William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘John Adams’

Around the Block, Around the Books

A clear, chilly morning of thirty degrees. Out under the stars, I ran for the forty-second consecutive day, making six weeks of barefoot sandal running. I saw no one, and was met by only one car, which was driven by one of this country’s many thousands of “independent contractors” delivering packages. I’m about halfway through Melville’s Typee, the narrator of which has come to question who is truly civilized — […]

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A Cloud Never Dies

It takes time to dust three thousand books, and to clean the shelves, tables, and various perches they’re on — several days, in fact. Not that it couldn’t have all been done in one. But then it would have been a job. And so I admired the bindings, paged through many volumes, and did my best to remember when and where I’d found them and brought them home. Those that […]

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That Kind of Winter

It’s a funny thing. I say I’m going to write letters, and I actually do write a few, then, soon enough, my letter-writing degenerates into postcards and poems. It’s been that kind of winter — that kind of life. You, there, cozy on your couch; you, hunched and bunched at your desk; you, with your laptop, tablet, and phone — don’t think I’m not mindful of my promise, or my […]

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