William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Poetry’

And Came the Day

Opinion is dead, isn’t it? Isn’t it that cozy-numb part of you which has already decided, and chooses to see the world as you once thought it was, rather than as it is? Isn’t feeling entitled to your opinion like refusing to wear a hearing aid if you need one, or glasses if you need them? Isn’t it like a being a juror or judge who refuses to consider all […]

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Tell Me About the Robins

Well, for one thing, tho’ the street lights are on all night, they don’t say a word. Then, at the first hint of daylight, even on the darkest and cloudiest of mornings, they start singing and calling to one another from the trees. And so the street lights are lighter than daylight, and dawn is darker than night. But the robins — yes, the robins, still get it right. February […]

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One Last Thing

May your customs be glad ones. May they be without form. May each be forgotten once it has served. . One Last Thing One last thing before I say hello: here is a flower. It cried out at first, but on you it no longer seems alone. Hello, my love. Hello. Collected Poems Another Song I Know, Cosmopsis Books, 2007 . [ 1034 ]

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Mortality: Three Short Poems

The rain isn’t falling in huge amounts, but there’s enough of it every day to keep things glistening and drenched. There are piles of ice storm debris to attend to, but getting to them leaves deep footprints, where miniature lakes form, not in the shape of Italy’s boot, but in Oregon’s mud-and-moss-encrusted hiking shoe. And so that work waits — or, rather, the worker waits, while the debris does what […]

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Light Cannot Pass

Power is restored — electricity has blown out the neighbor’s sweet wax candles. February 22, 2021 . Light Cannot Pass Light cannot pass between two hands clasped in prayer but it does wash over them and it runs down the arms and it drips from the elbows and it melts like wax on the floor. Songs and Letters, May 18, 2008 . [ 1029 ]

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