WHarryman

@wharryman.bsky.social

661 Followers 2156 Following

Scientific writer/editor at an NIH-funded comprehensive cancer center (work on adhesion molecules in early stage PRAD); psychotherapist for survivors of childhood sexual trauma; personal trainer - secular Buddhist, cyclist, poetry lover - personal account

revelations can piano keys weep the way ocean rain tastes like loss a pillar candle flame sputters and drowns in its own wax these things happen said the priest meaning god the father has died death haunts our cells after birth thrusts us blind into life’s harsh light falling asleep in a mountain stream one awakens abruptly with new gills in liminal silence one might ask why water became translational ~ WIlliam Harryman, 6.21.26 - 6.26.26
choices somewhere in the middle a comma, maybe, or question mark given a choice between an apple or a knife, I chose a riddle a question mark unfurls to a sunflower cosmos but fire purifies memory with a hex or incantation she added wood to the stove while whistling Mad World there must be a sentence rolling as a tumbleweed after the comma, infinite possibilities wrestle for control this is the middle, before and after dance around the room memory purified is cloudless lost in a grass fire of indecision she watched the pot boil and poured two cups of tea ~ William Harryman, 6.16.26 - 6.17.26
Faith when the ground beneath us ruptures and swallows us into its dank uncertainty we are told to embrace our faith there was holy water in the bowl when doves flew through open oak doors and settled on the marble fount I wore the cross as a red scar on the soft skin inside my left wrist last time I prayed the crows gathered in Blessed Sacrament Dominican Church and built nests with hymnal pages in the incense-stained rafters over Jim Beam I once spoke with Brother Antoninus of his choice to become a Dominican poet of sacred sex and cutting firewood I had not yet tasted the flame that would mark my absence of faith but Antoninus knew the Latin shaped me in ways only a raven on a fence post reveals so he kept refilling my tumbler with bourbon that night around the wood stove I felt the great God of ecstasy tear the ground beneath me and I was swallowed whole faith is walking barefoot in the forest at night and believing one’s imminent and predictable death means anything ~6.9.26 – William Harryman
12 Questions ~ after Bhanu Kapil Who do you see in your mirror when you wake in the morning? Do you know where you begin? Have you eaten mushrooms while sitting in a pitch black cave? Can you feel the edges of your body without touching them, where skin meets world, where words meet page? What was your face before you were conceived? Have you dreamed your death mask? How did you get here, at this table, with this page? Have you met your spirit animal for drinks? How do you explain the texture of water? When was the last time you truly cried, or laughed until the world was music? Which direction do you run when the lightning comes? Do you know where tomorrow has gone? ~ William Harryman, 5.22.26/5.26.26
The Child Ashen shadows stain Freshly fallen snow Once there were no lakes Then the fire came Debris-dammed creeks Gather snowmelt in their arms And even then… Time passed slowly Turning uneven windows Into a still life of spiders And even then… A girl on a bicycle Rings a bell as she peddles Through a shroud of snow The man and the woman Wave at the ghost child Dragging a doll on a leash And even then… Hills scarred by fire Hidden by blizzard Frozen earth breathes Fog amid the wheat stubble Poking through snow The woman leaves hay For barned horses And even then… Night arrives as a promise Frosted windows Like crisp spiderwebs The man and the woman Sit in tender silence As darkness quilts their loss ~ William Harryman, 4.28.26 - 5.6.26
April 14, 2026 children are playing catch in the street this morning before the sun’s first light a golden retriever runs back and forth, chasing a ball it will never catch I stand in the doorway watching the game proceed and enjoying the cool air the world is so upside down… but for a little while, before the sun rises, there is play ~ William Harryman
the picture contains the text of the title, authors, and Abstract for a paper on kindlin-2 function under hypoxic conditions in a prostate cancer cell line
Breath Can you breathe? Mind was an afterthought. Hummingbirds chirped and chased each other guarding white saguaro flowers. Time stopped and danced a silent pirouette. As a child, I imagined the grill of the confessional as a window behind which god sat naked and bored. I made up elaborate sins to entertain her. She never smiled. Can you breathe? Self requires motion. The room was quiet but for the breathing of lovers having exhausted their need. Crows gathered in the oak tree to gossip. When I imagined death I became a raven. A hungry candle devoured my sister. Time installed in me a soul, said the priest, but I preferred to wonder in dark forests. Can you breathe? Everything sounds like something she said to me in college. Memory is a basement flooded by rain, I used to pretend I knew how to be a man. The wound on my chest has never healed. I wanted to be Orpheus, but I am Cassandra. The weight of a soul is deadening, a heaviness on my ribs, stifling my ability to breathe. William Harryman, 3.31.26
