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 […]
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 ]
Here is the marble, and here is the hand that held it just so, and aimed. April 13, 2021 . [ 1075 ]
You’re reading about a storm during a storm, and then, shivering, you look up. Much to your surprise, you find the trees calm, the street quiet, and the lamplight unwavering. You look back at your book: a mute brick: ink: paper: binding. You decide to rest your eyes. You close them. Here it is again! Here comes the wind! It’s wild out. It’s wild in. And it only ends when […]
Cold water morning — no bluff — not even death. March 17, 2021 . [ 1051 ]
Let us not explain everything, that we may not explain ourselves away, into meaninglessness, or superficiality, which is far worse. . A Faraway Town Between the rows beside the mounds above the tombs he knows so well, the tombs so dark, the tombs so cool, that pull him down and bend him ’round one frayed shoelace at a time, one copper-colored eyelet, a faraway town (without any news) where no […]
He had a perfect way of saying the desert had been crossed: Where water needs the flowers, we’re no longer lost. And there we laid him; and here grows the moss. “Where Water Needs the Flowers” Recently Banned Literature, April 11, 2014 . Copper In Your Palm Air so heavy with pollen and perfume, you wear it home. Comb it into the bathroom sink. Some settles on the lacy fern. […]
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 […]
The new vaccines are not simply vaccines. They are an expression of collective fear, an environmental and moral crisis, a religion, a philosophy, an idea, a way of looking at and living in the world. As such, they are blind expedients; their value is temporary, questionable; their long-term effects unknown. Death is and will always be near. I would rather walk in the rain and stand in a waterfall. January […]
On one hand, the familiar phrase, eternal rest, makes me smile: what effort could be so prolonged and great that it would require it? On the other hand, in the realm of human suffering, especially that inflicted by ourselves, upon ourselves, as in violent crime and cases of genocide, I can see where an eternity of rest would not be long enough. Both views seem narrow, though, when we remember […]
William Michaelian 