This is me reciting a very short love poem that I wrote in college. “November, Blue Ridge Mountains, 1992” was first published in 2013 by the International Ware Veterans Poetry Archive.
November compelled us to visit the hills
Where ignorant rock and lofty pine
Were witness to our disregard
For strangeness, temptation and time.
But memories are sticky things.
Will any mountain ever let
Me dream again? Can I now
Feel rain without regret?
I received some nice news a little while ago — Jennifer S. will record my poem, “hens staring upward,” as part of her ongoing Youtube audio series. As I’ve shared here at the blog before, Jenny is a poet herself who lends her voice talents to help other independent writers gain exposure. (She was kind enough this past September to do a very skilled interpretation of my 2013 poem, “The Writer.”) I recommend that you check out her wonderful audio series over at her Youtube channel.
“hens staring upward” was published previously by Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine and Dead Snakes in 2015.
Ziff-Davis Publishing.
Illustration from “Stories from the Arabian Nights, Retold by Laurence Housman; with Drawings by Edmund Dulac,” 1907.
I’m happy today to be able to share The Bees Are Dead’s release of my audio recording of “Operation Staffhound,” by Philippe Atherton-Blenkiron. This truly excellent poem is an excerpt from his 2014 dystopian novel in verse format, “The Pustoy.” (I quite positively reviewed the book both here at the blog and over at Amazon, where it can be purchased — “Operation Staffhound” might be my favorite poem in the complete work.)
“The Pustoy” is a particularly dark science fiction epic that imagines a genocidal dictator, Lev Solokov, ruling a nightmarish future Britain. The brutal “Staffhounds” are his fascist foot-soldiers in the streets.
I had great fun reading the poem. I’m grateful to Philippe for allowing me to interpret it, and to The Bees Are Dead for sharing my recording with its audience:
Philippe Atherton-Blenkiron’s “Operation Staffhound” at The Bees Are Dead
To all of our Veterans — thank you for protecting our lives and liberty.
Photo: Flags stand beside graves of deceased veterans at the Utah Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Bluffdale, Utah, Nov. 10, 2015. More than 100 Airmen from Hill Air Force Base placed flags beside the burial sites of 5,646 veterans. (U.S. Air Force photo by R. Nial Bradshaw) [Wikimedia Commons]
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 