July Rain
The art of making it rain, I learned from my father. That I am here to explain, I learned from my mother. July Rain Dying is such old work — I settle the dust in our yard with a hose. Poems, Slightly Used, July 5, 2009 [ 423 ]
Sky-Song and Maple
First light and fine lace — our love is a maple, my dear. Sky-Song and Maple Sky-song and maple, so-goes the riddle, summer-lap and old-toes, soft-breast and all-she-knows, you in the middle, light-glows, water-flows, night-long the bell-tolls, the dew-rose, the cradle. Recently Banned Literature, June 19, 2014 [ 422 ]
A child makes a few marks and is showered with praise.
“Such promise! I’m amazed!”
A grown man must be famous, dull, or refined.
“What is it? Why is he wasting my time?”
Canvas 1,235 — June 15, 2019
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Canvas 1,235
A Little Less Certainty
The grapes are in bloom. And everything else a child knows, but cannot tell. June 13, 2019 A Little Less Certainty My philosophy? a little less certainty — yes, like a kiss that might never be, so sweet to savor, you see, once in the way and the sway of it, the light and the day and the play of it. Even alone, had you and I known the […]
Splash
O dear one, it is not religion that saves us, or meditation, or philosophy, or work, or art, but love operating through these things, and our inevitable surrender to her benevolent force, if not in this life, then in the next, which is this very moment, of course. “It Is Not Religion” Recently Banned Literature, March 12, 2017 Splash Above a meadow of moss . . . a towhee […]
Some are flowers, bleeding at the stems.
Some are frost on windowpanes.
Some are haunted, some reserved.
A westbound bus on a sun-blind curve.
Some look back when you least expect it.
A lightning flash. A winding path.
A baby bird.
Canvas 367 — March 4, 2014
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Some Are Flowers — Canvas 367
In 2017, on the tenth day of June, two drawings were made.
I have no other record of that day — unless, perhaps,
I were to go back and examine the month’s bank statement.
If we went anywhere, or spent any money,
I like to think it was for strawberries.
Canvas 921
Canvas 922
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Canvases 921 and 922
First Came the Meanings
To me, one strange thing about living is having a name. Another is so many not thinking it strange. First Came the Meanings First came the meanings then their names chamomile squirrel supper table the boy himself a pebble down a well loving the hand that let him go Recently Banned Literature, May 10, 2013 [ 416 ]
Departure
As much as by touching, reading, and simply having them near, I think any poet would gain by the calm, deliberate practice of describing the scent of old books. To describe, in essence, what can’t be described, and yet must — this is his domain and his charge; to illuminate what is haunting, yet painfully familiar — this is why she was born; and then, when she dies, to haunt […]
Ask Me How Or Why
Up in time to find a dove confessing to a weightless sliver moon. “First Impression” Poems, Slightly Used, July 20, 2009 Ask Me How Or Why Ask me how or why, I simply do not know. There is no purpose, only setting out. No work as precious notion. Or play that means escape. Prayer, perhaps? In the sense that love’s an ocean. And everything is yes. That the pieces […]
William Michaelian 
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