William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Poetry’

Everything and All

If the individual plants in our patch of grass were people or trees, how much space would they need to survive and thrive? They are a multitude. However, I walk through or in a forest or a crowd, and I walk on a lawn; I am small in one instance, large in another; a humble supplicant; the possessor of great strength and power. And always, I have a choice of […]

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Transitions

The hush of a forest. The sanctity of an old cathedral. A freeway through the graveyard of an unknown people. And here is the place where Love buried her sweet shy kitten. See the neon epitaph — Even grief wears a mask — As bright grows the sky where it’s bitten. [ 836 ]

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Bouquet

A bumblebee asleep on a flower dreams of the last time he danced. August 9, 2020   Bouquet Dahlia buds every which way all pointing homeward and then you say here my love Recently Banned Literature, September 26, 2016 [ 833 ]

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The Art of Letting Go

Is it possible the mystery seedling in our vast little wilderness has yet to decide what kind of tree it is? That’s something I haven’t thought of before. Even if it began its life as a silk tree, maybe its desire to change is so strong that, given time, and possibly even encouragement, it will become something else. Who knows what it might have thought about or dreamed about during […]

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The Ghost in You

The Ghost in You

              How strange — I feel cold, almost as if I were alive.        “That, my friend, is the ghost in you.”                                             Songs and Letters, September 30, 2008 [ 828 ]

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Wildflower

                     a bee in the clover he remembers               her                                               soft                                 fragrant                                                       hair [ 827 ]

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Canvas 419 — I Wonder

Canvas 419 — August 23, 2014

  I Wonder After a long absence, they began to fear for him, and so they sought him in the cave where he sometimes slept. He was not there; but they found a striking image of him which seemed to have etched itself onto one of the walls, where at certain times of the year water would seep through and trickle down. They gazed upon the image for a long […]

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Closing Time

Even if I could remember what was passing through my mind when I was writing this poem thirteen years ago, how important could it be? Stumbling on it today, I’m simply glad that it is a poem; and I’m glad it’s still willing to speak to me. And what does it say? It says, Come in, come in. Whatever it is, whatever it was, is all forgotten and forgiven now. […]

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Mimosa

It was early in the morning on the last day of July — yesterday, in fact — that I noticed the scent of dried and drying grasses in the air, of ripening and spent seed — that distinct valley smell, leavened by dew and blent with the dust of harvested fields. That same day, a few hours later, we decided that the unidentified seedling in our cedar-and-juniper wilderness might well […]

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Likewise

                     little grasshopper my thoughts lead nowhere                             oh!               you have such pretty wings! [ 823 ]

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