All posts by Eric Robert Nolan

Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations. Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.

What’s in a name?

Somebody just e-mailed me some coronavirus information, but he told me his source was “Doctor Specious,” and now I’m thinking twice about EVERYTHING this dude has ever said to me.



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I didn’t choose the coronavirus life; the coronavirus life chose ME.

Yeah, turns out I was next up on the dance card for this colossal prick of a pathogen. I had a positive reading on an antigen test tonight. (If you haven’t ordered your free tests from the federal government, you should do so. It’s quick and easy.)

Fun fact — did you know that most biologists agree that viruses are not technically “alive?” Sure, they can replicate and adapt to their environment, but they can’t do things like grow, or produce their own energy, or remain internally stable (homeostasis). So they can’t actually pass the basic criteria for what scientists consider “life.”

So, if you think about it, I and my fellow Covid-afflicted Americans are fighting zombies.

Please … do what you can not to catch this and subsequently spread it further. Be a Rick Grimes and not one of The Whisperers.


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Today’s agenda — contact my friend in seminary.

Ask him if a Jesus-shaped ice-pop is an example of eisegesis.

I’ll show myself out.

C’mon. This is GOLD. I am CLEVER. (I am indeed tired of explaining to everybody that I am clever.)



“Saudade,” José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, 1899

“Longing.”

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Sigh. Mama told me there’d be days like this.

Actually, she didn’t. This f***ed up apocalyptic shit is what I was warned about by “The Stand,” “Planet of the Apes,” George A. Romero and 80’s-era comic books.

Honorable mention goes to the TV adaptation of “The Third Wave.”



The Roanoke Times publishes my letter about the Ukrainian people.

I’m very happy today to learn that The Roanoke Times has published my letter to the editor about the war in the Ukraine.  You can find it right here:

Letter: A hopeful heart amid despair

Thanks, as always, to the editorial staff of The Roanoke Times for allowing me to share my thoughts.



You’re all nuts.

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Cover to “House of Secrets” #94, Bernie Wrightson, 1971

DC Comics.

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Illustration of Papegaaiduiker Fratercula Arctica, Jos Zwarts

Drawing.  Donated to Wikimedia Commons in 2015.

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“Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.



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