For a great many years, I thought I’d never fall out of the habit of daily writing. But here I am, days, weeks, and sometimes months between pieces, with just as few handwritten notes in between. Other than what I’ve already published, one would think I’m not a writer at all, at least by any outward sign, other than the use of playful, colorful language to address the odd experience […]
I can eat with gratitude and reverence, or I can thoughtlessly shovel it in. Either way, how I eat is how I live. If I eat thoughtlessly, my body will respond accordingly; we two will become coarse and crude, and be both cause and mirror of hunger and strife in the world. If I eat mindfully, and consume only what I need, the good food I eat will bring joy […]
If whatever I write, or draw, or make, or do, is to be fresh and new, and not simply more of the same, however pleasant and comfortable that same may seem, must I not make sure that I am myself fresh and new? Must I not be my own peaceful revolution, and free of my usual thought pattern, with all its familiar repetition and redundancy? Must I not be willing […]
If I fear death, then of course I fear life, because life and death can’t be separated: they’re mutually dependent, present in every process, inextricably intertwined. For proof, I need look no further than my body, where life and death are happening every minute of every day — not as a battle between the two, but in a movement so beautifully efficient and harmonious that it makes them, in terms […]
Whatever the conditions, where a tree sprouts is where it must live its life. Out of this grows its patience and wisdom. Trees know how to wait, to bide their time, to conserve their energy and use it to their best, most joyful advantage; this in turn becomes their gift to the world. As I have aged, my bark has grown shaggy; knots have formed where my trunk and limbs […]
Now that I think of it, No Tobacco, a poem that is a story that is a poem, fits nicely within the style or genre known as Magical Realism. What happens in it is to me, though, an everyday reality, because reality, while impossible to define, is a magical experience. When I say impossible, I mean it’s impossible for me, no doubt in part because I don’t need or want […]
Why a poem, why a poem at all, if not to pause, if not to feel, if not to wonder, if not to see? Maybe we are stained, dented, and urine-soaked; we are also faithful, observant, and kind. But are we ultimately helpless, even as we shine? ~ [ 2024 ]
Layer upon layer: remove a thought, or even a word, and the image comes tumbling down. That’s one way of looking at it. Fearful symmetry: that’s another, the youthful tyger burning bright. Or, space in a face: the gladsome light of extinguished stars. Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee? ’Tis all a mystery. ~ [ 2023 ]
Where Dragonflies Sleep starts my memory in so many agreeable directions, it would take hours to account for them all, if I ever came to the end. This brings to mind a question: is my memory infinite? Is it even possible to know? And what of ancestral memory, cultural memory, bodily memory, and the collective memory of our kind? And isn’t instinct a form of memory which, having existed for […]
I’ve just noticed for the first time that this true event reads like a dream — in fact, more like a dream than some of the dreams I’ve recorded. Now, what do you suppose that means? And what does it mean that the memory of the event also seems like a dream? Does it mean memory, in general, is a dream? When I say, No, this really happened, do I […]
William Michaelian 