Author: mlmichael

Bee-Tiny’s playroom

I want to create a playroom for her.

And I want to create a playroom within her.

And I want to create a playroom that never leaves her.

***********

Because someday, and unbeknownst of my being, I will leave her.

And I will want this joie de vivre to stay with her forever…

For Bee-Tiny

I want to create a playroom for her.

And I want to create a playroom within her.

And I want to create a playroom that never leaves her.

 ***********

Because someday, and unbeknownst of my being, I will leave her.

And I will want this joie de vivre to stay with her forever...

********

M. L. Michael

01/12/2015

**

About…

your name is a poem that your mother spoke

You were brand new, so brand new that no more than an hour ago, I witnessed your rather shocking and spectacular arrival to this funny blue and green planet we call home.
You were surreally, so severely, new that my heart immediately soared and ached, that my brain reeled and seized over this brand new, great new, tiny new, fragile new, capital u, Unknown.[…]

Your Name Is A Poem That Your Mother Spoke

You were brand new, so brand new that no more than an hour ago, I witnessed your rather shocking and spectacular arrival to this funny blue and green planet we call home. 
You were surreally, so severely, new that my heart immediately soared and ached, that my brain reeled and seized over this brand new, great new, tiny new, fragile new, capital u, Unknown.
For at no other point in my life has it been made more clear that I have no idea what I what I am doing. At that point my confusion was a pit, deep and dense within my stomach. It made me antsy, and it made me buggy. 
And your mother said it was adorable. 
“Adorable”. 
No...that’s your word now, Bethany. 
Your father felt far from adorable.
He felt slightly …disconnected... a bit out of body, like he was observing himself in third person, like he was watching one of the biggest and boldest chapters of his life written into being. 

You were barely brand new when the doctor asked who was going to cut the umbilical cord...and (bless his 90-to-nothing heart) your buffoonishly befuddled father looked around for a volunteer …until it dawned that he was the prime volunteer. Then, when your father was handed the scissors …and in all his goofy grandeur... he grabbed them from the middle (...as if never before, in over thirty years of living, had he handled a pair before). Then the doctor (bless her patient heart) showed him that no, we hold scissors by the handles when we wish to use them. 

But, you know, as foolish as this makes your father sound… I would not have wished for your first moments to have been any different.
Because here’s this pivotal life scene – unfolding spontaneously, improvisationaly, before our eyes – it’s a moment of stupendous weight – and here it is overcast with wonderful absurdity and comical confusion. It is filled –bristling, bustling and brimming- with positive, electric, emotion. For it was but moments ago that you were delivered into this world like a magic trick...a magic trick so amazing to behold that your dear ol' dad nearly lost it, because it’s the greatest  magic trick that he has ever witnessed, and so it shall remain the one trick by which all others are judged. 

And so now here you are …so adorably, absurdly, beautifully, brand new...

M. L. Michael
01/01/15

About…

Ta-Da!
It’s a tiny human!

this too will melt

last night I saw a documentary
about an ice sculptor from far up north,
a nondescript fellow that created art
from that which is too cold
to be held on to for too long.[…]

this too will melt

last night I saw a documentary
about an ice sculptor from far up north,  
a nondescript fellow that created art
from that which is too cold 
to be held on to for too long.

for years before and, surely, for years to follow,
he carved out what he saw with closed eyes
and open ideas, he etched out what
he felt with a searching heart,
...all from cold's jealous grip. 

on this particular day,

he created a dragon
that burst from the ice -
ready to challenge the hero of the story,

he created a sword,
to pull from an azure stone -
ready to give strength to the willful,

and 

he created a rose,
with all the wrinkles of a rich life -
ready to reward the resilient.

he would spend all day
creating these unique totems,
then he would abandon them outside
and go off to bed, bone tired,
knowing well that tomorrow they will melt,
they will fade away, nearly towards never,
...and that all of this only adds to their value...


they say his sleep is worth millions.
he refuses to put a price on it. 

-M. L. Michael-
-2.18.14-

About…

what it is to dance around the fire

let’s dance around this fire,
let’s pretend like we don’t know what’s going on,
and let’s dance like natives worshiping their elemental god.
let’s dance closer, and closer, to this fire,
let’s pretend like we forgot the sting of flame,
and let’s get closer to the heat we want to remember. […]

what it is to dance around the fire

let’s dance around this fire,
let’s pretend like we don’t know what’s going on,
and let’s dance like natives worshiping their elemental god.
let’s dance closer, and closer, to this fire,
let’s pretend like we forgot the sting of flame,
and let’s get closer to the heat we want to remember.

…you dance like you afraid,
like somewhere, someone, is watching, judging,
like your every liberated move is an act of blasphemy. 
instead, dance like you are emboldened,
like right now, right here, you’re here, (much more than) merely being,
and like the only eyes on you that matter,
are these that frame you dancing, simply because 
you’re happy to be right here, (no less than) wondrously living.

this fire, this moment, is frozen in time
and melting in space, 
before we can barely blink, ashes will replace embers,
our imitation memories will replace our tangible joys.
so for right now, (and for the only now that matters,)
let’s do our best not to blink as much,
and let’s dance, let’s dance like the 
world around us is crumbling down,
(…because it is…)
and that the only thing that can save us,
is our passion that burns brighter, 
the closer, and closer, we dance around the fire. 

