Out listening to the birds before sunrise, gazing up through the shadowy scaffolding of the greening trees as I walk, I am witness to the natural cycle of waking and sleeping according to the light, and its restorative, medicinal benefits. Artificial light, clocks, television, alcohol, caffeine — one must wonder about a race of beings that works so uniformly and effectively against itself, that sees sleep as an obstacle, and […]
I used to have dreams about work not done. I was behind on the farm, I was late, the necessity and importance of the job had completely slipped my mind. An example: suddenly it was April or May, and I realized I had forgotten to prune ten whole acres of vines. Always, or almost always, the dreams culminated in a feeling of guilt and shame. It has been many years […]
Canvas 1,234
They arrived almost immediately after I had awakened
from a surprisingly deep after-lunch sleep.
Or maybe they were already here,
and I am the one who arrived.
Or it might be all of us were away,
and fate arranged our simultaneous return.
March 31, 2019
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The Asylum Poems came into being in 2007 while I was taking care of my mother, who was battling Alzheimer’s Disease. The cycle of twenty short poems comprises the whole of Volume 15 of Songs and Letters, a much larger work begun in 2005 and completed in 2009. The poems were written early in the morning at my mother’s house, in a small bedroom facing the overgrown backyard. Fir trees, […]
The flower might be a rose — let’s say it’s wild, uncultivated, madly scented, and that you’ve come upon it on a path near a river. Or it might be a prize dahlia, or a humble marigold — and suddenly you’re on your knees, sniffing the clover in your lawn — honey, you think — and in that moment you are a bee — a reasoning bee, a bee with […]
Although I’ve recorded and published many dreams, I have not written about sleep itself more than to say in passing that I slept poorly or I slept well, which is, really, a way of avoiding the subject. What a terrible night, I say, — and then move on to other things. Or, That’s the best I’ve slept in forty years, as if I could remember each and every night, and […]
William Michaelian 
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