Story #3, Among the Living and Other Stories, 2000 Every day, I eat dinner at four. I have a broiled steak, with or without potato, with or without rice, with or without salad. Sometimes, when I’m feeling good and hungry, I have all at the same meal — steak, potato, rice, and salad. And wine: one bottle per meal. The wine, which must be very dry, helps me digest […]
As much as I like and am willing to live with the bits and pieces I’ve chosen thus far to preserve, it’s important to remember, for me, at least, that there are great swathes of writing and piles of drawings that clearly should not, and will not, see the light of day. I don’t mean to say it’s all junk. There are bright moments, mingled with poignant, self-defeating hints of […]
Story #1, Among the Living and Other Stories, 2000 Appeared previously in Armenian translation in Grakan Tert, a periodical newspaper publication of the Writers Union of Armenia. One thing that bugs me is that at the end of the day, they go home and I stay here. I’m not saying it should be the other way around. I know I’m not ready to leave. In fact, the thought scares […]
Around twenty years ago, I wrote some short stories, which, from this grizzled, objective distance, I can safely admire for their humor, truth, poetry, and vigor. Eight are included in my 2000 chapbook collection, Among the Living and Other Stories, which was succinctly described by its publisher as, “Eight crooked short stories of serious alienation.” There’s a tremendous amount of wordplay in that little book of awkward, unhappy, or otherwise […]
This poem is from Volume 3 of Songs and Letters and was written in 2005. There are twenty-four volumes in all. Back then, I did my writing at an old kitchen table from my childhood home. Our youngest son has it now. Since 2009, I’ve been using my mother’s old desk. If I remember correctly, she bought it from a retired school teacher who lived in the next town, about […]
There’s something restful and curative in sifting through the old things I’ve written, even when what I find is weak, or in other ways not worth preserving. In most instances, the decision is obvious. In a few, though, I can hardly bear to read to the end, so familiar and juvenile are the errors. As for my ability to judge, I do have my blind spots. In fact, it’s hardly […]
In 2005 I was still using my first computer — a desktop model with an expansive, very comfortable keyboard and a massive, heavy tower with two floppy drives. I bought it in 1993. A 486, it had a 340-megabyte hard drive, 12 megabytes of RAM, and ran Windows 3.1 at an impressive clock-doubled 50 megahertz. I called it “The Workhorse.” Almost as good as my old Royal typewriter, it was, […]
In a forest of people, it can be quite dark near the ground. It can be quite light, too, even without the sun. Museum Piece In need of a few days off, I spent them among old trees that were whispering terrible secrets. When I returned home no one could understand me; I was begged to come in from the yard. Doctors were called; I pummeled them with cones. […]
As I look over them now, I think most of the old Notebook entries from my first website, I’m Telling You All I Know, are better off left unread. But a few, like “Ghost and Cathedral,” and the piece I added earlier this year in August, are worth preserving. Already more than nine years old, I might have written it yesterday, so accurate it remains, and so dear the memory. […]
If there’s a connection between this simple new drawing and the old poem that follows, I don’t know what it is. But seeing it — seeing him — I thought I recognized a denizen of the old street-side cafés, an unknown, unsung member of the Lost Generation. The poem, of course, is utter foolishness, as all poems are that are purposely funny but true, and some days, like today, truer […]
William Michaelian 