“August 1968,” by W. H. Auden
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
Oil on panel.
The premiere of Season 7 of “Game of Thrones” was damned good … enough for me to give it a 9 out of 10. (You know you’re enjoying a TV show when you are riveted to the screen.)
The dialogue and character development for this show is always first-rate, and the acting often is. Last night was no exception — the exchange between Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), for example, was priceless.
The glimpse of The Night King’s wight army, however brief, should please any horror fan. I watch a lot of horror movies, and I’m a tough fan to please. Yet I am still surprised at how this fantasy show continues to succeed in scaring me. It’s impressive. If the leaked script for Season 7 is accurate, then the bad guys in the final episode ought to be damned frightening.
I will reiterate a very minor longstanding quibble that I have had with “Game of Thrones” as someone who has not read the books. This story seems to attach tremendous dramatic emphasis to the movement and arrival of groups of people. I do understand the need for this, and its appeal — the logistics are part of George R.R. Martin’s world-building, and they bring detail and a sense of realism. There are times, however, when I feel like Daenerys’ defining character trait is that she … goes places. (Look! Now her army is here!)
I won’t say much more for fear of spoilers — this is a show where even mentioning a character’s name can suggest a chapter in his or her character arc. (I will say that I loved the opening segment, even if I was understandably puzzled at first.)
This is great TV.
I am honored tonight to share here that Quail Bell Magazine has kindly published a poem of mine, “Graceless Ravens Envy You.” You can read it here:
Quail Bell Magazine is a Richmond-based multimedia literature and arts journal “that explores the imaginary, the nostalgic, and the otherworldly through the highest quality creative and journalistic content.” It really is a wonderful and unique online periodical, and I encourage you to check it out.
“Graceless Ravens Envy You” first appeared at Dead Snakes in 2015.
If any of you guys enjoyed “Roanoke Summer Midnight” the other day, you can find the handful of other poems I’ve written so far this year right here.
Source: My poetry, 2017
Thank you, George A. Romero, for the countless hours of creepy entertainment that you gave us — both through your own movies and the entire horror sub-genre that they created.
I had so much fun I thought the world would end.
Article re: George A Romero’s death in the Los Angeles Times
DC Comics.
Marvel Comics.
Just a picture of three American businessmen being strung up by a female Russian spy. No political subtext here.
Oil on canvas.
“Roanoke Summer Midnight”
Its silhouetted mountains
are great blue gods at slumber
the faded-haze azure horizon’s
giants in the dim.
Those slopes have known a billion bones of hares
that raced upon them other midnights, then,
pausing, one by one,
and drawing up their downy legs at last to final sleep.
Where the Shenandoahs’ driving
beryl falls to black,
ultramarine to onyx,
lay legions of hares — generations resting.
There are the hills where ivory
rabbits sleep among gods.
Ahead and under moonlight
the curving rural road obscures its end.
At right, an intersecting well-lit modern block
confuses the curling topography.
The fresh and symmetrical asphalt’s angle
mars the winding thoroughfare with order —
a ninety-degree anachronism.
That new and perfect subdivision
affronts the corner’s antebellum chimney,
broken down to stones and overrun in lavender
— its lilac colors driven plum by sunset.
That last century’s smokestack
was itself effrontery once
to the formless places where natives stayed,
their only edifice the stars,
their only currency the blinding coin of moon.
Eyeing, then, the summits’ crowning cobalt
driving down in royal blue to coal,
I hope to one day take my rest
there, in the darkening indigo,
alongside giants,
among white rabbits in myriad easy stillness,
to pause myself at last and sleep beneath
what meadows stretch in cerulean dark,
where hares will race like moon-kissed silver,
or comets of darting pearl.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2017
Photo credit: By Jessie Eastland (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 