Notes of an AlchemistPoems by Loren EiseleyIllustrated by Laszlo KubinyiNew York : Charles Scribner’s Sons (1972) Found in a local used bookstore, after what struck me as a dreary drive past pot stores, fast food joints, and numerous other businesses that have no reason for existing, other than to satisfy a society that prizes bad habits and unhealthy living; past men and women pushing shopping carts bearing all of their […]
When it comes to my immediate surroundings, I see always that there’s sufficient space between and around objects; this extends even to my crowded library — or my library that would be crowded, and would feel crowded, if I didn’t observe my own personal rules of harmony, order, and balance. This creates more than a pleasant overall impression; each shelf, stack, and book is placed and arranged in such a […]
Why a poem, why a poem at all, if not to pause, if not to feel, if not to wonder, if not to see? Maybe we are stained, dented, and urine-soaked; we are also faithful, observant, and kind. But are we ultimately helpless, even as we shine? ~ [ 2024 ]
If I remember correctly, this poem is the first I wrote in the form of a dictionary entry; hence the category, Definitions, in which I’ve filed a couple dozen or more poems and notes that fit that term. I’ve thought before, and I think again now — though I’m sure I’m not the first to think it — what a fine thing it would be to have an entire dictionary […]
Believe it or not, upon its first publication, An Absurdist Play was liked well enough by a high school teacher that he used it in a poetry segment of his English class. The experiment failed, as I thought it might, and for his valiant effort, the teacher was met with puzzled expressions perhaps not unlike those suggested in the stage directions of the poem itself. I doubt the teacher really […]
Do not listen to the ministers of failure, who promise redemption for their imagined sins. Did Walt Whitman really write these words? In a sense, yes, because, whether those of us engaged in literary pursuits are aware of it or not, his influence is so great and so profound that it’s inevitable, at one time or another, we take up the pen in his name. Not only Whitman, of course; […]
They’re called The Asylum Poems for good reason. And as you read through them — each is but a few lines in length — you might see what I see now, almost twenty years since: a familiar stranger pacing a small room, each step a door, closed behind his back. You might see it even if you don’t read them. You might see yourself, too, because, if you look long […]
It gives me a good feeling to revisit such a positive, personal, universal poem. Though it was written more than eight years ago and I am indisputably that much older, I still feel, in contemplating the thoughts and images called forth, that a beautiful harvest is in. And I still feel gratitude, and call it a blessing and a symphony. Whatever your age, if you have yet to explore the […]
Taken literally, each word of the short poem that is Long Train is a sturdy, useful brick; and so I might say, if there is something you hope to build, it always pays to begin with good materials. Such materials are most readily found in nature, but there are times and places where the harsh, rough emblems of the city are just as useful, and even beautiful. I have employed […]
That so many of us are eager and willing to embrace ignorance is not a new thing. Willful ignorance is what gives power to the powerful; makes us vulnerable to injustices of every kind; and enslaves us in a narrow world of our own unwitting creation. That letting others do our thinking for us is easier, cannot be further from the truth; we need only look at the results. It […]
William Michaelian 