Does this cozy Southern house
harbor an audacious mouse?
Because heaven only knows
what just ran across my toes.
There is a mourning dove on the telephone wire out front just staring through my window at me.
This might mean I need to become a mourning dove-themed superhero a la Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One.”
Figures I’d get the depressing #@&* instead of a falcon or an owl something.
I’m honored to share here that several of my poems have been selected by the Dead Letter Radio podcast! “March Midnight Window” was the first last night to be read and interpreted by host Taize Jones, who brings a relatable and sublimely empathetic voice to his program. My poem is the sixth and last piece to be read on Episode 10, “Eisegesis” (at about the 18:02 mark).
You can listen to the entire episode right here. Dead Letter Radio is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and over at Listen Notes.
I really recommend that you check out Taize’s show. It’s a truly unique online venue — giving listeners the feel that they are reacting to poems with a trusted friend. (I’ll bet that its style of presentation successfully engages many new readers of poetry.)
Thanks again, Taize!
There’s a damn terrific poem over at Anti-Heroin Chic by my friend and colleague Dennis Villelmi — take a look at “Everlasting Pieces.”
One of the things that consistently appeals to me about Dennis’ work is his frequent use of dark road-trip-through-America settings — like Jack Kerouac crossed with a troubled, looking-glass Norman Rockwell. When I finally get a chance someday to drive my own cross-country odyssey, I am going to bring his poems along with me.
I know at least four people who’ve contracted it, one of whom died. The remaining three got very, verrrry sick. Trust me, the disease is often no picnic for those who survive it.
Please be careful.
W. H. Auden called the mid-twentieth century The Age of Anxiety. It was the title of a book-length epic poem that won him a 1948 Pulitzer Prize, and it depicted his perception of the loneliness and isolation of the mid-twentieth century. (I have not read it.)
Auden set it in a bar in New York City. (He actually immigrated there in 1939; many casual poetry readers are unaware that he had dual citizenship with Britain and America.)
I wonder what Auden would think of the early 21st Century, here at his adopted home. I t started with the September 11 terror attacks and has arrived at a pandemic that has killed 443,000 Americans (along with nearly 94,000 back in his native Britain). Evictions and unemployment have predictably risen right along with the deaths.
And America seems the closest now to civil war since … the actual Civil War began in 1861. (We did, after all, see one side storm the Capitol to attack its democratically elected government.)
I’ll bet our anxiety could give Auden’s a run for its money.
I’m honored today to see my short poem “Ode to a New Black Ballpoint Pen” appear over at The Piker Press! You can find it right here.
Thanks, as always, to Editor Sand Pilarski for allowing me to be a part of The Piker Press community!
Dammit, I want Covid to be over.
I miss sidling quietly through heavy crowds at the mall making lightsaber sounds.
Seriously, you guys should hear my lightsaber impression. I have a really deep voice and I can do this vvvvvibrating thing with it that sounds straight out of the movies. Work once stopped for a full afternoon at my first job because my co-workers wanted me to call every department on the phone and do it for them. I was legend.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 