I told the nice young woman who cut my hair that I went to school in Fredericksburg. She said she thought I might have gone to high school with her dad.
For some reason, that made me feel SO old.
Update — people on Facebook have now informed me that the phrase “nice young woman” is employed only by old people.
IT WAS THOSE GOD DAMN LEG LIFTS. FITNESS IS A LIE.
Fitness is a lie perpetrated upon us by the … Fitness-Industrial Complex.
I blame Republicans.
Fried mild Italian sausage, melted mozzarella, and spaghetti sauce, served on toast.
There is a superb op-ed piece in The Roanoke Star today that was written by my good friend and colleague, Russell Painter. You can find it right here.
Do check it out!
Draw your
slim white finger to your lips in your thoughtful
pause at the coffee shop.
Glide it unknowingly down
the slender pink bank of your lower lip
beneath the easy stream of your speech,
your lithe tongue a siren there,
pressing gently along your syllables,
and your enlivened words
her serene refrain.
Draw your
eyes to the bright light at the great window —
the iridescent blue of the sky you led me to,
Your irises reflecting
the heaven that is yet less than you.
Draw your
warm opal palm over the pages of your book, to show me,
though its words are only hieroglyphs —
illegible in my ardor,
Iberian beside you,
arcane runes under your perfume.
Draw your
fingertips to touch my knee
in gentle reassurance,
sensing my avidity.
These — all of these —
Song and lesser heaven, hieroglyph and touch of knee,
draw me
to you, now and ever, whether
present or in memory.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2023
Photo credit: By Takeaway – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26758175
I love this song. This was the ninth track from U2’s landmark 1991 album, “Achtung Baby.” I remember listening to this song while munching on Butterfingers candy bars, cramming nervously for psych exams in my dorm room during the 1993/94 school year at Mary Washington College.
By psych exams, I mean tests in my psychology classes — not tests administered to me by a psychiatric professional. But, hey, maybe they should have given me the latter. It might have saved everyone a lot of time.
How fortunate are
those garments, wrapped, as they are,
on your curvature.
Fashion (Mode), color lithograph by Otto Lendecke, 1912
I got really excited the other night — I saw an immense, graceful heron glide over the Roanoke River to land beside a … beaver dam!! Which had apparently always been there, but which had heretofore escaped my notice! And there were beavers bobbing and swimming about! (I’m guessing they are nocturnal?)
I tried to get pictures and video for the whole gang — but it was too dark. The footage I shot was all shadow.
Then I made the mistake of excitedly posting the following on Facebook: “I just saw a beavers and a heron!”
The. Jokes. Will. Not. Stop. (Sheesh, you people.)
This includes a lot of “heroin” comments. I’m kinda surprised by the level of drug-related humor out there.
Pal of mine tonight: “I will need moral support!”
Me: “Will amoral support suffice? That’s kinda my thing.”
You
are
fully
a quarter of all seasons, and time, for all of every autumn gathers up in you.
Your
fair
face
is made from clear Septembers.
Your eyes are every October.
Novembers are your crown —
leaves ignite there — in the darkening harvest brushfire of your hair.
Let
Time
keep
weighted winter; diffident spring; sudoric summer.
Rather, fall across me,
rouse me to sensation,
stir me and touch me
as a cooling wind with scent of smoke.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2023
Illustration: “Autumn,” Alfons Mucha, 1896
