Canvas 538 — The Telling Told
I need not tell you what you already know.Yet some days, the telling tells itself. The telling tells the told. Canvas 538 May 21, 2015 . [ 1080 ]
Recently Banned Literature
Up Through the Boot
Tiny blue flowers, dressed to forget what you were about to say (but never the first to look away) “Tiny Blue Flowers” Recently Banned Literature, May 28, 2015 . Up Through the Boot Up through the boot the grass finds its way Up on the knoll past the root of the tree Up to the shin and up to the knee sure as I lie here, waiting for thee And […]
Canvas 685 — Like Death
The best I can do is pick one now and then,and, like death, hope the others won’t feel slighted. Canvas 685 May 4, 2016 . [ 1078 ]
Every Bit a Dandelion
Bits and bits and odds and ends. I needn’t be, but I am. Sits and sits and nods and bends. As if is is was, and was is is. April 16, 2021 . Every Bit a Dandelion Now blissfully adrift, there is no question of weightlessness. Now working the laces on my worn out shoes, none of gravity. Now musing on the trials of the past, none of anxiety. Now […]
In Another Life
In another life, he could be one of those beautiful moths with markings on its wings that look like faces. In this life, he’s content to be a constellation. Or so it seems between stars, where silence scours the universe and nothing is its own reward, where night is a ribbon in his loved one’s hair. Recently Banned Literature, April 22, 2010 In Another Life April 21, 2010 . [ […]
Dream Fragment, 3:45 a.m.
A little bit of coffee, a little bit of soap. Hand on the bell cord, eye on the rope. April 12, 2021 . Dream Fragment, 3:45 a.m. A young man, of sixteen or seventeen and a stranger to me, leads me to a table, atop which is a curious arrangement of small objects, seemingly of a scientific nature. “If I die,” he says quietly, and with the utmost reverence for […]
We Meet Again
I don’t mind having to wear a mask in public. After all, I’ve worn so many in my life. And none of them ever really hid anything. April 10, 2021 . We Meet Again Yesterday we were at the grocery store when a woman about our age came up to me and said she loved my beard, and then started patting and stroking it lightly, with a gleam in her […]
Almost Never Was
The water in your glass is ageless and timeless. It has been around the world. It has filled the ocean, washed over rocks, sustained life, and quenched the thirst of saints and madmen. It has memory, and it responds to gratitude, love, reverence. It responds to melody. It responds to bitterness and anger. Experiments have been performed that show this is true. Its structure changes. Water that is loved and […]
What to Say
What to say, except that words betray their meaning, and that their betrayal is what we understand? This? that even if they were clay, we could never hold them in our hand? † † That is, if the betrayal isn’t ours of them. Recently Banned Literature, April 23, 2013 . [ 1071 ]
All These Years
All these years, and the old bank building still blushes in the morning light, her stern face warming a color at a time. And there’s a story about her, with a rose, and a hat, and a ribbon, and a meadow. It seems in her youth she was wooed by the saloon across the street, where Granddad drank and talked and smoked. But her old man was practical: the saloon […]
William Michaelian 