I’m honored to share here that my poem “Roanoke Summer Midnight” appeared today over at The Piker Press. You can find it right here.
The Piker Press is an outstanding online journal of arts, sciences, fiction and non-fiction. As always, I’m grateful to Editor Sand Pilarski for allowing me to be a part of its creative community.
I’m honored to share here today that the Piker Press will feature five submissions of my writing in the coming months.
Editor Sand Pilarski has informed me that my horror/science fiction story, “Shine Now, Fiercely, Forever,” will appear at the weekly online literary magazine on December 10th. This story was originally published in January 2017 by The Bees Are Dead.
Four poems of mine will also be featured between January and May of 2019: “Confession,” “This Windy Morning,” “Roanoke Summer Midnight” and “My Mother’s Apartment.” These poems appeared over the last several years in the pages of Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine.
The Piker Press is a journal for arts, sciences, fiction and non-fiction that its creators like to think of it as “the illegitimate, online child of Analog and National Geographic, but funnier.” It’s a great online periodical featuring fun and thought-provoking material from a range of voices. You can find it right here at http://www.pikerpress.com/.
I’m not terribly happy with this reading — I had a cold at the time, and it certainly sounds like I rushed through it a bit. I still have fun with the poem, though.
That moon still sails past my window every night.
*****
“Roanoke Summer Midnight”
Its midnight moon is newly minted coin —
a white-hot silver obol
forged in burning phosphorus.
The crisping clouds around it blacken.
Its silhouetted mountains
are great blue gods at slumber
the faded-haze azure horizon’s
giants in the dim.
Those slopes have known a billion bones of hares
that raced upon them other midnights, then,
pausing, one by one,
drawing up their downy legs at last to final sleep.
Where the Shenandoahs’ driving
beryl falls to black,
aquamarine to onyx,
lay legions of hares — generations resting.
There are the hills where ivory
rabbits sleep among gods.
Ahead and under moonlight
the curving rural road obscures its end.
At right, an intersecting well-lit modern block
confuses the curling topography.
The fresh and symmetrical asphalt’s angle
mars the winding thoroughfare with order:
a ninety-degree anachronism.
That new and perfect subdivision
affronts the corner’s antebellum chimney,
broken down to stones and overrun in lavender
— its lilac colors driven plum by sunset.
That last century’s smokestack
was itself effrontery once
to the formless places where natives stayed
their only edifice the stars,
their only currency the blinding coin of moon.
Eyeing, then, the summits’ crowning cobalt
driving down in royal blue to coal,
I hope to one day take my rest
there, in the darkening indigo,
alongside giants,
among white rabbits in myriad easy stillness,
to pause myself at last and sleep beneath
what meadows stretch in cerulean dark,
where hares will race like moon-kissed silver,
or comets of darting pearl.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2017
Hey, gang! I had my reading of my poem “Roanoke Summer Midnight” included in a video by Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine a couple of weeks ago, after the piece was published in its 2017 anthology. If you happened to miss that, this is the individual recording that I sent to the publisher for the video’s creation. (I just uploaded it to Youtube.)
I was especially honored to see one of my recordings featured at today’s launch of the Peeking Cat Anthology 2017. The poem I’m reading is “Roanoke Summer Midnight,” the same that was selected for the annual collection.
The video is below. There are five poets featured reading their work; I am the fifth. Mine is maybe a little harder to hear than the others, although it seems perfectly audible over headphones. (My recording equipment here at home is truly rudimentary.)
I believe this is the first time I’d recorded myself reading my own work. I hope that you enjoy it, along with the excellent other poets performing here.
If you are inclined to peruse some of the year’s best indie lit, you can find a link to ordering information here. (The anthology is available in hardcover and softcover, as well as in Kindle format.) Be sure to check out my poem, “Roanoke Summer Midnight,” as well as poetry, prose, art and photography from 70 other contributors.
Editor Samantha Rose was also kind enough to interview me; you can find that right here.
Thanks, Sam, for the opportunity to see my work featured in this terrific independent literature anthology!
I’m so pleased to share here that Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine has selected “Roanoke Summer Midnight” to appear in its 2017 Anthology. I’m always honored to have my poetry selected for the magazine, but seeing my work appear in the annual anthology really is a special distinction.
The anthology will be published in October. I’ll post ordering information here as it develops.
Thank you, Editor Samantha Rose!
I might have gotten ripped off. These are … “ECLIPSE VIEWING GLASSES,” but it was only after I paid three dollars for them at 7-11 that I realized I have no detailed understanding of why I might need them, or how much (necessary?) protection they might offer.
The packaging instructs me to “WATCH THE SOLAR ECLIPSE.” But … you could also call them “bird-watching glasses” and it wouldn’t technically be false advertising, right?
If anyone can advise me on how best to photograph the August 21st eclipse, I’d be grateful. I have a digital camera and a cell phone. I tried to photograph the last full moon (I wanted a pic to accompany my “Roanoke Summer Midnight” poem), but they absolutely did not turn out. The only result was that now my neighbors think I’m nuts for taking pictures outside at 1 a.m.
[UPDATE 8/4/17: Okay, as it turns out, eclipse-viewing glasses are serious business. If you don’t use properly manufactured glasses, you can seriously damage your retinas, or even blind yourself. What’s more, I’ve read online that there are particularly horrible people who have been selling glasses that are not safe to use? Let’s hope that’s just an unconfirmed rumor.
A pal of mine sent me this link. (The glasses I bought below actually do meet the right regulatory standards.)
Reputable Vendors of Solar Filters & Viewers]
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 