Unapologetically Human
I am **** on the mezzanine
facing the darkened wet road
illuminated with acrid yellow tube light
better reds and blues surround towering palm trees
wooden fingers of ancient giant hands buried below
growing leafy green nails stretching skyward
little things, orange ribbons, endless cricks and dollops
bobbles and winches

Spirits
Play among the windmills
climb to the top of trees and sing into the warm wind songs of *** and heartache
as the universe ruffles along

Dive head first into the opponents forehead
grind the sand into his flesh with ram like resolve until the skin is red,
determine to die

This life is worth proving,
the stars are worth gazing,
and this body is worth bathing in the Maui air with naked delight

The ocean calls to my heart
water is a true lover whispering, kissing
inescapably feminine
I submerge my soul in joyful waves
always the tides follow the moon
like my silly heart, eclipsing
both light both night both day
simultaneously cycling
fully the light shines and our eyes perceive shadow faces in the dark blanketed clouds
the mountain gargoyles stand as titans, forgotten creatures
shoulders and heads, waiting for the moon ball
the ocean moon, tranquil bays
the air is sweeter with you near, a distant thought
cast about the horizon, the sun melting easy golden into my dreamy eye,
bless my drunken lips
dripping doltish songs into the friendly night

Wrestling with bulls of men
we kept our shirts on this time, yet blood was drawn in the sand
we madly danced in the moonlight to clapping hands,
kicking feet and knees
the ceremonial struggle toasting the stars
bottles were shared, some puffed on cigars

Come surf with me in the morning
or anytime the sun shines
even under moonlight would I meet you and we could paddle
come fill your heart with life and lust and romantic passions idyllic as freshly fallen snow undisturbed by worldly concerns
be not abashed for this embrace is a natural wonder of the soul,
join me,
forget what words of yesterday the prophets of doom chant,
we make our own tomorrow

Her Father's old wool jacket,
from Johnson Mills,
in creamy white,
dark forest green,
golden amber,
in a lovely patchwork,

A soft dark winter tuke on her head,
that dark green in the background,
with rusty speckles on her cheeks,

Wet snow falls silent,
the sky is a crisp Winter blue,
the air is cold and clear,
& intoxicatingly clean,

As she breathes life in and out,
then,
looking down at her black Sorel boots
and her worn black denim jeans,
a nice old holey wool sweater,
and a maul,

A **** lumberjack?
Maybe...

Dressed to hack the wood,
the plumber thinks so,
he stops by,
a friend of hers,
sorta,

Huh?

Not invited,
but no one is around here,
we all do it,
so he helps too,

Hey I'll make lunch,
harmless flirting,
I suppose,

Because,
wood warms you 3 times they say,

Once to chop it,
two to stack it RIGHT,
three to bring it in & burn it,

But if you count the starting of the,
cantankerous chainsaw & the guy,
helping you,

And you hafta arrange & rearrange, everything,
cleaning the flue and chimney,
I'd say a few more than that,
& don't ferget to pay the man,
the cantankerous one,

Yeah he got lunch too,
and about them ashes,
could be pretty hot,
take 'em out regular,
that stove cranking too,
OUCH,

She ends up gets burned,
a few times each year,

Taday,
she's on step too,
as she picks up the heavy maul,
not to heavy for this gal,
all the way back,
watch yourself,

As a neighbor winches,
a woman chopping wood?

Yup.
That's right,
a way of life,
for her,
always has been,
poised and ready,
swing and smack,
if you hit it right,
you hear a crack,

Just like a baseball bat,
hitting a homer,

Big pieces,
are made more manageable,
when you don't try to control the force,
when you let the sharpened maul,

Do all the work,
for you.
Cherie Nolan © 2016

I sailed the fjords between Powell River and
Drury Inlet to beyond the Salish Sea.
The land itself spoke from mountains, water falls, islets
From bird song and bear splashing fishers
From rutting moose and cougars sharp incisors.
The place has a scale that needs no advisers
But in our bodies felt, sensed in our story talking.
The Chinese spoke of sensing place by the four dignities
Of Standing of Reposing of Sitting or of Walking.
Indigenous peoples of the passage added of Paddling by degrees
For the Haida and Salish sang their paddles to taboos
To the rhythm of the drum in their clan crested canoes.
Trunks transformed indwelling people who swam like trees.
First Nations marked this land, made drawings above sacred screes
As they walked together, to gather, share and thank the spirit saplings.
So Dao-pilgrims in the blue sacred mountains of Japan rang their ramblings.
Now the loggers’ chainsaws were silent like men who had sinned.
I motored now for of wind not a trace -
I could see stories from the slopes, hear tales in the wind.
Modern hieroglyphs spoke from clear-cuts both convex and concave.
Slopes of burgundy and orange bark shaves
Atop the beige hills, and in the gullies the silver drying snags
and the brilliant pink of fire **** tags
A tapestry of  times in work.
A museum of lives that lurk.
Once the logging camps floated close to the head of inlets.
Now rusting red donkeys and cables no longer creak,
Nor do standing spar trees sway near feller notched trunks,
Nor do grappler yarders shriek as men bag booms and
Dump bundles in bull pens.
The names bespeak the work.
Bull buckers, rigging slingers, cat skinners, boom men and whistle punks.
…………………………………………………………………….
Ashore to *** with my dog I saw a ball of crushed bones in ****
Later we heard the evocative howl of a wolf
And my pooch and I go along with the song
Conjoining  with the animal call
In a natural world fearsome, sacred and shared.
---------------------------------------------------------­---
Old bunk houses have tumbled, crumbling fish canneries no longer reek.
Vietnam Draft dodgers and Canucks that followed the loggers forever borrowed -
Their hoisting winches, engines, cutlery, fuel, grease and generators.
While white shells rattled down the ebbing sea.
Listing float homes still grumble when hauled on hard.
Somber silhouettes of teetering totems no longer whisper in westerlies
Near undulating kelp beds of Mamalilakula.
Petroglyphs talk in pictures veiled by vines.
History is a tapestry
And land is the loom.
Every rock, headland, and blissful fearsome bay
Has a silence that speaks when I hear it.
Has a roar of death from peaking storms when I see it.
Beings and things can be heard and seen that
Enter and pass through me to evaporate like mist
From a rain dropped forest fist
And are composted into soil.
Where mountains heavily wade into the sea
To resemble yes the tremble and dissemble
Of the continental shelf.
Where still waters of deception
Hide the tsunamis surging stealth.
Inside the veins of Mother Earth the magmas flow
Beneath fjords where crystalised glaziers glow.
Here sailed I, my dog and catboat
Of ‘Bill Garden’ build
The H. Daniel Hayes
In mountain water stilled
In a golden glory of my remaining days.
In Cascadia the images sang and thrilled
Mamalilikula, Kwak’wala, Namu, Klemtu
The Inlets Jervis, Toba, Bute, and Loughborough.

