If this is a book I’m putting together, it’s already the length of a short novel — this in the space of a little more than five months. As meaningless as things like these are, I find them quite interesting. My first novel, A Listening Thing, was written in ninety days. And if I remember correctly, my second novel, The Smiling Eyes of Children, was written in fifty-four. These are […]
Wealth and fame? I sought them in my own simple way, but not for their own sake; I was willing to be rich and famous if it meant earning a living. And as I have neither, it’s useless to say or to guess what I’d do if I did. I’m also fairly sure I once feared them, which is another way of saying I once feared myself, which is another […]
I’m comfortable with the idea that to some I am an extra serving of dessert, or the dressing on their salad; rare is the soul who sits down to me as a simple, sustaining bowl of rice — a beggar’s bowl, like mine, filled with gratitude, and worn with use, on the narrow road to the deep north. Fate A shadow on the snow after the last flake falls […]
Apples, persimmons, and a silent bamboo wind chime, between your mind and mine. And oranges, you reply in kind. And it takes time, we find, to peel December. So Much Like Now When you find this grave in the ragged ground, remember me to Winter. So much like now, it was cold the day I died: cold when a carriage rattled by, cold in bright Missouri, cold in Kansas […]
I’m sailing down the road burning fossil fuel, fouling the air with exhaust made by my noisy, powerful engine, slaughtering countless insects, the occasional bird, rabbit, cat, deer, and dog, when I suddenly realize what an insane, barbaric thing I’m engaged in — all of this destruction at my hands while sitting in comfort and calm, with dials glowing, gauges, fabric, plastic, leather, and shiny knobs. I am a murderer, […]
Canvas 1,228 — November 23, 2018
If I had not fallen from my horse
she might never have licked my face
hay on her breath
ice through my back
a shout to the hearse
at the edge of the pond
go home our tongues are on fire
“If I Had Not Fallen from My Horse”
Poems, Slightly Used, January 28, 2011
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When I’m in a room full of people and everyone is talking at once, I often find myself in a kind of bodily hum, a state of vibration that is both pleasant and painful, as, say, a rock in a riverbed might feel when the spring melt has begun and it’s exposed to a new wave of sensation and song. The state is suspended when my attention is required in […]
It seems these older pieces are coming together in a way that makes them read as if they’re being written now, one giving rise to the next in a natural progression. I realize this is my impression. I don’t know if it strikes you that way. But I think this feeling is partly due to the pieces I am writing now — those which stand alone, and those which serve […]
You’ve just sailed into the harbor. This is your face. And this is the face of all who are glad you are here. Do you see she is a he is a we with a tear? To the Child So much strife, rooted in the idea of ownership — in the idea that “this land is your land, this land is my land.” But this land, this earth, this […]
There is still the funny little matter of what to save and what to throw out. This question comes up every few weeks or years, when the urge arises to gut entire closets with their stacks of storage tubs half-buried in all manner of curious debris — papers, crayons, lamps, fried or obsolete electronics — even old decorative pillows long past their presentable lifetimes. Some decisions are easy. For instance, […]
William Michaelian 
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