Hearts another beat a second
A+ made the grade rare meat
Why is everything told to
us in a heartbeat
This is getting way too sweet
"Lips took Beeswax" bittersweet

Someone got stung B-
Strong sound muffler
Joyride Owl Hoot clever
Sweet and sourpuss
honey babe

Her mustard lips of custard
Hot temperature rising
The spicy lady opening
up new horizon gate

Too many sad rides
empty plates last joyride
Gas empty blame the county
Why did we call this joyride
without knowing
your fate

The others are more noticed
Fashionably they came late
Dine and the Wine joyride
romanced money upfront
advanced

Lips like jewels left their stale
You were the chosen one taken
for a ride from
a crooked male

Like bushel big loot basket
Rock the Kasbah rocket
Golden joyride ticket the
pickpocket
Getting away with ******
****** lips in the gasket

The joyride so beat looked
disheveled new love
unraveled
So messy but **** neat
looking, Lexus,
She looks mighty fine like
Venus, I beg you to zoom

And the love after all the treats
Sherlocked in his room
The devil made me do it
All flushed and deep red
Hearing his joyride of beats
What was really going
through her head
Hard rock ambient
painter deviant

The holiday like racing hot rod
Harvest Halloween of a joyride
Two peas in dark maze pod
Igniting a hot fire
Her lips need to decide
Who was underneath the
fumes of his fire

The coffee taste accelerating
Do we feel the pulsing beat
What a high anxiety peak
High intense flavor
You waiting for his joyride
Christmas and Hannukah
Tree to decide that's easier
But wait for true love above all
the gifts to deliver
Like bedrock meeting
Monster ride plant-eating Bug
More slugs my chinch
Inchworm of books at Joyride
College Dorm horn alarm
Manifestation enjoying
her joyride
What a conniver
Greece with my niece
vacation
Basil New rival tea
Pomegranate Cherry-bomb
Blonde Bombshell
Culture novelty joyride
Ring my servant bell
Met their sanity tomb

Her hand's dainty they shine
and sparkle
Her lips know how to jingle
Arace for hearts of stories
and memories
Always the death hand takes
a ride to the winding road of
the cemeteries
Just stay for the moment
think about the
Joyride forth of July
Our firecrackers went off at
the same time
Brie cheese favorite time
English tea and crackers
Like two lips sublime read
her diaries in his designer dockers

Going to the end of the earth lips
light up New York City galleries

Needing the fresh corner
Sunset taking lowrider Boulevard
Hollywood Oh! No world
Wildly satanic or the carefree type
Her joy smile he's sold on skype
Benevolent triad remembering
The mad magazine
MLM Maserati longevity Master
Of the joyride gun blaster
"Lips build like a Pyramid"
Becoming irresistible
Not to humble

Lips race Joyride to gamble
Nothing weakens to crumble
Baking a crumb cake its
doable stays together but
things unnamed not like
a marriage

We get blamed joyride
got damaged
We become gullible
What becomes of the broken heart
someone isn't reliable
Lips are not responsible
Leadership has you cornered  
To stumble upon her lips
Rendered steamboat surrender
How he tumbles
Mr. Grey Poupon Mustard seed
He plants her like his
only joyride
In need
We are all Jupiter the moon
joy to the world
All the boys and girls being
taken for joyrides

The Beach boy's video games
Spy lips whose to blame
Phillip screwdriver
But they take a ride
All you could pick a hot buffet
feasting she is still wearing
hot lipstick
Men have their choice of
they're next
Joyride Bride about the money
Wall-Street cars of hobbies
investing
Yeah right?

Sunday:
Ant Pills
Bear Traps
Cobra Feet

Monday:
Dolphin Lungs
Eel Soup
Frog Limbs

Tuesday:
Gecko Suits
Horse Pie
Inchworm ***

Wednesday:
Jaguar Barbed
Koala Beer
Lynx Lynch

Thursday:
Monkey Chips
Narwhal Fashions
Otter Drugs

Friday:
Porcupine Rehab
Quail Map
Roadrunner Piano

Saturday:
Slug Party
Turkey Slop
Urchin See

Sunday:
Vulture Guns
Walrus Tongues
X No

Monday:
Yellowjacket Fever
Zebra Clowns

Alone is he
He is alone
Prone to danger
To danger is he prone
not afraid
just shivers

walk alone
to nowhere
where he roams?

