Live Encounters Poetry & Writing August 2025
Unwinding the Past, poems by Michael Minassian.
Unwinding the Past
This afternoon, the sky turned
a deep shock of blue
like a swath of canvas
in a Renaissance painting
with gold clad angels
and women with braided hair.
Overhead, crows fly
in erratic circles
defying gravity and math
then disappear behind
a cloud shaped
like a mermaid’s tail.
Across the street
a few kids kick
a mishappen soccer ball—
it lands at my feet
like the head of a saint
separated from its neck,
a kind of delirium
when the past opens
its mouth to speak.
Mailing Postcards To Myself
I send post cards
to myself, preferring the tactile
experience of pen on paper
to text messages and email,
Instagram and Facebook.
On the back of the cards,
I scribble nonsense phrases
beginning with the word love
and ending with the word
postscript, misspelled
seventeen times.
I wait for the mail
to be delivered,
not sure what to think
about cards that arrive.
My own handwriting
covers both sides
like a confession
I forgot to burn.
When Gravity Isn’t Enough
I wonder when I became
the cartographer of catastrophe.
The moonlit sky cold,
my hands white with love’s snow
I wonder if I could chase
the shadow of sleep
or if touching the shadow
will bring the sleeper close.
To touch her voluptuous cheek
or see myself reflected
in her eccentric eyes,
fixed to the spot, anchored to earth.
© Michael Minassian
Michael Minassian is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His poetry collections Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, and A Matter of Timing as well as a chapbook, Jack Pays a Visit, are all available on Amazon. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com