Eric Robert Nolan- Two Poems

To Go Beyond

“To go beyond

Is as wrong as to fall short,”

Confucius counseled all of us.

Yet her every aspect compels me

To go beyond.

She is impossible not to adore;

She is impossible not to tempt

Any man, I think, in casual conversation,

To press past delicate boundaries.

Flirting at first acquaintance

is a kind of high-wire act.

Lean left too much

And one falls 

To a missed opportunity.

Lean too far right,

And a man overextends. 

Whether she knows it or not

She holds the end of that wire

In her delicate, pale hands

Adorned by burgundy nail polish.

Self-styled women

Are always the loveliest – 

Each is unique.

They own their own look.

Hers is that of a slim red reed –

A burgundy wool jacket

Snug down the length of her svelte frame.

There’s an antique look to it –

Rather reminiscent 

Of forties-era femme fatales.

Yet it’s also conservative somehow –

The sensible Fall coat

Of an academic at autumn –

A young professor, perhaps,

Briskly traversing some campus walk

(Burgundy leaves fall here and there around her)

To deliver a lecture

On art or architecture

Some subject, I am certain

In which details appeal to the eye,

For her own eyes are fast

And discerning, seeking details,

Darting gently about me.

She appraises me quickly –

Am I an avid reader,

As she doubtlessly is herself?

Her black hair is drawn back in a clip

Both carefree and

Easily utilitarian.

Her face is as round and fair and pink

As the soft new bulb of a rose.

“What are you reading?”

She inquires brightly.

Her wooly burgundy sleeve

Brushes my wrist as she sits

Beside me on the bench.

My response is concise and polite:

Tom Clancy’s latest.

I mutter a bit about plots and spies.

I want to say more.

I want to go beyond.

I want to tell her

She is a delicate, dark red, soft spire.

A rose-colored reed that makes

Autumn more beautiful.

But I only chat about the book,

My poetry unspoken,

And she moves on.

Have I fallen short?

Guerilla Poet  (for Dennis Villelmi)

Arm yourself

With pens and back-pocket notepads.

The cheap Bics you’ve bought

Are the blue cylinders of bullets.

Your notepad is Kevlar

Protecting you from an artless day.

Employ stealth.

Their humdrum eyes are everywhere,

Those who do not read, recite or care,

Those for whom your avocation

Is scribbling, at best.

Snipe at similes when their eyes are elsewhere.

Take aim carefully

At metaphors as targets.

Your divided mind

Is an automatic rifle –

A Kalashinkov, perhaps

Durable and always working

Under any adverse conditions

Load and reload its magazines –

The ammunition of your secret thoughts.

Let them click audibly

Up into the weapon of your page.

The images in your head

All those fierce yellows and fiery reds,

Are the erudite explosions of grenades.

Fight the good fight.

When their eyes are elsewhere, write.

©Eric Robert Nolan 2013

Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.   As an investigative journalist, his work has appeared on the front pages of The Culpeper Star-Exponent, The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress in the Virginia.  Eric’s poetry has been published by Dagda Publishing, Every Day Poets, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dead Snakes, The Bright Light Café, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere.    His first novel, a horror- science fiction story entitled “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More,” will be published by Dagda Publishing on November 20th.