Inchworm
make cocoon
not be cold
but not see moon

Inchworm
not afraid
just cold
so he walks alone
happily
And shivers

I love you onion
I'll tell you why
in part because
you make me sigh,
you are everything to me
the song my Mother sang...
a whimsical, sad
and poignant little tale
I hear you crooning
& the radio tuning
my Mother knew me better
than I'd like to think,
singing ...
Lonely 'Lil petunia in an onion patch
a bittersweet memory
of all the saddest words
that I have ever heard
the saddest is the story
told me by a bird
tears fall from a pungent smell
when I cannot forgive,
say you'll never tell
and in tears of laughter  
when I'm tickled
seeing the inchworm
in the shape of a finger
a moment comes,
  I stay
and linger
climbing like a spider
singing me a verse
Spent about an hour
chatting with a flower
and here's the tale he told
as you're peeling layers,
& hearing prayers
revealing honesty
and depth of flavor
intoxicating waifs
I sniff and savor
kept safe
by a sturdy skin
cooking you
I start, begin
chopped fresh
and finely diced
or maybe
even thinly sliced
for summertime
franks, not the
Ballpark kind
these I doubt
you'll ever find
homemade baked beans
that you adorn and grace
a smiling sweet,
lil' onion face
everything made
from scratch
gleaning my
lil' onion patch
in toasted rolls,
whole grain mustard
potato salad...
best I can recall
my Mother
took the time to make
in everything
she cooked and baked
you're in all my memories
though you're in so much more
I've never shared with you
this love I have before
Onions are adaptation at its finest
fresh, sauteed with butter
translucent sweetness
Elevating anything you touch
they cry, and laugh
and give so much
dried, grated..slightly dated...
even hated, chopped up..
or roasted, grilled...
so very skilled
any way you slice it
even if you dice it
differently delightful
and delicious
smart for recipes,
even onion haters
appreciate the graters
sometimes your in  disguise
a lovely found
& welcome surprise
must be
I have something
in my eyes
as the flower
continues to sing
a joyful gift
my onion brings
familiar sounds
songs I sing
petunia continues
who put me in this bed
I'll bet his face is red
I call him down
with every teardrop that I shed
  then she said
if only I had him here
I would take him by his ear
and make him share my misery
I'm cooking homemade
onion chips,
rewound on old-time family clips
recall the fresh-squeezed lemonade
while we're sittin' in
the cooling shade
a memory of you replayed
so very glad you came & stayed
  sippin' slow brewed iced tea
my lil' onion friend and me.

Cherie Nolan© 2016

an inchworm, up-ing and down-ing its way through my
intestines is not bright
green as it traverses the dark gloomy
lumen of my
insides.

darkness requires complete
darkness, no color, just
darkness, but at least it is
warm.
i do not know if the inchworm can
see but i hope it can feel
comfort in the
dark.

dear inchworm, i wish you
good fortune on your travels as you
measure my insides with
tenacious tickling loops.

Under my house
an inchworm
measuring the joists.

Not as eloquent
as a fountain pen,
not as artistic
as a sketching pencil,
not even as bright as a magic marker,
but one smart cookie to your kids.
We have cool names like
Cotton Candy, Manatee,
Razzmatazz and Inchworm,
and are non-toxic sticks of joy
to those little imaginations.

Yes, we sometimes look like
clumps of colored wax
smashed into tissue paper,
and we do break easily
or lose our wrappers at the drop of a hat,
then get tossed in a bag
or worse, become homeless.
And horror of horrors!
We’re reinvented as candles
or reheated into twisted zombies
of our former selves.

