Somewhere in the house — I can only guess where — there’s a sturdy flat box meant to hold a ream of paper, with a patterned lid that fits neatly over the bottom portion; this box contains a long story I wrote for adults who are children, and for children who are adults — a sort of Huck Finn lightly fictionalized family history set on the farm where my father […]
If this is a book I’m putting together, it’s already the length of a short novel — this in the space of a little more than five months. As meaningless as things like these are, I find them quite interesting. My first novel, A Listening Thing, was written in ninety days. And if I remember correctly, my second novel, The Smiling Eyes of Children, was written in fifty-four. These are […]
Wealth and fame? I sought them in my own simple way, but not for their own sake; I was willing to be rich and famous if it meant earning a living. And as I have neither, it’s useless to say or to guess what I’d do if I did. I’m also fairly sure I once feared them, which is another way of saying I once feared myself, which is another […]
I’m comfortable with the idea that to some I am an extra serving of dessert, or the dressing on their salad; rare is the soul who sits down to me as a simple, sustaining bowl of rice — a beggar’s bowl, like mine, filled with gratitude, and worn with use, on the narrow road to the deep north. Fate A shadow on the snow after the last flake falls […]
Apples, persimmons, and a silent bamboo wind chime, between your mind and mine. And oranges, you reply in kind. And it takes time, we find, to peel December. So Much Like Now When you find this grave in the ragged ground, remember me to Winter. So much like now, it was cold the day I died: cold when a carriage rattled by, cold in bright Missouri, cold in Kansas […]
I’m sailing down the road burning fossil fuel, fouling the air with exhaust made by my noisy, powerful engine, slaughtering countless insects, the occasional bird, rabbit, cat, deer, and dog, when I suddenly realize what an insane, barbaric thing I’m engaged in — all of this destruction at my hands while sitting in comfort and calm, with dials glowing, gauges, fabric, plastic, leather, and shiny knobs. I am a murderer, […]
Canvas 1,228 — November 23, 2018
If I had not fallen from my horse
she might never have licked my face
hay on her breath
ice through my back
a shout to the hearse
at the edge of the pond
go home our tongues are on fire
“If I Had Not Fallen from My Horse”
Poems, Slightly Used, January 28, 2011
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When I’m in a room full of people and everyone is talking at once, I often find myself in a kind of bodily hum, a state of vibration that is both pleasant and painful, as, say, a rock in a riverbed might feel when the spring melt has begun and it’s exposed to a new wave of sensation and song. The state is suspended when my attention is required in […]
It wouldn’t be hard to convince myself that I am in hiding, that I have been in hiding for years, and that I am a hermit or recluse, despite being seen in public every day, and speaking in a friendly fashion with people I meet. One curious thing is that my voice seems to belong to someone else, and that the sound of it seems to come from a great […]
It seems these older pieces are coming together in a way that makes them read as if they’re being written now, one giving rise to the next in a natural progression. I realize this is my impression. I don’t know if it strikes you that way. But I think this feeling is partly due to the pieces I am writing now — those which stand alone, and those which serve […]
William Michaelian 
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