The World I Know


This is one of three poems that I wrote simultaneously on April 8, 1999. It appeared with one of its siblings, “The Land of Eyes,” in a now defunct small literary magazine called Mind In Motion, which was very thoughtfully edited and arranged by Céleste Goyer. The third poem, “Dear Melissa,” has yet to be published and currently resides in a binder.

When I say I wrote three poems simultaneously, I mean that I really did switch back and forth between them, adding a little to each until they were done. This wasn’t something I set out to do. Rather, something in each seemed to move the others forward. Yet they are separate entities, and not merely an overlapping conglomeration of thoughts that should have been distilled into one poem, or sorted out and saved for another day. Had that been the case, I would have gladly accepted the situation, and would have done what needed to be done.


The World I Know

The world I know
is not like your world.
We bind our children
with fear,
then we teach them
to believe in reason.
What dreams they have
we selfishly ignore,
until they wither
and die of hunger
like fallen baby birds.

Your crazy spirits
that bloom like flowers
would not survive here.
Your winged thoughts
would beat against
our prison walls,
then die slowly of regret.
You are seekers of light,
we are followers of death.
We search diligently
for an end
in everything we do,
while for you
everything is a beginning.

The world I know
is not like your world.
We are too arrogant
to celebrate life.
Instead,
we imprison beauty,
hide truth,
deny love,
and wage war
against ourselves.

The world I know
is not like your world.
You would suffer here.
Still,
I’m glad you’ve come.
If you decide to stay,
maybe our world
will be more like yours.



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

Winter Poems (click to view cover)

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

Another Song I Know (click to view cover)

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
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News and Reviews
Highly Recommended
Let’s Eat
Favorite Books & Authors
Useless Information
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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
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
Up Here On the Hill
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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