He’s a Shakespeare of sorts, demented, plumed, and proud,
but he answers to Quixote when no one else is around.
A Shakespeare of Sorts
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My Mother Saved Our Baby Shoes
Each day, I give thanks for the unknown and unexplained. My Mother Saved Our Baby Shoes My mother saved our baby shoes, two handfuls of wedding rice in delicate nets, flowers, roses, brittle stems, in her cedar chest. And in all her years of not remembering, I wonder which she forgot the best. I wonder which she smiled at when she sat here dreaming in her make-believe and present-tense. […]
I Like the Idea
For every love, every grief, every pain, an early-morning streetlight — but there is, I am certain, one star to explain. “Early-Morning Streetlight” Recently Banned Literature, December 29, 2014 I Like the Idea I like the idea that there’s an idea. In the bare trees of winter. In the wise-hungry birds. In madness and mittens. Out past the graveyard. Have you seen them? How they roost on the branches […]
Moving Books Around
At the moment there’s scarcely room here to sit, leave alone exercise free movement of my elbows. And while this is only a slight exaggeration, I’d best make no sudden moves, or I might topple the tall stacks of books everywhere around me, as the room is in a state of turmoil brought on by my decision to add two more tall bookcases, despite the fact that there’s no obvious […]
This gentle soul came into being this past Christmas Eve.
But of course he has always been with us.
And it’s not hard to believe he always will be,
Or to conceive that love, is all, we need.
Christmas Canvas — 2018
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Christmas Canvas — 2018
Symphonies and Bridges — Two Poems
Another thing I’ve noticed while writing is that when the subject at hand brings something else I’ve written to mind, that something else is far less likely to be a piece from the last two or three years. For whatever reason, my thoughts drift back to older associations, as if the paths that take me there are more familiar and well worn. This could be a sign that my memory […]
In the Mirror a Window
Do you ever feel you’re drifting through space, and that the planets are in your tow? You are. It’s true. Space is the silence between thoughts. The planets are your memories and deeds, and the little that you know. In the Mirror a Window In the mirror a window : beyond the window falling snow : in a mirror the snow : falling in the here and now : […]
Wild Flowers Imagine the Rain
I suppose it would not be far from the truth if I were also to refer to this growing collection of oddities and notes as my papers, because I am definitely proceeding with the idea that everything that ever was and will be of lasting importance to me can be found in these pages. Each department is its own neatly labeled crate of material. All that’s missing, really, is a […]
Five Years Ago
Truly an exercise in vanity, I liked this self-portrait so much back in 2014, I had a small canvas-print made. On a wall in this room, in a dimly lit place mostly hidden by books, it’s a private daily reminder of my foolish self-absorption, which I can only hope, and am in no way certain, I’ve outgrown. But for all that, the likeness is still a valid record of sorts, […]
Auld Lang Syne
All these years later, I still find sadness, beauty, and hope in this little Bojangles of a poem. While we look back, let us go forth into the world, even if it’s where we’ve been all along. Auld Lang Syne I haven’t been this drunk in a long time, said the poet to his dog who had died years ago. But the story really begins when daylight licks his […]
William Michaelian 
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