And neither do our achievements
reside in a museum or gallery,
why they're not even framed
and proudly displayed on a wall.
No, they're slapped on ***** refrigerators
and kept there by plastic alphabet
magnets that loosely spell
such mundane things
as ‘milk’, ‘cheese’ or ‘daddy is dumb,'
until they fall to the floor
or end up in the trash.

But hey man,
give us a break!
This is our plight,
it’s a harsh existence!
Perhaps we should organize,
form a union for children’s
writing and drawing utensils,
and thus ensure equality
for us crayons?

We realize, more than likely,
this poem's title will cause
some backlash by those
who insist it be called
‘Return of the Crayon,’
because we 'happy sticks', you see,
supposedly don’t take revenge.

Nonetheless, we stand by it.
It is what it is!
Your children love us
and so should you!

Mom says
I'm an inchworm,
but when I grow up
I'm gonna be a f
                            o
                            o
                            t
                            l
                            o                                           !
                            n                                    !    
           ­                 g                               !    !    !
                            w                        R     !     !
                            o                a   W     R    !     !
                            r           w  A    w  a   R  !   !
                            m     R a  W  a A   R  R     !    
                            !!  RaWAwaAaWaRR!!!   !   !
                                    R a   W   a  w  R      !      
                                           w     W   A     !      !  
                                                a     a    R !     !     !
                                                      w    R     !  
                                                                  !       !
                                                               ­                !

Spring. Same plants, same order.
Monday morning, open for business.
Tractor-trailers, day care centers.
Every leaf that’s coming out is out.

To tonight’s town meeting I will go unaware and foolish.
It’s delicious, the unimportance of my feelings.
Even our particular war was small.
Europe had one last a century.

Hubble photos of events 13 billion years ago
Do not put me in mind of the species’ insignificance.
Just the opposite having witnessed the universe’s birth.
But birth from what preceding state? God again rears his hoary head.

They say one must let go and will let go,
God will decide what tragedy you need.
Not every seed becomes a flower,
Not every branch breaks out like a prosthetic trombone.

While the ancient Romans wrote of love
The ancient Britons wrote of war.
The Romans should have been perfecting their republic.
No god could do that work for them.

The November moth's the fall cankerworm--Alsophilia pometaria--
Slender-bodied, beige, beginning life as the well known inchworm.
In our war more children may have died than would have had
      the tyrant lived in fear and awe.
We can never know because we conquered.

1

At peace perhaps too much
a fine Spring rain
we seek news from the desert or capitol
of those who have dedicated their lives to losing their lives
      for us
adventurers, ancient honor, land runners
this campaign a must to advance one's career
a war president needs war

2

All you need to know is the names of things
chambers of commerce and large corporations
elements, products, decay fungi, egg masses
cultivars and their relation to wild grasses and the edge
uses of herbs, languages of mammals,
purposes of insects, placement of rocks
the names of everything by which we know our way

3

I've read about those remarkable souls who maintain
      self-control
among murderers and the unentertained multitude
who may have even spoken persuasively
at the right moment for speaking
and thus attracted a now unwanted immortality
there are only two ways you can tell
a bird of prey from a vision - humor and ritual

4

the Fedex gal
would be unlike taking off Emily Dickinson's clothes
over the counter perfume and spray paint hair
postman's shorts, black socks
a woman's legs are much like a man's
yet she too is beautiful, too beautiful, weekends
boating with her man

5

Suburbs, lawns, blankets
in a long, long nursery of babies
napping, old, blameworthy
and, I say this respectfully, blind
certain and uninterested
in motives more subtle than their immediate comfort
Who am I to complain?

6

Plants, poems: riches
our financial advisor doesn't count. Good and simple
a man as he is. Comes tousled
from early morning golf and puffy
from a late night fight or lovefest with his wife.
Inchworm
letting out its rope down an oak.

