1 Poem by Eric Robert Nolan

 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
Upon his paper stacks.
“Remorse,” it offered fee­bly.
“Regret,” he answered back.

First published by Dagda Publishing in 2013; in Dagda's poetry anthology, Threads, also in 2013; in Illumen Magazine in 2014; by Dead Snakes in 2016; by UFO Gigolo in 2016; by Poetry Poetics Pleasure Ezine in 2018; and by Every Writer and Down in the Dirt this past year. 

Bionote

Eric Robert Nolan's prose, poetry and photography have been featured by more than 30 print and online publications throughout the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and India.  His debut novel was the postapocalyptic science fiction story, The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More, published by Dagda Publishing in the United Kingdom in 2013.  His work has been included in six anthologies, he was a nominee for the Sundress Publications 2018 Best of the Net Anthology, and he is a past editor for the dystopian arts and literature journal, The Bees Are Dead.