Copyright 2001 by Alan Nicoll
All Rights Reserved.

     The Rock
The rock, hammerlike,
pounds needles through my skull.
Passion plugs the holes;
the gold-eyed steel drips and is gone.
The wounds are healed at a touch.
She doesn't see the rock returning
when she leaves.
                             (4/20/77)


       My Room
The walls are cushioned with books.
Balls of air pop in the aquarium.
The nautilus shell stands vacant and dead on a shelf.
Two stones, sea-smoothed: she kissed one.
My typewriter stands silent;
Of what use is anything, when she is gone?
                           (4/28/77)


Three Miscellaneous Quatrains Inspired by
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I wake to dawn's bright kiss upon my eyes.
Is this the day I find a love?  I rise.
Thus each day's light I greet with unchanged hope,
And each day's night with tears and hopeless sighs.

It's centuries since Khayyam turned to dust,
And Cyrano is gone beneath the crust.
With wine or love as numbing drug we choose
To face the void; my choice is love - or lust!

Man's death's his greatest, undefeated foe,
As all forget, and all forever know.
O, stop my final breath with woman's lips!
I'll smile against her mouth, and gently go.


             Nature's Way

Oh, bury me alive among the pines
And plant a sapling on my back.  Or make
A nest of me for mice, to feed a snake.
My blood should swell the veins of columbines.

Don't put me in a box beneath the sod,
And no embalming fluid to salt the meat--
I must be food.  Please grant this last conceit;
I'll hoot hosannas to your twilight God.

The story of my life is told.  I shine
As villain, not as hero.  Jailed and maimed
I was, and by myself.  Not pitied:  blamed;
No eyes drop tears; no ears endure my whine.

Alive, none want my smile, my kiss, my voice;
But dead, a billion worms and germs rejoice.
                               (8/30/89)

A rose was never graced with such a color as we find
on this young lady's forehead, or even her behind.
A cadillac is not so shiny as the sheen we see right here
on this young lady's bosom and this spot below the ear.
But when we look at bodies dead, we really must beware:
to fall in love with brainless head is dumber than we dare.
                              (12/17/98)

Occasional Poem, August 4/16, 1998

Old mama, young boy
Growing up, growing old
We learn to value those we love,
We learn to love by being loved.
So many years between them,
How many years they will share.
Live again in the life of a young 'un,
The common man's immortality.

From Germany to Southern Cal
Is far in years and miles
But in between is poet Al
Make faces to bring smiles

Wars between and deaths too many
We learn to love by being loved.

Copyright 2001 by Alan Nicoll
All Rights Reserved.