog with not
so princely disposition:
Hacksaw in hand, he'll eye
your roommate and that footlocker
where she keeps invaluables
of an oddly personal nature.

His plan is to hip-hoppity leave
you red-faced, trying to calm
this panicked friend with un-fairy
tales of a burglar amphibian
who muttered of moral decay,
mis-fabled crowns, and the strangeness
of saved fingernail clippings.

Spider web crick-cracks on eggshell skin
Raggedy Ann rag doll made of porcelain
Second-hand bruises, scratches, scuffs, and knicks
In the healing shields of my hands, quick enough to fix
Super glue and elbow grease I knew would save the day
So full of good intentions, I carried her away
The best laid plans of mice and men, all buggered by my feet
The jingly song of transience played out on cold concrete
A mindless second's trip-up, the crystal princess killed
Her splintered features looked up, haunt my memory still
Lips forever frozen, screaming "Please, no more!"
In kaleidoscopic pieces scattered on the floor

Storm into that room so you will be seen, and
hold up high, sun salute
that body, that vessel you got!
Take every vertebrae, mmm pull it taught
Pull it.
Pull it as twine itself
wrapped around my words-
each bone
creaking like footfalls on old wooden stairs.
And look directly at your soul-
Do not squirm in the shame
of your nakedness -
beautiful lustful abundantly naked-
Instead
Crest, oh lord,
White swirling madness of intentions.
and  take these old bones, baby-
take this body
Take these old bones of mine and pull them up,
Stretch, find the strength! and pull-
Take those limped shoulders and throw them back to the gods!
Oh your rusted soul, fill it with water from the Darma ***** Crick.
And it might
burn-
sting and sour.
Make you cough, choke and sputter.
But oh
Renewed, Renewed!
And you start out with the feet, kicking rocks on the road, mmmm.
And end with the head bowed back with a psalm bouncing on
red berry lips, mmm
Oh, yes! Hands out to glory, oh feet moving, dancing
hot pavement below like Hades.
Step and another, another.
Until  your out of  frame...
Oh glory is the road.
Cleaned and cleansed as you go,
Hear me? Cleansed as you go, down Sinner Lane.
Cleansed and cleansing is the road
of the
revival parade.

sahn 8/25/14

Straighten your back, girl
Stand up, molded into their prodding expectations
Crack neck
Crick, crick
Prison face
Prison cell:

Pick apart the pieces of your face
Like glass, ready to shatter
Tears stain it like windows
Peering into my own loneliness;

And so, the reaping begins.

Eyebrows, too thick
Hair, too thin
Scars, too many
Must cover
Color, not enough
Must fake

Brutal fat jokes are the dagger in my spine
Painting me red and black and blue:

"Fat girl's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's momma's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's whole family's so fat
I wonder where she gets it's from."

My genes were always one size too large
And everybody could tell
No matter how much I tried to make myself up
My family history was engraved in my love handles;

Even the biting words of fifth graders could serve as a poignant reminder
That no matter how much you can do to curb your appetite
You can't curb where you come from.

I always wonder why it feels
Like looking through my own eyes
At someone else's life.

Although,
That life fails to address
How much fatter her ******* mouth is
It could swallow the sea if her family whole
We all want to be a mouth
Or become absorbed by one:

And though some may say
It'll turn her up dead
She says it makes her
Dead ****.

Who can tell when you first open yours eyes what the day holds for you.
Open your eyes brush your teeth plan your day, is your day going to be a day in the life like Harold Crick the guy from Stranger than Fiction or Phil Conners the weather guy from Groundhog Day or perhaps a little of both.
I used to find ground hog day funny now I’m not so sure.
Life is bad enough sometimes without it repeating itself until we get it right and resolve the issues that make us a person other people talk about in less than complimentary tones behind our back.
However Harold Crick, (google it if you don’t know this guy) perhaps got it right accepting his fate eventually with grace as he felt his ending was poetic and just; if only we could all be so lucky to know our fate in advance and accept that all our lives end and we need to accept it.
As with Harold, by accepting the inevitable does that give us a chance for our ending to take another path not of our or anyone else’s choosing but simply a random series of events that makes things turn out the way they turn out and it is as simple as that.
Some may say life is not like the movies or soap operas. But where do you think the writers get there ideas from. If you look at comedy writers, some of the universally funny comedians such as Billy Connelly or Jerry Seinfeld take their humour from real life.
The writers of Groundhog Day must have at some stage thought what if you couldn’t move on to the next day until you got it right and then wrote the script. As Bill Murray’s character said in Groundhog Day, “I was in the ****** Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over, and over, and over... Well Bill, life’s like that, we don’t get to choose, and that’s not funny.