Up Here On the Hill

Up Here On the Hill
The poem you’re about to read came into being this way: Last night, after I turned off the lamp beside the bed, I decided it would be fun to try to compose a poem before I went to sleep. But before I could think up a single line, I was asleep, although I didn’t find that out until later, when my eyes popped open at about four a.m. and an entire poem was looking out at me from the wall. Ah-ha, I said — there you are. And then I marveled at the poem for about two minutes. But the poem you’re about to read isn’t that poem, because I fell asleep again, and when my eyes popped open the second time the poem was gone, just as if it had never been written — which, come to think of it, is exactly the case. How do I know the poem you’re about to read isn’t the poem that came to me in bed? Simple: that poem was a lot better than this one. I wrote this one when I was awake, and, as most people already know, I am not nearly as sharp awake as I am asleep — not that I can always tell the difference. Up Here On the Hill Well, the story goes, they buried me up here on the hill but I went right on talking, pretty much to anybody who comes along — put a scare into some of ’em, too, figuring I am dead and all, and the truth is I can’t explain it myself, whether it’s the location, maybe, and all that nice air up here on the hill, and the grass that grows and the flowers that bloom, or I ain’t really dead though I seem to lie here awfully still, or just restless in my head like I always been when a storm is comin’ in — whatever it is, I sure wish some of ’em would answer, ’cause for a man in my place that would be a thrill, and life ain’t all it oughta be up here on the hill. Note: Poems, Slightly Used, a growing collection of work first published in my blog, Recently Banned Literature, can be found here. POETRY COLLECTIONS IN PRINT Available from Cosmopsis Books of San Francisco *Winter Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 US $11.95; $8.95 at Cosmopsis Books 52 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes one drawing. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Winter Poems* displays the skills and abilities of Mr. Michaelian at their most elemental level, at the bone. Wandering amidst a barren world, a world scraped bare, he plucks the full moon like fruit from the winter sky, goes mad and befriends a pack of hungry wolves, burns his poems to keep warm. He is a flake of snow, a frozen old man, a spider spinning winter webs. Spring is only a vague notion of a waiting vineyard, crocuses, and ten-thousand babies. The author is alone, musing, reflecting, at times participating. But not quite alone, for he brings the lucky reader along. I’ve been there, to this winter world, and I plan to go back. — John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp *Another Song I Know — Short Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 US $13.95; $10.95 at Cosmopsis Books 80 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes Author’s Note. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Another Song I Know* is a delightful collection of brief, resilient poems. Reading them, one by one by one, is like taking a walk through our common everyday world and suddenly hearing what the poet hears: the leaves, a coffee cup, chairs — and yes, even people, singing their songs of wisdom, sweetness, and light. *— Tom Koontz, Barnwood* poetry magazine**	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts *Poetry, Notes & Marginalia:* Recently Banned Literature Collected Poems by William Michaelian A Larger Life Monastery of Psalms Revelation Friends (includes French translation) Summer of Dreams Hunger Is It His Coat? The Boy Who Wrote Letters Forty Days, Forty Nights Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues) The Pilgrim’s Way A Christmas Wish The Teacher The Literary Awakening of America The Healer The Enigmatic Child What Happened to God Reading Tristram Shandy A Prefix of Obscure Meaning He Knows My Only Friend The World I Know We Do Not Need a Poem Three Short Poems The More We Are Looking For I Hear the Earth What Will I Give You? Great Minds Think Alike The Age of Us All I Met My Spirit Claim Denied Summer Days Greek Peppers Another Hard Day James Joyce Singing How Many Stones? At the Armenian Home The Peace Talks The Eggs of March Armenian Music If Poems Were Days Once Again I Lied Frogs One Last Thing Everywhere I Go Pumpkins Winter View What December Said to January Winter Poems Spring Haiku How to Write a Poem, In Three Lessons The Walls Have Ears Why I Don’t Buy Grapes To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors It Was Early Morning Haiku Someone’s Mother Fall Questions My Old Black Sport Coat The Clerk and the Windmill Roadside Distress, Part 2 Magical Realism (First Prize) Café Poetry Night: Two Poems Short Poem for Spring Short Poem for Summer I Find Him Eating Butterflies For the Sister I Never Had An Absurdist Play The Second Act Essay Of Poets and Other Things
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