William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Poems’

Low Tide

It’s easy to say, I want the best for everyone and everything, but it’s quite plain to me I don’t know what that best is. Lovely birch — her paper bark — no need for a pen today. [ 728 ]

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Summer Service

I might have become a priest. What a disaster that would have been. And yet, had it happened, I might have found it the most wonderful thing in the world. Or maybe it did happen — long ago and far away, in a rocky, mountainous land.   Summer Service a fly on the eucharist —                shsh, shsh little children sound asleep on the cool stones on the cool stones sound […]

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Fossil Poetry

The well ran dry. He dug deeper, and deeper, his back to the soft spring rain.   Fossil Poetry I’m tempted to say writing is what keeps me sane, but I think we’d better reserve judgment on that. The opposite could easily be true. Writing might be what keeps me insane. Or, my insanity might be what keeps me writing. Then again, it might be my sanity that keeps me […]

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A Lesser Poet

The world has lost a great poet — so it’s often said. And yet isn’t death what finally and most fully reveals a great poet’s gift to this world? And so when the poet dies, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the world has gained him, or her, instead?   A Lesser Poet I will be remembered as a lesser poet, if at all — a clumsy ox […]

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x Frames

When I see birds chase each other through the maze of the budding fig tree without so much as touching a twig, I realize how quickly they must be processing the visual information given them by their eyes. If I view the scene at x frames per second, they must be viewing it at x frames a great many times over; it is this, perhaps, that makes them wise. Perhaps, […]

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One More Cherry Blossom Poem

Death, or politics? Politics have neither death’s dignity nor purpose; and they lack death’s sublime, optimistic future; for after death, that which is once said to have been living, goes on living in myriad forms and ways; whereas politics are an accumulation of toxic waste matter that is dangerous to all living things. That politics often cause death, is reason enough to set them aside. Why sacrifice my precious energy […]

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Moved

The breeze — her hair — held pink-white snow. She knew her lines and said them well. Now her leaves hide not her nakedness. And she — so kind — that I — should know. April 4, 2020 [ 716 ]

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Someone

When the morning sun reveals every grain of dust on my desk, and papers, and books, I see oxen and stars. Random Note, April 1, 2010   Someone Someone sewing masks. Someone dropping bombs. Someone preaching hatred. Someone washing hands. Someone lights a candle. Someone whispers love. [ 713 ]

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