A beggar with a wide flat back, bent to tie what’s left of his shoes, laces foul, nails gone, smelling for all the world like human rust, and I, a lamp post anchored to this spot, painted like a song to resemble steel, desperately in need of hands. Poems, Slightly Used, October 10, 2010 [ 72 ]
To open a watermelon, we must first choose a place for the door. Remember: there will be no handle, no lock, no bell — only light, and a thumping sound sure to call children — a split and a crack like a limb or a shack weighted with ice in the winter. Out back is the mind. Leave it behind. This is no time for thinking. And what do we […]
2011
The birches and firs give us just enough light
through a south-facing window.
Someday, casually or with infinite care,
someone will take us down.
But we will still be here.
And you will hear our song.
Canvas 194
[ 65 ]
2011
I, Leonardo, have but one more thing to say:
no day is just as you imagine — no world, no man,
no mortal lump of clay. Life is a blind wind
that devours words and bones. It is a fervent hope,
the breath of breath itself, a poison that is
its antidote. Flesh of my flesh, child of my child,
learn this song and sing it well. We are orphans
on this road. Our triumph is to be alone.
“I, Leonardo”
Songs and Letters, September 30, 2006
Another Song I Know, Cosmopsis Books, 2007
Canvas 178
[ 64 ]
Dawn, n. 1. In summer, the time when one side of a tree is awake, the other side asleep. Some say enlightenment begins this way, then spreads, leaf by leaf by leaf. In winter, when the branches of many trees are bare, they resemble the open arms of loved ones; in spring, belief; in autumn, secrets kept for years. 2. An uncanny explanation of the night. 3. That which follows […]
Every now and then, I like to remind people that I’m well aware that by publishing my efforts, I’m really charting my decline. It’s intended as a statement of humor and truth. I don’t fear losing my mind, but maybe I should. It is going. But in which direction? Is it strengthening and gathering force? I’m healthier now physically than when my books were written. I’m also older, grayer, and […]
He took the morning in his hands and said it was an orange. I’d never seen one peeled that way. He offered me a slice of daylight. I remember the way it felt on my tongue. Papa, I said, Tell me, Is this really the sun? He laughed. Yes, he said, As long As we’re young. He peeled it up. He peeled it down. He peeled a house. He peeled […]
There’s one thing I’ve become convinced of over the years: we are all angels, and we are all mirrors. What Others See Somewhere, in a fairy tale beside a dream, there is a boy who swallows a firefly, and a girl with seven knees. Beautiful knees her jealous mother tries to hide. The firefly lives inside the boy, makes his hair and fingers glow. The boy and girl meet: I […]
2011
We’re better seen from across the room,
better still the intervening field of successive years in wheaten rows,
where lay, concealed, our snow-white bones.
Remembrance, 2011
[ 57 ]
Where does a dream end, and the act of remembering it begin? That’s like asking the storyteller if he knows he’s a ghost. The observer is observed, observing the observer, in a succession of night-blue mirrors. And the eyes in them are stars. Some are moving away, others drawing near. And here is the imagined space between them. Lost in San Francisco Lost in San Francisco, I met a […]
William Michaelian 