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.

It’s a windy, rainswept morning in Roanoke, Virginia.

So how about a poem about a windy, rainswept morning?

This Windy Morning,” by Eric Robert Nolan

The gales cry,
their sounds rise,
so strangely like
the wailing of children.
The gales
have ripped a rift in purgatory.

Along the low hill’s haze
and indistinct palette of grays,
the thinning slate shapes
are either columns of rain,
or a quorum of waifish wraiths.

Condemned but inculpable
are those little figures —
long ago natives maybe — in an ironic,
insufficient sacrament:
this obscuring rain’s
parody of baptism.

If that faultless chorus
should never see heaven,
they will ever be wind without end
their lamentations ever
shrill within rare
arriving spring downpours.
Always will the squall
imprison their calls.

You and I should refrain
any temptation to breach
these palisades of rain —
lest we be greeted by each
iron-colored countenance:
the sorrowing slim nickel
of an infant’s visage,
little boys’ graying faces,
the silvering eyes of the girls.

© 2017 Eric Robert Nolan

 

Rodrigo Paredes

Photo credit: By Rodrigo Paredes from Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina (Raindrops on the window) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Cover to “The New Yorker,” Edna Eicke, October 27th, 1945

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Tis’ the season.

You know which one I mean.  Halloween 2018 is advancing on us like a creeping black cat.  I hope you guys are getting into the spirit.  I know a lot of you are already way ahead of me.

I know Emily E. James is.  She spends most of her time being a first-class editor (you can find her website right here), but she also finds time for her own unique brand of truly macabre handmade Halloween decorations.  As you can see, she is a sublimely talented woman (albeit one who is quite mad).

Emily has an Etsy store for her creations in the works.  I’ll post it here when it becomes available — lest the little infernal monsters find and haunt me.

 

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“The Wounded Man,” Gustave Courbet, 1850

L'homme blessé

to be close – A Poem by Sam Rose

via to be close – A Poem by Sam Rose

Cover to “The X-Files: Season 10” #3, Carlos Valenzuela, 2013

IDW Publishing.

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It’s pumpkin season in Roanoke, Virginia.

October 2018.

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“Athenais,” John William Godward, circa 1908

Oil on canvas.

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Throwback Thursday: Bush’s “Machinehead” (1994)

This is the 90’s-est song that ever 90’s-ed.  Sure, a song by Ace of Base, Oasis or Right Said Fred will take you right back as well, but none of them had the staying power of Bush’s “Machinehead.”

The song is from the band’s “Sixteen Stone” album in December 1994, about seven months after I graduated from Mary Washington College.  It it was all over the airwaves. I played the radio a lot, because buying a lot of CD’s was a pricey proposition for somebody just out of school.  And, man, did I blast this.

 

 

Cover to “The Life of Captain Marvel” #1, Julian Tedesco, 2018

Marvel Comics.

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