Hey, gang — I got my first movie review published! Thanks so much to Managing Editor Sand Pilarski at The Piker Press for letting me share my take on Alex Garland’s “Civil War” (2024).
Tag Archives: Virginia
“The Butterfly Enchanter,” Aldo Muzzarelli, 2021
Iron, resin and stoneware. Seen in Elmwood Park, Roanoke, Virginia. Photo by Eric Robert Nolan, 2024.
Enjoy this short story.
So I finally located that cache of shorts in storage that I was looking for. Now I can finally dress for the hot weather. Sorry about my blinding white legs, Roanoke.
How white are they? Let’s just say I hope you didn’t throw out your eclipse-viewing glasses.
Aquarium inside Center in the Square, Roanoke, Virginia, May 2024
Artwork outside Wilson Hughes Gallery, April 2024
Off Campbell Avenue in Roanoke, Virginia.
They periodically change their artwork on the outside of the building; this piece is especially beautiful.
Forest around Charlottesville, Virginia, Diego Tirira, 2005
Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Like White Plumeria Petal,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Your face will occasion the spaces
wherever I delay – prosaic places:
the sofa, the hall, the breakfast table
when slow new sun ascends in palette
of light against dark, you are with me,
observing the glowing morning,
sipping and smiling over coffee.
You, My Love, are always near,
for you are ever in reverie here.
Your arrival surprises me
at market among the rows
of pears and bright strawberries,
crates of crimson radiance,
and the hard and fragrant weights of apples,
their round and reddening-ember
emblems of autumn in bins.
You offer to buy some for me.
The curve of your hand falls over one
like white plumeria petal.
Unpredicted you appear,
For you are ever in reverie here.
When I pause at the park’s entrance,
piqued by inscrutable sculpture there,
you are on my arm again,
curious also at its
strange silver spades and towering contour,
the upward angled language of it,
its high iron hieroglyph.
You draw me close and joke
of Freud in girlish murmurs, your
quickened persistence of whimsy.
Your drollery will still adhere
For you are ever in reverie here.
Ever lovely, ever dear,
are ruminations I revere;
senses of you persevere,
for you are ever in reverie here.
© Eric Robert Nolan 2024
Photo credit: Ashley Campbell, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Feeling thankful for what I have.
Food, a nice place to live in a city that I love, a wonderful girl and loads of good friends. A good portion of the world is not so lucky.
Perspective is a good thing.
Eschewing the Oxford comma — that’s something else I’m thankful for.
Hot off the press from Ireland — The Galway Review 12.
I am currently enjoying The Galway Review’s annual anthology, The Galway Review 12 — which includes my poem, “The Beach House, Early Spring.” (The piece was published online by the magazine in October 2023.)
This really is one of the nicest honors I’ve received as a poet. The Galway Review is the city’s leading literary magazine, with more than a half a million readers worldwide, and I was included along with just seven other poets to see my work appear in this annual publication. I remain quite grateful to the magazine’s editors for selecting my poem.
If you’d like to peruse the anthology, you can read it online for free right here.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 