Like the poem that follows, this collection, too, is a poem museum. At least I imagine it as such. But 1,000 pages? Was that really necessary? I wonder if I will ever know. . At the Poem Museum The other day, I went to the poem museum. There were poems of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Some were made of words and others were physical objects, or word-extensions that very […]
Back in 2008, shortly after this poem was written, it found its way into a classroom, where it created quite a lot of confusion. The teacher who tried to make use of it told me that some of his students liked it, because they knew it must mean something, although they had no idea what it was. Other students were almost bitter in their disapproval, because they were sure it […]
Maybe I should burn all of the others and keep this one. January 17, 2021 . Until We Meet What if we think of words as bells, each with a sound that’s just arrived from a great distance — across fields, down mountains, over graveyards, swept along alleys and streets, and of we who ring them as angels without names? Songs and Letters, September 24, 2008 . [ 998 ]
On one hand, the familiar phrase, eternal rest, makes me smile: what effort could be so prolonged and great that it would require it? On the other hand, in the realm of human suffering, especially that inflicted by ourselves, upon ourselves, as in violent crime and cases of genocide, I can see where an eternity of rest would not be long enough. Both views seem narrow, though, when we remember […]
It’s a peculiar thing, the urge, perhaps even the need, to make poems of private, personal experiences you know that others, too, have had. After a while, there gets to be an easy inevitability about the process, to the point that the occurrences of poem and experience often overlap and even seem reversed; sometimes it’s almost as if one is remembering the future, or that the past is about to […]
Even at the time, I felt I was living in a dream. My mother was eighty-three, and well on her way to being consumed by Alzheimer’s Disease. Our youngest son and child was eighteen, and beginning his self-guided exploration of music. In the middle of the night, it was common to hear him playing his guitar and singing. Tired as I was, I never once wished he would stop; indeed, […]
It’s a pity, in a way, that each of us can’t, during the most heightened moments of our righteous anger, suddenly find ourselves surrounded by our ancestors — not just to the extent of our easily accessible family tree, but all the way to the beginning. For surely, in genetic, genealogical terms, we are not who we think we are; we are far different and far more than the knowledge […]
I remember when being idealistic earned a young person a sympathetic smile and a pat on the head. Once he or she had finished school, though, such an outlook was considered impractical, and looked upon almost as threatening behavior. Making money was the thing. Impressing the neighbors. Getting ahead. Buying insurance. It was better to fit in and have a heart attack than it was to be comfortable in one’s […]
In the latter pages of his Religio Medici, Sir Thomas Browne mentions in passing that in addition to several regional dialects, he knows six languages. He does not write so to impress; it strikes me more as an expression of his generous, liberal nature: he sees himself not as the center of the universe as it was then known and understood, but as a fortunate participant in everything it has […]
The day will come, if it hasn’t already, when my notes about living in this world will seem quaint, if not childish. I like to think that I assume nothing; that my observations are my own; but this is far from the truth. In terms of knowledge, I have inherited a working farm, the ground of which was well broken and planted before me. The great astronomers have given me […]
William Michaelian 
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