He stands behind the bar.
His demeanor is calm,
not caring
about anything but
the meticulous arrangement of liquor bottles.
With a white ragged cloth in his right hand
he grips the glass necks
between
his three first fingers and thumb.
He people watches.
slowly he paces back and forth
behind his protective

separation

seeing the world behind his sleep laden eye lashes.
He sways to the music of
golf commentators and steam cleaning dishwashers.
Tired, broken, slightly drunk from sips of ***
he sneaks
when no one is looking,
he lets each palm lay flat
against the cold plastic granite counter top.
To his right two women
in their fifties
are lulling about grandchildren,
while the
click
clicking
of a laptop causes a stressful twitch in his left eye.
New customer.
"Hi, how you doing?"
She walks away, slightly bothered
he pays more loving attention to
hot glass out of the steam washer
than her need for a twelve dollar glass of
bitter clear looking liquor.
More people.
four this time.
"Hi there, how are ya?"
The woman asks in a loud voice.
Shes happy, excited waiting for
a husband back from a business trip.
She orders a glass of champagne
while the man shes with wants Budweiser.
"We only have light. Is that okay?"
The man looks ******,
as if he himself should take on
responsibility of a society growing more fond

of an inebriated state of mind.

As the woman continuous to talk
unending
he places the wine glass before her,
all the while thinking
with a bitter delight
that her husband,
who has frequent trips
sees a different girl every night.
He knows this,
all the staff at the airport
that have an occasional drink know this.
But his wife,
his obnoxiously cheerful wife,
sits in blissful ignorance.

They're still talking,
still trying to make conversation
while a baby mewls in the background,
and the golf spectators cheer at a whole in one.
He's tired.
let off momentarily by the bar manager
he sneaks another small glass of
***
mixes it with Dr. Pepper before walking into the back.
His breathing is methodical,
he waits for a sound,
anything
at all to signify his existence,
his meaning of living
before he takes another sip of his drink.
The *** goes down hard,
***** threatens
to
displace
his pride
but he manages to keep it down.
"YO!"
He winches
at the rust filled tone in his managers voice.
More people have pulled into the bar.
Its busy he needs help.
He lets out a curse
it bursts forth then
settles
hovering before is red eyes
before pushing away from the desk.
The metal legs scrap against the stone floor.
Another sound that makes his mind
believe that ***** is the only
escape
to some type of comfort.
His rubber soled shoes squish as he walks.
He sighs.
Sounds of golf cheering and baseball playing
distracts him
momentarily from his misery.

A jolt of pain doubles him over.

"Has my temple split?" he thinks.
He gingerly flutters his first three fingers
against the vein pounding incessantly.

A young woman walks up the the bar.

She belongs on a beach, he thinks.
Her hair hangs between her shoulder blades.
Her eyes are are light,
her skin glows
between her light turquoise mesh shirt
and bleach white shorts.
She orders a cold coffee,
he pushes the can over slowly
watching
her shell earrings clink against her jaw bone.
She gets up,
he watches,
and walks from the bar.
An arm wraps around her waist
outside the threshold of the bar
and kisses her softly on her forehead.
Her father perhaps.
She doesn't look back.

He did not stick at all in her mind.

He instantly erases her face
and resumes to dancing his fingertips
against his excited vein.
The clocks reads 8:25.
Two more hours.

clear-headed as I infiltrate
live spectrum of
pen-and-ink colouring

pleasantly and quietly
imagining where and when
all of this ends

this hood is my home
and I have been here before

home bound, cloud bound
my burning heart will scold,
then cool you down

turning the dial to call forth
who it is you seek

gender-less as the elements
I walk about this place

I see the winches
are miniature from up here
houses have shrunk

various complexes  
vaguely keeping their
stature

deep inside an empty well
dark green with speckled silver moss
mute stone
soprano drips
my wet hands lifting up above my head
grasping rope which winches
  slowly
    upwards me
      up onto my toes
        then grinding past the hewn walls
          towards a glowing disk of night
            a starlit darkness
              high above
and then
  out into the full cold air
    above the stubbled fields of mud
  higher than the trees below
    which rustle so
  lifted by a whispered wind
    unmask the gentle curving earth
  drifting back
to black