Whatever I meant in that moment and mood, it seems blurred and faded now. The words sound nice. Maybe that’s why I was satisfied with them at the time. But I can’t say I’m satisfied with them now. The drawing, though, I like better. I can’t criticize someone for the way he looks. His expression seems the result of having lived many lives in one. Now I wonder: is that, […]
Though the canvas arrived five years after the poem, it was immediately obvious, to me, at least, that the two belong together. The message of both, if there is one, seems to be the same: be attentive; each day is a glory of its own. Survive. Live on. And if they bear no message, which is certainly possible, they still share the characteristics of weathered, well-lived poems. ~ [ 2016 […]
This morning, half an hour before sunrise, I heard two mourning doves: one across the street, calling from the neighbor’s fir tree; the other on the street south of ours, from the dense pine in front of a house sold a year or two ago by the elderly couple who used to live there. Early morning. Birds. Trees. And so the note I wrote August 1, 2018, already has that […]
If I remember correctly, this poem is the first I wrote in the form of a dictionary entry; hence the category, Definitions, in which I’ve filed a couple dozen or more poems and notes that fit that term. I’ve thought before, and I think again now — though I’m sure I’m not the first to think it — what a fine thing it would be to have an entire dictionary […]
I was climbing the hill this morning, when I heard a jogger behind me, coming along with heavy steps, a kind of heel-slapping motion that hurt just to listen to — and up he came, slowly passing me, and he was in pain. Then he climbed the steps of the house at the top of the hill, checked his watch, and went inside. About this time, “Miss Kitty,” the little […]
I love what I call shared faces — faces that blend and overlap in mutual understanding, compassion, and sympathy. I have drawn many such, without knowing how the first of them came about; it was, most definitely, not a matter of deliberation or intent. In other words, it just happened. And just as they exist in me, in the so-called “imaginary world,” they exist around me, in the so-called “real […]
This poem was written fifteen years after my father’s death. He was a good reader, and remembered what he read, but as an adult he wasn’t a reader of many books; certainly not of poems. Like so many of his generation, he read the daily newspaper from front to back. And like my mother, he encouraged his three children to read, and expected us to do well in school, which, […]
How lovely. My first thought is, What Others See is ripe for illustration. My second is, how wonderful it would be if I could somehow see what you imagine as you read this fairy tale of a poem. That would be magical indeed. ~ [ 2010 ]
We have moved beyond genocide, to environmental suicide — women, children, butterflies. Thus we kill ourselves and think it wise. Look at me, Ma, my desk is made of gold; my toilet’s like a whale’s mouth. Yes; and thy heart is black, and thou art not my son. ~ [ 2009 ]
I have to laugh: the preface sounds almost as if it means something. Ghostly storytellers and night-blue mirrors aside, it begins with a question which, for me, aptly defines the dream experience, and that of sleep and wakefulness as well. Which is which, though, remains agreeably subject to question. Of course this is familiar ground; I speak of it often; I might even say that most, if not all, of […]
William Michaelian 