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 […]
I used to hand her the wooden clothespins. I was too small to reach the line. And yet somehow, I could reach the sky. . To the Wind A poem of three taut lines, defined by his mother’s wash and her clean white sails Recently Banned Literature, April 16, 2014 . [ 1081 ]
Here is the marble, and here is the hand that held it just so, and aimed. April 13, 2021 . [ 1075 ]
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 […]
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 […]
Over the rise, past the cemetery, through the orange grove in bloom, on the Sunday morning side of the barn, the old rusted car your uncle drove, weeds through the floor board, cracks in the wheel knob, heaven’s own smell, the slowest kind of smoke. “Heaven’s Own Smell” Recently Banned Literature, May 21, 2014 . Crazy Old Widow The crazy old widow keeps a vineyard of gnarled old men arms […]
A trip to Safeway to pick up prescriptions for my mother: sunflowers, in six-dollar bunches by the door; rotten eggplant neatly stacked in the produce aisle; hard tomatoes and wilted bell peppers at prices few people can afford. And I think, There used to be a field here. Oh, what I could do with a field just a quarter of the size of the Safeway parking lot. The dreams I […]
We are the only beings intelligent enough to drug ourselves, poison our food, wear synthetic shoes, stay indoors, and breathe foul, recycled air. Poor birds! Poor animals! Poor dumb creatures everywhere! March 22, 2021 Canvas 990 August 6, 2017 . The Finger Sketches The finger sketches. The thumb hums along. Suddenly the thumb stops. What is wrong? The finger stretches. Is it the palm? The breath catches. The mind fetches. […]
Snow on the lilac — my mother has already forgotten that day. Poems, Slightly Used, April 27, 2008 . [ 1050 ]
old shovel from the farm / still loves / to look / for worms March 14, 2021 . [ 1048 ]
William Michaelian 