The poems offered here are from my book of sixty-four short poems, Another Song I Know, published by Cosmopsis Books in 2007. The translations and transliterations are the generous, fine work of poet and friend, Vassilis Zambaras, author of numerous poems, as well as Sentences, Aural, Triptych, and other collections. Vassilis and I met online in the blog world in 2008. Within days, I felt we’d known each other for years […]
Faulty grammar aside, there’s more here than meets the I. But Emily Dickinson? What made me think of her? For Emily If the past is a flower, and has its seasons and dies, what of the seeds it leaves behind? and what of you, and I, dear butterfly? [ 159 ]
There’s magic in the old downtown district — the brick buildings and coffeehouses, the quaint shops and reading rooms, the moss-lined alleys, upstairs dwellings, dance schools, modeling schools, empty rooms full of derelict adding machines and typewriters, kicking through fallen leaves, inhaling the smoke of unseen cigarettes, the past, present, and future a grand composite, each patiently describing the other, self-effacing, a curious blend, the voiceless cough of a homeless […]
Sometimes, if it’s read slowly enough and with love, even a poem that’s deeply flawed, such as this one, seems not so flawed after all. And when we think of people as poems, and approach them in the same way, it’s positively medicinal. One Sunday in October Just enough rain to sprout mushrooms, then wave upon wave of mold. Un cuervo, mi mente, un matorral. How a boy in […]
An exchange of letters, perhaps? Postcards? Wishes? Dreams? Or what shall it be? Autumn leaves? Between Us Walking in the mist reminds me that wherever I go my face arrives before me, so that when we meet again, love, my secrets will all have been revealed. . . . . And then will I be healed . . . [ 151 ]
As always at this early hour, I’m drinking coffee. I love coffee. I’ve loved it since childhood, when the aroma of it perking would invade my bedroom. Yes, I had a bed, and a room. I still marvel at it. At night, the sliding closet door, painted the same color as the walls, had to be closed. If it was open, the things hanging in the closet came to life […]
As much as I like and am willing to live with the bits and pieces I’ve chosen thus far to preserve, it’s important to remember, for me, at least, that there are great swathes of writing and piles of drawings that clearly should not, and will not, see the light of day. I don’t mean to say it’s all junk. There are bright moments, mingled with poignant, self-defeating hints of […]
Around twenty years ago, I wrote some short stories, which, from this grizzled, objective distance, I can safely admire for their humor, truth, poetry, and vigor. Eight are included in my 2000 chapbook collection, Among the Living and Other Stories, which was succinctly described by its publisher as, “Eight crooked short stories of serious alienation.” There’s a tremendous amount of wordplay in that little book of awkward, unhappy, or otherwise […]
This poem is from Volume 3 of Songs and Letters and was written in 2005. There are twenty-four volumes in all. Back then, I did my writing at an old kitchen table from my childhood home. Our youngest son has it now. Since 2009, I’ve been using my mother’s old desk. If I remember correctly, she bought it from a retired school teacher who lived in the next town, about […]
There’s something restful and curative in sifting through the old things I’ve written, even when what I find is weak, or in other ways not worth preserving. In most instances, the decision is obvious. In a few, though, I can hardly bear to read to the end, so familiar and juvenile are the errors. As for my ability to judge, I do have my blind spots. In fact, it’s hardly […]
William Michaelian 