William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Dreams’

My Childhood Self

In terms of imagination, joy, and wonder, I am as much my childhood self as ever. I am a dreamer, and the world passes through me as a dream. That is my reality. There has been an accumulation of facts, of knowledge, yes — but as useful as some of these are, or seem to be, they are only superficial adornments. They are not mine; I lay no claim to […]

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Proverb

A very warm afternoon, outside and in. It seems logical, natural, inevitable, that, as I age, I am moving steadily, inexorably, towards silence. The season holds sway, but the conclusion is the same any time of year. Towards word silence; journal silence; poem silence; grave silence. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; silence to silence. Emerged from silence, proceeding unto silence; never having left silence, forever part of silence. Loving […]

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Breaking Through

In the matter of a few hours, a trace of rain, just enough to dampen the surface of the soil, was enough to bring forth another wave of sunflower sprouts. Breaking through, they look like they’re leaping into the unknown, almost as if they’re parachuting skyward, and my up is their down. Is there anything I can imagine that isn’t rooted in my life experience, my observation, my reading, my […]

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The Impossible Dream

I record dreams as truthfully and faithfully as I can. In terms of accuracy, how successful I am varies from one attempt to the next, fiction and memory overlapping as they do. The form also varies. Some are set down in straightforward prose; others as poems; not a few are drawings and are rendered without words at all. There are even times when I do not realize I am recording […]

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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 […]

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A Faraway Town

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 […]

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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 […]

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