1.2.14
M. L. Michael

About…

what barely remains

in her wake,

in her ether left,
she leaves spaces
for a lingering sigh
in that cold remain.
she leaves remnants
for a longing goodbye
in that Hollywood rain. […]

in her wake,
in her ether left,
she leaves spaces
for a lingering sigh
in that cold remain.
she leaves remnants
for a longing goodbye
in that Hollywood rain.

trailing behind her,
and beyond her,
as a wistful scent,
as a wishful hope,
as a whispered what,
is an impression of an ideal,
a glimpse through a rose window,
a hint at an ache against the reel.

with one breath
you can draw her back in,
you can draw her back into your mind,
into your heart as a work of passioned art.
with one more breath
you can summon her spirit,
you can summon her spirit as a sensation
of a dart remembered through the heart.

with another, with another breath,
she starts to slip further away
like love-me/love-me-not petals caught in the air.
with another, with another breath,
she dances further from your fingertips,
like that balloon you won (and then lost)
at the county fair.

and with one more breath,
her vividness is nearly vapored.
and with one more breath,
she leaves you wanting
much more than her perfumed essence. 

1.1.2014
M. L. Michael

About…

apparitions (performed with bi_Polar bear)

The sun sets on the empty horizon,
And a blood moon aches to fill in the space,

The Ghost of I, mirroring the Specter of Sighs,
Running from the Abyss of Nigh,
Struggles to find relief
In the space twixt cold sheets. […]

The sun sets on the empty horizon,
And a blood moon aches to fill in the space,

The Ghost of I, mirroring the Specter of Sighs, 
Running from the Abyss of Nigh,
Struggles to find relief
In the space twixt cold sheets.           

Crows caw in the distance,
Caroling the end of an era,
Ushering in the reality of an omen,
Crows caw,
Signaling the beginning
Of the flight or fight omen,
The dawn of
The do or die era.

.....


There will be no sleep for the Ghost of I,
For the crows have spoken,
And in their caw they have responded with a simple chorus –

The ghost is done,
The specter moves on,
The abyss has won,

Their caw echoes into the night,
Their call remains unanswered…

Unless…

Unless the ghost rages from its haunted bed
And floats out from the dark, into the light,
Into a forgiving, a living, world,
To find the crows of ill tidings,
And correct them of their misguidings.

…Brimming with purpose, the ghost sets out,
Across the deserts of depression,
Into the forests of folly,
Over the mountains of malaise,
Into the ravines of reward..
Through the fields of failure,
Into the space of what’s to come.
The ghost must be determined
To find the crows and stop their cawing.

Time is lost to the one so determined,
And – hope never forgotten –
Full of vim and of fighting,
The ghost finds the nest of crows,
The source of his true haunting,

Here is that murder,
A whirlwind of wanting tar feathers,
A myriad mass of caws and cacophony,
A indistinguishable blur of agony,
A writhing want of bliss for the abyss.

But fear is lost to the spirit so determined,
And – pain now forgotten –
Full of vigor and of fighting,
The ghost dives into this cacophony,
Into the source of true agony.

To gnash and gnaw,
To crash and claw.

The abyss is theirs to revolt,
To rebel against,
The abyss is theirs,
To dispel,
To distort against.

The abyss is theirs
to own.

….

The crows are never silenced,
But now they caw a different chorus,

The ghost is done.
The ghost has won.
The ghost moves on.

The End.
The End.
The End…

-12/18/13-
M. L. Michael

About…

RIP Jeremy Rounkles…

still life with fruit

A bruised banana that doesn’t realize
It is still healthy and nutritious.
A banana split melting
In the mental-ward.
A man in a banana suit
Running the Bank of America.[…]

still life with fruit

A bruised banana that doesn't realize
It is still healthy and nutritious.
A banana split melting
In the mental-ward.
A man in a banana suit
Running the Bank of America.
A banana in a man suit
In charge of the monkeys at the zoo.

A worm hidden
In the apple of my eye.
A bulls-eye on the apple
Atop Eve’s head.
An apple flavored sleeping pill
Endorsed by Snow White.
A rotting apple pie
On a foreclosed home's windowsill.

A sweet peach that was grown
From a bad seed.
A boy with a bit of peach fuzz
thinking he’s the fucking man.
A peachy-keen outlook
In a brutally-blunt world.
A peach of immortality
As a myth that died in the minds of man.

A servant poisoning the royalty
With the grapes of their wrath.
An overweight kid playing
A game of marbles with his grapes.
A lone grape drunk
With the delusions of a wino.
A sour grape sober
With the realizations of life.

A bowl –
Keeping all the plucked fruit
One step away from the fallen.

11/26/13
M. L. Michael

About…

silence is ugly

silence is ugly.
noise is golden.

silence is stagnant,
a break in beat.
silence is still,
the lack of life,
the wane of will.[…]

silence is ugly. 
noise is golden.

silence is stagnant,
a break in beat.
silence is still,
the lack of life,
the wane of will.

for silence speaks only of nothing,
and the weight of our knowledge
of the constant expanding space.


noise is nourishing,
a reaction against removal.
noise is knowing,
the celebration of creation,
the glee of growing.

for noise knows nothing of nothing,
and sends notes like bottles
out into the constant expanding space.   

M, L. Michael 
11.18.13

About…

before the lights go out

before the lights went out,
we told each other “I love you”,
those words became our wards,
our incantations of life against night.

before the lights went out,
we would make each other laugh,
we would push back our bed time
with spiteful, sleepy eyed humor.[…]

before the lights go out

before the lights went out,
we told each other “I love you”,
those words became our wards,
our incantations of life against night. 

before the lights went out,
we would make each other laugh,
we would push back our bed time
with spiteful, sleepy eyed humor.

before the lights went out,
we would tell each other stories,
we would relive and enliven,
we would relish as much as possible.
  
before the lights went out,
we always said “good night”,
because this has been a good day,
and this will be our good night. 

M. L. Michael 
11/03/13

About…