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.

“prayer upon an empty hilltop,” by Eric Robert Nolan

what stars I find will usher me,
the moon will beam camaraderie,
what winds will wind around my ears
will bend to answer for my fears.

between them, all the endless space
will draw eternity to face
with vast and reassuring mien
the quandaries of the unserene.

here, the shade of me will mark
a figure in the violet dark.
all the hilltop consorts know
identity’s illusion, though.

let starlight penetrate my skin,
the moon expand to let me in,
the winds, again, absorb my voice,
if retrieval be their choice.

— (c) Eric Robert Nolan 2020

 

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By Jeremy Bishop tidesinourveins – https://unsplash.com/photos/wtEO1tLeNQwImageGallery, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62203699

Cover to “The Flash” #118, Mike Wieringo, 1996

DC Comics.

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“A new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.”

And suddenly he thought, I’m the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.

Abruptly that realization joined with what he saw on their faces–awe, fear, shrinking horror–and he knew that they were afraid of him. To them he was some terrible scourge they had never seen, a scourge even worse than the disease they had come to live with. He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones. And he understood what they felt and did not hate them. His right hand tightened on the tiny envelope of pills. So long as the end did not come with violence, so long as it did not have to be a butchery before their eyes.

Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain.

A coughing chuckle filled his throat. He turned and leaned against the wall while he swallowed the pills. Full circle, he thought while the final lethargy crept into his limbs. Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.

I am legend.

― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories

 

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“Cognac Bisquit,” Alfons Mucha, 1899

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Cover to “Alien Vs. Predator: Thicker Than Blood” #1, Chun Lo, 2019

Dark Horse Comics.

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“Nattering Harpy Short Poem,” by Eric Robert Nolan

I abhor your bland insistence,
yet admire your persistence.
Nag on, you resolute harpy!

 

 

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Illustration of a Harpie by Jean-Baptiste Coriolan, Monstrorum Historia, Ulisse Androvandi, 1642

Poster for “Alien 3” (1992)

20th Century Fox.

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“The cities swept about me like dead leaves …”

“The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass.”

― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

 

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Throwback Thursday: Wacky WallWalkers!!!

Okay, the Apple Jacks commercial below is a pretty regrettable example of 1980’s cornball marketing buffoonery.  I’ll tell you what, though — I have fond memories of that wicked-cool glow-in-the-dark Wacky Wallwalker that came as the cereal box prize.  (I am linking her to the DJ Nurse Annabella Youtube channel, by the way.)

Had I gotten mine as a prize with Apple Jacks?  I guess.  I know my mom had returned from the store with these for me once or twice.  (They were the non-glowing variety, but they were still fun as hell.)  She only partly regretted her decision when it became apparent that they left vague streak marks on white walls.  When these cheap toys started losing their key adhesiveness, all you had to do was wash them with soap to make them sticky again.  That might have had something to do with it.

That definitive treasure trove of information, Wikipedia, informs me that Wacky Wallwalkers are made from “elastomer.”  And they raked in about 80 million dollars for the Japanese-American inventor who bought the rights to the toy around 1983 from their prior owner in Japan.

I swear I want to play with one of these right now.

 

Cover to “House of Mystery” #191, Neal Adams, 1971

DC Comics.

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