“The Writer”
At night he dreamt of birds, thousands of them,
imprisoned in his house.
Ravens screamed in the attic.
Sparrows panicked in the hall.
He sat at his desk. A Jay pecked
Frantically at his shirt sleeve.
The basement door revealed
Torrents of finches, erupting in the dark
A loud gray storm
Of beaks and tiny claws.
Seagulls suffered in the cupboards.
Parakeets in the rafters, trapped,
Raged in Etruscan.
He crossed the room.
Owls
Moaned under the floorboards.
Twelve red cardinals
Lined his kitchen shelves –
A discordant jury.
Peacocks plead in the oven.
In a jar of sugar
Titmice struggled for air.
At his desk were
Photographs, letters
Pens and a half dead Marten.
He reached for his old brown afghan but felt
Bone and feather
The heaving brown breast
Of a starving eagle.
Sometimes the scratch
Of pen against paper brought
Respite from birdsong:
Two less wings against the silence
One less voice in that
Troubled aviary.
A parrot perched
On his paper stacks.
“Remorse,” it offered feebly.
“Regret,” he answered back.
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Eric’s poetry, short stories and photography have been featured by publications throughout the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and India. These include Quail Bell Magazine, Dagda Publishing, Every Day Poets, Every Day Fiction, Illumen, Down in the Dirt, Under The Bed, The Piker Press, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Dead Snakes, UFO Gigolo, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, The Bright Light Cafe, Aphelion, Tales of the Zombie War, Haikuniverse, The Bees Are Dead, Poems-for-All, Poetry Pacific, Poetrypoeticspleasure Ezine, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and Winedrunk Sidewalk: Shipwrecked in Trumpland.
His poems and short stories were also included in six anthologies: Dagda Publishing’s “Threads” in 2013; Dagda Publishing’s “All Hail the New Flesh” in 2014; Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine’s 2016 Anthology, 2017 Anthology and 2018 Anthology; and Down in the Dirt’s “The Flickering Light” in 2019. Eric’s science fiction/horror story, “At the End of the World, My Daughter Wept Metal,” was nominated for the Sundress Publications 2018 Best of the Net Anthology.
Eric also currently enjoys partnering with Philippe Atherton-Blenkiron and Dennis Villelmi on The Bees Are Dead, a transatlantic webzine devoted to dystopian and post-apocalyptic prose, poetry, art and photography.
- “The Writer” by Eric Robert Nolan - July 22, 2019