7

Late afternoon meeting
like the dry samara, achene or capsule surrounding a seed
how often have I tried to escape
my need, community, chamber of commerce
you cannot drive
the roads are theirs and the signs, perhaps
you can walk if you can name the plants and rocks and are
      willing to die

8

O happy family
there's some contentment in letting community and family
      decide
your place in it. Gatekeepers -
unconscious god, invisible hand, natural selection -
kind when refraining from violence
when not responding with force to the universe's effort
to extinguish us.

he wasn’t so much a peddler
(as many had quietly assumed)
more of a rural shuffler
or social inchworm
than a mover and a shaker

but boy
could he dish out those jabs
and ad lib on a whim
and draw sweet melodies
from that broken 6 string
all night long

carving out reflections
oh, those deep intuitive divinations!
steadily preaching
on the breathtaking joys
and fruits
of the vibrant land

grow your own
seeds to be sown
clean and green
a nourishing machine!
silver linings (straight from truth room)
clearly seen
from those uncompromised
garden views

casting his baited lines
from softly pebbled shores
(his nanna, and poppa
were there, years before)
giving grace…
and basking deeply
in the bounty of the fenua

his love of life was insatiable
moving from town to town
to nourish his soul
digging way beyond the deep
for that shrouded purpose
that soulful existence
that many spend a lifetime
looking to find

three boats settle
in the quiet harbor
a net shed basking in the sand
peaceful and serene
(with a hint of emerald green)
Sunset red
with crawfish (and lemongrass)
to keep us
bountifully fed

dig in your feet
you are an inchworm of sheets
who lingers on wings

cling to a chrysalis
of charm and discomfort
more patience, less sleep


let your fingers bloom
and your lashes flutter
to catch every river of wind


pull on your socks
leave the window open

The fortunate I,
The send-sighted me,
What might have I done
To deserve this to see?

That inchworm in paining,
Though pretty she was,
Has set to cocooning,
In endless becomes.

Such books, she has heavy,
Her heart so it spins,
That silken word cover,
With lux-journal skeins.

Such passion in weaving,
She'll fuel open minds,
And full will this artist,
Soon her medium find.

Oh, you swamp me with charm - get out of my head.
There’s something about you - a warmth - like the comfort of home - that pulls at me.

I study your landscape of attractive surfaces like a star chart - logging my weaknesses - to strengthen my emotional firewall. I WANT you but my “wants” just seem untrustworthy after recent deprivations.

To be honest - I can’t afford you - not now. You’re a delicious pastry - with strings - and I need to cut all my strings.

You’re something younger me would have wanted - before the pandemic, when scandalous thinking was uncomplicated and freedoms taken for granted.

Last year simplified my reality.

Over time, boredom melted me like wax but a new me crossed some threshold of certainty - that to flourish - no, just to survive - I must become more than I am, or find I’m less than I hoped.

In 2019 goals seemed way, way someday things - far off reference points to seek out - like an inchworm. Social details occupied me like an unfocused dementia - there was an unacceptable level of childish thinking.

But now I’m an escapee on the run who won’t be taken back alive. Old attachments must be stripped down and the old world made disposable - if I’m to achieve escape velocity.

i might just be a catalyst,
a-change-your-life,
*******-mindblow-you type,
but fear will keep you
steadfast like an inchworm,
slowly making his way.

you are a sunday morning.
we all love sunday mornings,
the car rides with nowhere
specific to go, but when the
salsa-colored sky fades,
we never regret what
we did on that sunny
or even snowy, day.

i am thursday, which is
my favorite day of the week
which is no surprise to those
know who know me well, best.

some people hate thursdays
because it's the cooler,
kissed-half-of-the-basketball-team squad,
older sister of
wednesday, but it's still not friday,
the prom queen, of the week days.

but for some of us,
thursday is the new friday,
and i hope that's how you see me
because even though i'm not sunday,
i will make my way.

i don't move inch-by-inch,
i wouldn't even say i walk,
or even swim at all.
quite frankly, i hate swimming;
i hold my nose with my fingers
after gasping for air because i'm
afraid i'll inhale water and obviously,
die.

i fly like a butterfly, or some
other flighted living thing.
and i'm not one of those black
and white butterflies, even though
i act like the world is black
and white sometimes.
i am colorful.

i am colorful in my words
and actions, which catalyzes,
because remember,
i might be a catalyst,
that fear that will keep you steadfast.

because right when you think
you figured me out,
i will flutter by you,
and you will be in utter shock
with fear or with love,
changing your life
and blowing your mind.

but maybe that's the problem.
maybe you're the one that sees
the world in black and white,
and although this colorful
butterfly is making her way
into your sunday mornings,
you, my inchworm,
are colorblind.

