Eric Robert Nolan- Two Poems

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.

Lying Close

Lying with her,

Lying close,

Lying while her past escapes in silver whispers.

Lying with her,

Lying close,

Lying while the unspoken

Is a rough coal in my own throat.

Her soft voice

Is the cry of the single quail at dusk --

Easy and artless, unaware

It’s alone as night encroaches.

My silence

Fails to announce the purposeful, leaning

Turn of the falcon’s arc.

Lying with her,

Lying close,

Lying by omission.

BIO:  Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.  Before becoming a grant writer, he was a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His investigative work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers and local magazines in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress.

Eric’s poetry has been featured by Every Day Poets, Dagda Publishing, Dead Beats Literary Blog, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere.  His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.