Godspeed to the People of Baltimore.

It’s a great town with absolutely wonderful, friendly, good-natured people.

Here’s hoping that peace and safety return again to all.

Midnight existential angst.

It is always at its apex when, in silence and under cover of darkness, one day supplants another.  Sleep recedes, drawing back like the tide of an ever quickening, warm ocean.

Freud wrote that we are driven by two basic needs: the sex urge and the desire to be great. Is it a sign of advancing age that the latter eclipses the former?

When I was young, I chased young women. But at midnight now my mind will chase the racing, red, flame-bright hare of purpose, that year by year gains distance from me with its burning slim legs, as the years ahead themselves grow fewer.

I was chased by a bull when I was 19.

I was hiking around Locust Grove, Orange County, in the perilous land of VIRGINIA. The Internet, and even DVDs, weren’t a thing yet. In my day, people had to AIMLESSLY WALK LONG DISTANCES just for fun.

It wasn’t pleasant; holy crap. I was even wearing red shorts at the time.

There are two morals to the story:

1) Never trespass, but especially at farms.

2) Hiking is bad for you. Stay home and watch TV.

Friends kept calling me “The Bull Runner” in college.  I made it a point to eat burgers at the school cafeteria every day, because Karma’s a bitch, Baby.

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Can I ask you guys a rhetorical question?

And, for the record, I am also a member of the Rebel Alliance.

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A very short review of “The Taking of Deborah Logan” (2014)

“The Taking of Deborah Logan” (2014) was decent enough; I’d give it a 7 out of 10.  It’s a nice variation of the found-footage horror movie.   It begins as a straightforward documentary-in-production, as a young film crew follows a troubled Alzheimer’s patient.  Then it becomes apparent that there are even darker forces at work.

There’s nothing terribly new here, but it’s still scary enough.  The pacing is a bit slow, the special effects were nothing new, but the makeup effects were very well done.  There’s a very nice touch at the very end.

Jill Larson is fantastic in the title role.  Seriously, where did they find this woman?  She’s a superb actress, even playing the “normal” Deborah Logan with charm and sympathy.  The screenwriters should have shown us more of the unafflicted Deborah, to raise the stakes emotionally when she gets all demonified.

It’s also fun seeing Anne Ramsay again; she’s a cool, fun actress.  Does anyone else remember her as Jamie’s wacky sister in “Mad About You?”  I used to love that show when I was in my 20’s.  Go ahead and ask to see my “man card;” I’m used to it by now.

The Taking of Deborah Logan

“Delaware Sheets,” by Eric Robert Nolan

First published in Every Day Poets, May 2013. It was edited down from maybe three times its length.

People still tell me that they like this one.

“Delaware Sheets”

Sharon lies,

a sylph amid the sheets
in our room in the hills,
drawn up around her –
waves of fabric.
Her warmth is the same
as that of green hills:
gentle, blessed by the sun,
fertile with promise.
Her dark eyes
are as thickets.

(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2013

“Trembling and obedient, she ate that burning heart out of his hand.”

“In his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil. He woke her then and trembling and obedient she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping I saw him then depart from me.

“Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her?  Find nourishment in the very sight of her?  I think so.  But would she see through the bars of his plight, and ache for him?”

— Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, First Sonnet.

(Everyone else is quoting Shakespeare today; I just figured I’d go in the other direction.)

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“Spring and Summer,” by Eric Robert Nolan

Happy Spring! Enjoy “Spring and Summer,” originally published by Dead Snakes in July 2013.

Spring and Summer
Spring is
An exercise in boldness.
The first faint green
Leaves peek like tentative children
Along low and skeletal limbs.  Then –
They multiply and clutter up
The branches in bright verdant armies
Chasing away winter in favor
Of summer’s emerald empire.

It’s Billy the Bard’s Birthday!!!

If you’re a Romeo, kiss your Juliet.  If you’re a Juliet, kiss your Romeo.  If you are single, as I am, channel your frustration, and JUST TAKE OVER THE PLACE LIKE GODDAM CAESAR.

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers