The good folks over at Aphelion Webzine informed me today that my poem, “Iphigenia’s Womb,” will appear soon in its upcoming June issue.
Thanks to Poetry and Filk Editor Iain Muir for another great opportunity to share my writing with fans of fantasy and mythology!
I’ll post a link when the piece appears.
— Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita. I most recently heard this recited in the excellent new science fiction film, “Ex Machina.” I had one of my own characters quote him when a new weapon was revealed in my novel. This photo was floating around in my downloads folder, for some reason.
I always thought he invoked the quote after the first atomic bomb was successfully tested in New Mexico in 1945, right there at the site. Now I am reading that he recited it afterward?
Look at the photo. The guy had the face of a thoughtful, boyish, soft spoken poet. Then consider his invention.
God has bizarre sense of irony.
That’s a glitch in The Matrix.
… with this article from yesterday’s New York Times:
I can’t imagine how campus must have changed since I was a student. I lived on campus for four years, and I swear I never witnessed anything like the things this article describes. I remember “Mother’s Rugby” being an affable group of sports nuts, and nothing more. I knew one member because we were in a class together — he was a very nice guy. During one walk around Fredericksburg, he actually defended a couple of female companions from a few locals who were about to harass them.
I don’t even remember too much controversy on campus connected with any social or political issues. I wasn’t aware of any organized vocal feminist community, or anyone visibly opposing feminists either.
In 1991, I think, there was some controversy connected with a … Multi-cultural Center? I think it was an office dedicated to advocating for students who were members of racial minorities? And when the gay students demonstrated for social acceptance, there were a few psychos wearing homemade anti-gay t-shirts (suggesting, of course, a Freudian defense mechanism for their own unconscious impulses).
But there was nothing like the events we’re currently reading and hearing about.
I might just stop reading the news, so that I can preserve my image of the college that I still love.
And thank you for the “likes” and the “shares.” It really does mean a lot.
When I Meet the Devil
When I meet the Devil
I’ll kill him.
Not for his endless treachery, richly expressed
In perfectly worded, erudite, platinum-bright aphorisms.
Not for the endless lies that spiral from his quick lips
Like fine red ethereal thread, spooling at our feet
Like bloodshot spider-web.
Not for the false
Compliments that slide off his baroque tongue
Like newly minted coins of fool’s gold.
When I meet the devil,
I’ll kill him
Because God made him.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2013
First published by Dead Snakes, May 2013:
http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2013/05/eric-robert-nolan-two-poems.html
Photo credit: “Der Heilige Michael,” Luca Giordano, 1663 (via Wikimedia Commons)
I wrote this short poem 23 years ago, as a junior at Mary Washington College. It was first published by The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archives in July 2013:
http://iwvpa.net/nolaner/zz-november.php
November, Blue Ridge Mountains, 1992
November compelled us to visit the hills,
Where ignorant rock and lofty pine
Were witness to our disregard
For strangeness, temptation and time.
But memories are sticky things.
Will any mountain ever let
Me dream again? Can I now
Feel rain without regret?
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 1992
Photo credit: Dave in the Triad, via Wikimedia Commons, “Rough Ride Tunnel on the Blue Ridge Parkway,” October 2008
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.
No, it’s just my new haircut. Because the world needs to know I actually am not a damned hippy. Everywhere that women love aging comic book nerds, hearts are breaking.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 