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.

Untitled short poem, January 31, 2022

Through all of this world’s noise,
its augurs
and its clamor
and all of its iniquitous, ugly voices,
your memory is ever
a gentle refrain in my heart.



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Photo credit: Takkk, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

“Night Shadows,” Edward Hopper, 1922

Etching.  From the October 1922 issue of Shadowland.

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(I swear I thought they were Tetris at first.)

This is the only response of which I am capable in response to those … Wordle things that people keep posting.



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An “Ozark” Season 4 prediction — Ben there, done that.

l think that I can predict what will help finally bring down “Ozark’s” Wendy Byrde (the priceless Laura Linney).  Then again, I am almost invariably wrong in my predictions for TV shows, so maybe you should take this with a grain of salt.  Either way, various Seasons 3 and 4 SPOILERS after the jump below  …

Continue reading An “Ozark” Season 4 prediction — Ben there, done that.

Variant cover to “Catwoman” #1, Stanley “Artgerm” Lau, 2018

DC Comics.

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“Spleen,” by Charles Baudelaire

I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years.

A heavy chest of drawers cluttered with balance-sheets,
Processes, love-letters, verses, ballads,
And heavy locks of hair enveloped in receipts,
Hides fewer secrets than my gloomy brain.
It is a pyramid, a vast burial vault
Which contains more corpses than potter’s field.
— I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon,
In which long worms crawl like remorse
And constantly harass my dearest dead.
I am an old boudoir full of withered roses,
Where lies a whole litter of old-fashioned dresses,
Where the plaintive pastels and the pale Bouchers,
Alone, breathe in the fragrance from an opened phial.

Nothing is so long as those limping days,
When under the heavy flakes of snowy years
Ennui, the fruit of dismal apathy,
Becomes as large as immortality.
— Henceforth you are no more, O living matter!
Than a block of granite surrounded by vague terrors,
Dozing in the depths of a hazy Sahara
An old sphinx ignored by a heedless world,
Omitted from the map, whose savage nature
Sings only in the rays of a setting sun.



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“Portrait de Madame Sabatier,” Vincent Vidal, 19th Century

Gouache, pencil and watercolor on paper.  Portrait of Apollonie Sabatier, French courtesan and muse of Charles Baudelaire.

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“My arms are weary because I have embraced the clouds.”

“The Complaints of an Icarus”

The lovers of prostitutes
Are happy, healthy, and sated;
As for me, my arms are weary
Because I have embraced the clouds.

It is thanks to the peerless stars
That flame in the depth of the sky
That my burned out eyes see
Only the memories of suns.

I tried in vain to find
The middle and the end of space;
I know not under what fiery eye
I feel my pinions breaking;

Burned by love of the beautiful
I shan’t have the sublime honor
Of giving my name to the abyss
That will serve me as a tomb.

— Charles Baudelaire



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Portrait of Charles Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat, circa 1863

Lampposts keeping warm.

South Jefferson Street, Roanoke, Virginia.

I could be mistaken, but I believe that the hats and scarves tied to lampposts and benches have been placed there for needy people to take.  I’ve read about this in other parts of the country — I had no idea that people did this in Roanoke.   There are some good, kind souls in my quiet, little city.



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“Jede Nacht Besucht Uns Ein Traum,” Alfred Kubin, 1900

“Every Night a Dream Visits Us.”  Sketch.

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