Child I was born in a closet, encased in wax, and hanged from a hook behind woolen winter jackets. Ravens regurgitated rotting flesh into my mouth, dragged me out into the rain, then replaced me on my hook. Daffodils bloomed outside the window. As I grew my cocoon expanded, swaddling me in thick wax that never cracked. I lacked any sense of day or night, but I heard voices in the distance and so learned language. My bones never solidified, remained rubbery and brittle like a newborn. The ravens kept me alive, despite my pleas to leave me in the darkness. After many years the hook broke free from the plaster and I fell to the floor, stunned and suddenly free of the wax, neatly cracked in halves. Too weak to stand, I curled myself into a question mark and fell asleep one last time. ~ William Harryman, 3.17.26 - 3.18.26
clairvoyance with every step thick mud sucks at my boot nearly rooting me – I never intended to travel this far out, or this deep in my pack – a ballpoint pen and notebook Heaney’s The Spirit Level, bag of walnuts two apples, a flashlight, steel water bottle it was night longer than I can remember for forty days I dwelt in Cassandra’s dream, watched her see beyond minutes tattooed and mohawked, something missing behind her eyes, bewilderment, betrayed from the moment of birth, and I watched the dream dissolve into a frosty dark night the night was colder than I can remember metabolizing every minute into a pile of letters, building words and lines, walking an old logging road in the Cascades the rain will never stop, I’ve seen the flood in which I drown, oak trees uprooted rivers slowly rising down in the valley this night means more than I can remember ~ William Harryman, 3.6-7.26
One minute before midnight I took the battery out of the clock so that it’s always a minute before midnight, always on the cusp of something, a new day, or maybe the candle lit at dusk has melted over the window sill. I drowned once, when I was small, and I am not sure I lived, but here I stand, gray and wrinkled, older than I ever hoped to be, planting sunflowers for the birds, a fist of desert soil in my trembling hand. I stood in the rain a few weeks ago, praying to no one for the lightning that never arrived, watching my footprints fill with water, small oceans surrounded by decaying seed pods from the Mesquite tree. It was necessary to abandon time, to stop the clock and sit on the ground outside the back door, to watch ants strip the basil of all its leaves as spring blossomed in color across the desert, one last minute until the goodbye. ~ William Harryman, 3.2.26
Refractions 1. Who can say what the self is? The face in the mirror shifts imperceptively, each feeling or thought wears a different self from the dark closet. 2. Wind whispers a lullaby, but these are my stones stacked beside the road, a raw marker to a self who left the body in a ditch filled with water. 3. Is it possible to undress myself and stand as a blank page? Runes tattooed on my bones reveal echoes of the Big Bang, a chorus of quiet forgetting. 4. I am a verb. A voice dragged to suffer, to dance, to scream a desolate howl into the night, and in the chasm between words a different self peeks out. 5. Childhood abandoned in dust. Memories of possible selves collect on the merry-go-round, a pocketful of pebbles the only secret held when sunlight fades. 6. Her body wrapped me in silence, the dark closet where I crouched behind boxes filled with old photos. It began with a prayer, syllables of longing and the first words… ~ William Harryman, 2.25.26
Route 66 red and white checked tablecloths cover tables in the dimly lit diner coffee cups filled to overflowing spill puddles still steaming the neon sign said Diner nothing more, some bulbs barely lit in twilight we ordered apple pie because this is Route 66 after all, peak Americana the waitress pours more coffee and asks if we need anything else yes, I think to myself we need a destination a reason to keep driving we need a sunset to drive toward, a cliff to drive over, a sharp turn into endless desert but I smile and ask her for the check, leave a tip larger than the bill because just because, we are lost in a world that stopped making sense, the plot lost so we drive, town to town, looking for a reason to stop, unpack the trunk, settle as darkness descends, we leave behind our selves hanging on the coat hooks ~ William Harryman, 2.19.26
Ash Wednesday as a child I wore the cross smudge of ash like a scar barely healed, flesh raw to the touch, a melancholy marker of a life left lying in dry weeds years later, still young, I traded prayer for a bottle, began to scribble words onto blank pages seeking deliverance, seeking escape in empty landscapes there is only the doing and the undoing, rosary hanging from a thumb tack, gray hair and grayer eyes, gaze turned within, speaking only in abstractions ~ William Harryman, 2.18.26
