“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ”
― Norman Vincent Peale
Photo credit: By Vegehawk – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76907207
“Twas the Night Before Christmas,” by Clement Clarke Moore (read by me)
(Obviously not the best reading ever, but I had fun with it. And, yes, the actual title for the poem is “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”)
“‘I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry.”
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.’
— from W. H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening”
Photo credit:By Plismo – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9584464
“Pierwsza Gwiazdka,” Tadeusz Popiel
“Christmas Eve.” Date unknown.
A friend of mine wrote me a “Twilight Zone” intro and I love it.
His name is J. Sebastian Cunningham and he is a damn fine satirist. This still cracks me up every time I read it. (The James Woods reference is a nod to my resemblance to the actor.) Thanks again, J.
What was old is now new again.
Enter a complex yet unassuming man. One, well versed in word, both written and spoken. A man followed modestly by a people hungry for prose. A man that didn’t disappoint. Enter the writer’s mind, if you will, into the dark recesses of a James Woodian insanity that no Shakespearean play could duplicate, let alone imitate. Enter the mind of greatness and madness. Enter a mind living in…
The Twilight Zone.
Illumen to feature “Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks” in its Spring 2020 Issue.
Hey, I got one really terrific early Christmas present — Illumen will publish a poem of mine, “Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks,” in its Spring 2020 issue. This will be the second time that the print-only publication has featured my work — the first was when Illumen published my “Three Dreamers” set of poems back in 2013.
Illumen is a speculative poetry journal that is released quarterly by Alban Lake Publishing. Its editorial focus is to “describe other worlds in poetic prose, challenge heroes and villains with eloquent words, show the nightmare of real life in all its disgusting mud and muck.” It’s a wonderful place for a writer to see their creative work appear, and I’m grateful to Editor Tyree Campbell for allowing me to share my voice there.
Poster for “A Midnight Clear” (1992)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
“Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!”
“Lose the day loitering, ’twill be the same story
To-morrow, and the next more dilatory,
For indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!
What you can do, or think you can, begin it!
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin it, and the work will be completed.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Winter,” Alfons Mucha, 1897
I call it “Monster Melee Insomnia.”
I had genuine, serious, grownup responsibilities to meet yesterday.
And I was up sleepless at 2:21 AM the prior evening pondering what would happen if a group of Terminators fought John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”
I am 47 years old, people.
And I’ve got two more for you:
What would happen if The Blob fought The Thing? I suppose it all boils down to which has the fastest, most successful cellular-level method of attack. What about the baddie from Dean Koontz’ “Phantoms?”
And what would happen if the vampires from “30 Days of Night” fought the infected from “28 Days Later?” Sort of a … “30 Days of Night Later” kinda scenario?
There needs to be a name for this disorder I have. There needs to be hope for a treatment.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 