As silly as it seems, I have even tried, a few times — with questionable success — to write poems based on famous paintings. I first encountered L’Absinthe on the cover of the 1980 printing of the Penguin Classics edition of Zola’s L’Assommoir. That is the image I worked from. It is ideally suited to the novel. The poem, on the other hand, is ideally suited for the bottom of […]
I’ve often wondered where drawn lines end and poems begin. Some will say poems must be made of words. Strictly speaking, that’s true. But I’ve lived long enough to know, I’m made of words too. And when you read between the lines, I read you. Of the photographic self-portraits I attempted several years ago, Roads, I think, is one interesting example. The image first appeared in Recently Banned Literature in 2011 and […]
This is another of my favorites from Primitive, although it would be hard to explain why.
Is it, perhaps, because the shoulder of one is the mouth of the other? Possibly.
But then there are the eyes, which, for half a day yesterday,
Followed me around the room. “My card, sir.”
Almost Einstein
2010
#2 Pencil on Index Card
Almost Einstein
[ 120 ]
Imagine a hard-working composer paging through his music,
relieved and thinking he is done, coming upon this in his score.
“Dear Lord. What am I writing for?”
“The high notes and low notes, of course.”
“And which, pray tell, are you?”
“We? We are the many. We are the few. We are you.”
Music Lesson
2010
#2 Pencil on 4 x 6 Index Card
Music Lesson
[ 119 ]
2014
Canvas 423
[ 111 ]
Done in 2009, Nightfall is also part of Primitive, a glossy volume released the following year. [ 105 ]
The ancient texts of solemn trees. Bird tracks at my feet. Late-night lights in the widow’s house. Lichens on headstones. Thrice-woven wool. Galaxies that resemble scattered straw. Notebooks filled. A wealth of steam. The luck of rice. dew in the dust on the old man’s mailbox he reads his letters twice [ 104 ]
2010
On the wall above an antique oak dining chair
upon which rest a thrift store ukulele
and two Marine Band harmonicas in the key of C.
Canvas 124
[ 97 ]
2017
Canvas 967
[ 92 ]
William Michaelian 
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