Two thoughts come to mind this morning. The deficiencies in
      our systems of governance -
local, global -
and the first two pages of The End of Faith in which he
      mistakes political (acts of war) for
religious acts,
but recognizes understanding the workings of the world is not
      the same as knowing
the unknowable.

Every new twinge provokes fear but what is there to fear?
      That one won't
live forever?
The year of a man is the day of an inchworm and 267 years
      on a reverse-
rotating Venus.
A billion of anything is a lot unless it's the distance one must
      traverse to look
at God.

How much silence, or tinnitus, can you handle? A chipmunk
      cannot for long
stand still.
Once the twinge passes I'm off to the next task: building a
      constituency for this compassion,
that solution.
The dialogue starts with a question. To know the question is
      almost certainly to find
an answer.

Conflating questions is the commonest of logic errors. No
      negotiation unless the
violence ends.
Why not talk while we fight? We can always ****, torture or
      assassinate
between conversations.
Justice, or retribution if you want, can remain on the table
      even after we
achieve understanding.

Nature is my religion, I know no other, and community is my
      church.
The sacrament
is policy debate. I attend church everyday. Our jobs are
      hymns (the classifieds
a hymnal)
and payment for services rendered is sung praise and
      gratitude. Walking and talking
is prayer.

Strategies to limit or subvert discussion are the only evil.
      Violence
is one
but not by far the only one. What's the hurry to build a
      highway or free
a people?
The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time and time is
      the mercy
of eternity.

Like the saying goes... " We have no words for this, so silence will have to die with a pillow over it's face, horrified by the damp dreams, sunk - in; ******* on the fumes of deferred desires, until the whole of the world can hear you scream... but cannot find you. "
We are born into grief with wailing. Then we laugh at our mother's chin.
Groping at the matted hair of her fertile youth.
Smacking our gums in class.
The hard lesson, shimmering in the distance
Like hard candy on a heap
of abandoned houses.

Too stunning is the thing that becomes the vision of our blank stare
into the abyss; as we ignore the essential, to favor a blockade of easy pleasures in the face of hard clocks. Our ghosts are driven out of spite and the hours march depleted of our joy, as we entangle our quaint miseries in dark trees, like kites.
We tug and resume the defeat of our careful sabotage
to glorify the random hell, that nullifies
the pointed quip of a wise man's
emphatic sigh.

we trip on the whip of our masters, and call it a day.
a day for running blind in the tunnels of our entropy
like an inchworm in a blender.
or a seed in a vacuum... damning the soil of the void
and the sunshine that mocks it.
the box is a lost blip of atoms in the Attic,... and not at all -
on the list.
You can have your Birth-Day, but you can't have both.
Your birth is a fluke, after all... And a Day -
Becomes the Night.... like an inside -
Joke.

Tiny little inchworm
Moving right along.
But then came a bird
To rob him of his song.

"A stitch in time saves nine"
is proverbial
"Inchworm measuring the marigolds"
is a song

Snippets remembered
from days long gone by
built by a poet
intuiting a story
imagining an ending

a prize-winner

Returned to worsened thoughts,
Caught in the spiderwebs of restlessness.
Inchworm caught in the trap.
Presuming its imminent demise.

Toothless dogs of emotional wars fought on the daily,
Screaming in my broken ears,
about how little this all means.

Heat-soaked heart drowning in my anxiety's waste products,
just looking for some direction,
someone to mention my name,
in just a positive way.
perhaps I'm deaf,
so please speak up.

I can't even hear,
my own cries of fear,
so please speak up.
I want to see,
that is what I mean,
is more than nothing.
Please?