The More We Are Looking For |
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The word idea is extremely potent but often misunderstood because, like all words, it is so frequently and casually abused. This is sad, because we base our actions on what we think words mean, and what they come to represent in our minds, without recognizing and appreciating their power. Settling for a an approximation is not only limiting, but dangerous.
�The More We Are Looking For� also appears at Soul Food Caf�, as part of a collaborative project called the Alluvial Mine. More of my poems are featured on this Soul Food poetry page. The More We Are Looking For An idea is like a child. It is not how or when it is born, but if. An idea cannot be called forth. It must be witnessed and set free. If we think of an idea as a pebble cast into a pond, then we will realize it lives on long after we have ceased to notice. An idea is not a possession. It must be followed wherever it wants to go. An idea is not a feather in one�s cap, or a victory, or a sign of ability. It is a pure voice, a blessing on the wind. When we try to name an idea, it laughs at us and slips away. When we try to ignore it, it grabs us by the throat. When we deny its existence, it abandons us for more fertile ground. An idea is never quite what we think it is, or wish it would be. It is always much, much more. Like the silence between two thoughts, or the hidden mass of an iceberg, an idea is a cradle of awesome power, a well so deep that its beginning is its end, and its end the place where it really begins. An idea is the creative more we are looking for, but are often afraid to find. It is the dream we banish in the name of sanity, the wise and noble grief we flee, the ancient memory of verdant sighs, a flower fallen from Life�s sensual crown. An idea is a golden drop of sunshine the instant before it meets the ground. It is the song we sing when words have failed, the face we seek when we are born, the home we find when we move on and live forever, fearlessly, in the moment. 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 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) Caf� 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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