My mother passed away eight years ago today. September 25, 2021 . Donne and Done Give or take a few centuries, my mother lived ninety-one years, two months, and twenty-one days. Alzheimer’s Disease made for a sad, confused, prolonged ending, difficult and painful for her and her family. It was also beautiful. In very personal terms, it was and remains a gift. I watched her light go out — the […]
Meaning where there is none, fat as a ripened plum. random note, 2011 . The Comedy of Errors 1. Shakespeare, an early play. 2. The idea that we can improve or fix this vast and perfect universe, or make use of it on our own chosen terms. (See Farce.) May 12, 2021 . [ 1104 ]
The winter light, the old books and photographs, pierce me through and through. I move among them with my teacup like a ghost. I do not bleed from my old wounds. They might be kisses, for all I know. Words are like that too. They never say themselves. They do not know how. Yet they rule the world, each a tyger burning bright, each of heaven, each of hell. Shakespeare […]
The sky, a tree, a rose, a fish, a flower — but what holds it all together? If I say love, will you smile? — You, a woven galaxy of nerves? You, with your suppleness and warmth, and the science of your eyes? Never mind what the Greeks said, or Darwin, or Shakespeare. Open wide your gates. Shed your raiment. Put down your shield. Behold our trembling flesh. Is it […]
A full three hours before dawn, and the geese at the pond are already in an uproar. What starts them so, there in the dark? What fuels their urge and feeds their eyes at this hour? Their sound makes light of the intervening mile. Waxed apples are a modern tragedy. Surely their trees would weep to see them. A truck hauling apples across the country is a chilled mausoleum. The […]
A calendar not marked by dates, but cricket wakes and thunderstorms. A journal of bright Shakespearean colors — and then, in wanders gray and takes the stage. A fallen leaf, written without hand or pen. A leavened moon. A risen when. [ 497 ]
Yesterday afternoon, from the front window, I watched a pair of sparrows feeding on the tiny flies, if that’s what they are, in the heavy crop of purslane at the shoreline-edge of the garden. But I think they might also have been eating the purslane itself, because several times one or the other tugged at a leaf with energy and enthusiasm. But only now, after many hours have passed, and […]
Speaking of past lives, it must be one of mine that brings Andy Lace to mind. As for “Heavy Metal Pews,” I stand willingly accused of variety. And I still have not cut my hair, even though there is time, or something that quaintly resembles it. Heavy Metal Pews So, John, I hear you guys just finished a new CD. Tell me, how’d it go in the studio? […]
He’s a Shakespeare of sorts, demented, plumed, and proud,
but he answers to Quixote when no one else is around.
A Shakespeare of Sorts
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William Michaelian 