2011
Canvas 220
[ 67 ]
2011
Canvas 220
[ 67 ]
Drawings
2011
The birches and firs give us just enough light
through a south-facing window.
Someday, casually or with infinite care,
someone will take us down.
But we will still be here.
And you will hear our song.
Canvas 194
[ 65 ]
Canvas 194
2011
I, Leonardo, have but one more thing to say:
no day is just as you imagine — no world, no man,
no mortal lump of clay. Life is a blind wind
that devours words and bones. It is a fervent hope,
the breath of breath itself, a poison that is
its antidote. Flesh of my flesh, child of my child,
learn this song and sing it well. We are orphans
on this road. Our triumph is to be alone.
“I, Leonardo”
Songs and Letters, September 30, 2006
Another Song I Know, Cosmopsis Books, 2007
Canvas 178
[ 64 ]
Canvas 178 — I, Leonardo
2010
Another of my favorites from Primitive.
Since then, I’ve returned to the theme of shared faces time and time again.
And I have been taught, delivered, saved, made by them.
Canvas 63
[ 60 ]
Canvas 63
2011
We’re better seen from across the room,
better still the intervening field of successive years in wheaten rows,
where lay, concealed, our snow-white bones.
Remembrance, 2011
[ 57 ]
Remembrance
Canvas 1,222 — Not Dying
Should you ask what it is I’m trying to express, I would answer, I’m not trying. And to confess? Maybe this: Not flying. Not dying. [ 53 ]
November 2014: Drawing and Poem
Night in bloom The night in bloom, as if the moon both meant to stay, and go; just so, my hat, my coat, my soul. Recently Banned Literature, November 8, 2014 [ 51 ]
Three Pencil Drawings
Back in 2009, looking for something in one of our closets, I found an unopened pack of index cards and some No. 2 pencils. Among others of their kind, these drawings eventually found their way into Primitive, copies of which are tucked away in the very same closet. [ 50 ]
Canvas 1,221
Surely you can imagine the street, the stones, the carriages, the table, the coffee, and the coming revolution. Or maybe you’re just thinking about an old friend, because today is his birthday. You remember sitting near the curb, beneath a tree, and how your cup somehow became full of tiny spring spiders, but not his. And then, the last time you were to meet, you waited alone, not knowing he […]
Canvas 28 and Canvas 29 first appeared in
Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen, in 2010.
Canvas 28
Canvas 29
[ 33 ]
William Michaelian 