Companion
old shovel from the farm / still loves / to look / for worms March 14, 2021 . [ 1048 ]
New Poems & Pieces
Now the Little Crocus
I have never been tempted to change my name. But as comfortable with it as I am, I can easily imagine setting it aside — all of it, first, middle, and last — not to replace it, but to do without a name entirely. I can also imagine doing without mirrors. In their own way, mirrors are as dangerous and destructive as guns, and being addicted to one’s reflection might […]
Belated Birthday Haiku
somewhere in this scroll / lies / the truth / I know March 10, 2021 . Belated Birthday Haiku Old cat warm against a sunshine wall — Kerouac licks his aching paw. Poems, Slightly Used, March 14, 2010 . [ 1044 ]
This Morning the Sky Is My Beloved
Only upon waking does this body form. What need is there otherwise? March 9, 2021 . This Morning the Sky Is My Beloved This morning the sky is my beloved and she beseeches me to take the earth from her hands for just a little while the earth heavy but so small and the rain is how her wept love falls. Recently Banned Literature, March 9, 2017 . [ 1043 […]
Socks, Shoes, Whisk Broom
The socks are of brown heirloom cotton, rising to the ankle, finished without dye, part kiss, part sigh. The shoes happened by, looking for a home. They wait in the closet by the door. Sometimes I hear them in the night, arguing with the whisk broom: Stop pacing. Stop waiting. Shh. Shh. When I open the door, they are mum. Each has a life, like the walls, the dark, the […]
Without Looking Down
Yesterday afternoon I saw a great brown hawk, perhaps three hundred feet from the ground, standing on air, facing a cold spring wind, with its wings open wide. When he allowed it to take him, even eternity was surprised. Dark gray clouds. Rain. Clear blue sky. While I was out, I could not always see him, but I could hear his cries. A storm in the pine: two startled mourning […]
And Came the Day
Opinion is dead, isn’t it? Isn’t it that cozy-numb part of you which has already decided, and chooses to see the world as you once thought it was, rather than as it is? Isn’t feeling entitled to your opinion like refusing to wear a hearing aid if you need one, or glasses if you need them? Isn’t it like a being a juror or judge who refuses to consider all […]
Tell Me About the Robins
Well, for one thing, tho’ the street lights are on all night, they don’t say a word. Then, at the first hint of daylight, even on the darkest and cloudiest of mornings, they start singing and calling to one another from the trees. And so the street lights are lighter than daylight, and dawn is darker than night. But the robins — yes, the robins, still get it right. February […]
Mortality: Three Short Poems
The rain isn’t falling in huge amounts, but there’s enough of it every day to keep things glistening and drenched. There are piles of ice storm debris to attend to, but getting to them leaves deep footprints, where miniature lakes form, not in the shape of Italy’s boot, but in Oregon’s mud-and-moss-encrusted hiking shoe. And so that work waits — or, rather, the worker waits, while the debris does what […]
William Michaelian 