a poem from The Paris Review Joyce Mansour “I stole the yellow bird …” I stole the yellow bird That lives in the devil’s sex He will teach me how to seduce Men, stags, double-winged angels, He will remove my thirst, my clothes, my illusions, He will sleep, As for me, my slumber runs along the rooftops Mumbling, waving, making violent love, With cats. —Translated from the French by Emilie Moorhouse ~ From issue no. 243 (Spring 2023)
house the stranger stopped a moment in front of the abandoned house window glass long-ago broken it was here the musician played his violin for the spiders and mice while clouds swirled and darkened bodies have been buried behind the house where the fence failed to keep the dead from wandering children dare each other to enter the house for one eternal minute before echoes of the violin return even a direct lightning strike did not burn the house to the ground when the night erupted in thunder ~ 11.28.25 William Harryman
family once a year the pipe came out around Thanksgiving a bowl of walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, and Brazil nuts sweet whiskey-tinged smoke lingered in the kitchen the man called father sitting at the table with his coffee a vinyl record played something classical on the stereo the woman called mother folded laundry in the back room the scene was obviously framed, the spoken lines cliched how did I get here? a misplaced childhood with strangers my cousins ride shifting winds far from this gray city sitting on the floor of the bedroom trying to write myself out artificial light from the windows refuses to cast shadows the mother dramatically opens the door and quietly smiles I can hear the girl called sister playing tea party with her dolls the director has left, there is no curtain to end this nightmare
Falling I can’t say I was conscious when my small body slammed into the earth, bark scratches bloodied my face and arms, ribs and limbs cracked with each impact on branches breaking the fall, slowing the motion of a body falling as dictated by law. There was a brief moment of recognition, the fleeting awareness of falling, then a searing pain where breath left the flesh, and pain flashed against a blue sky fragmented and frantic, unable to fathom why the world inverted itself. I might have died for a moment. There was no white light, no ancestors greeting me, just absence, cessation, a calm before my eyes opened again and my fractured body screamed to be released, freed from this torturous world, a rejection of every next moment’s arrival. I spent decades chasing that emptiness, that peace of nonawareness, drowning so many days in vodka, seeking escape through language or sex, even watching my breath, nothing able to remove me from me. All these years later I’ve stopped seeking, given up the craving to feel nothing, and so I walk amid ancient red rock, ponderosa and chaparral, look for raven to lead me into the unknown, pools of rain water cleansing exposed stone, trails into slot canyons, bare aspen, juniper twisted by wind, as my body was once twisted, a wilderness calmly cradling me in uncertainty. ~ 11.25.25 William Harryman
Harvest I can’t hear your voice anymore there is nothing to be done is it winter again already ravens gather beside the creek scarred flesh demands attention I remember how longing feels rustle of bare branches in the wind sliver of moon in the western sky my body has grown cold a piano sonata for the soul cold mornings forget the harvest there is no voice in decay ~ 11.24.25 William Harryman
a new poem The unburnt bush The burning bush fell extinguished by torrents of rain before revealing its solemn secrets. Bare feet bloodied by sharp stones. Untended sheep scattered amid brambles and brush. The man stood blank in crimson rain. The staff at his feet rattled and writhed then slithered away. He knelt on the wet rocks and wept as the prayer I am who I am stuck in his throat. ~ 10.31.25 - 11.1.25 William Harryman
A new poem that showed up yesterday and wrote itself in about 10 minutes. still life a small orange goldfish swims imperfect circles within the large crystal vase surrounded by still life with rotting apples moldy cheese a dull knife stabbed into an old oak table this is the vision tattooed beneath my eyelids when sleep eludes shallow breaths there is no frame by which to know borders or boundaries so the day fades and candles are lit tomorrow the goldfish will be dead again and the flies imperfectly circle the rotted apples ~ by William Harryman
yellow caution road sign with two figures - sign says "Caution! Dipshits in charge"
new poem: discovery ground fog shadowed the barren fields when I found the collapsing house hidden within blackberry brambles the once white porch lost its stairs and the front door was covering holes in the floor of the entry old mason jars dated in the 1950s filled with fruits and vegetables lingered in the kitchen cabinets faded paint peeled from rotting wood of kitchen walls and broken glass still littered the bare wood floors the first bedroom in the hallway had a large doorless closet with stick figures penciled in black some kneel while others cower or curl in fetal position as if the roof might fall a child’s hieroglyphics left for others to decipher the dank mystery of meaning
image of lightning strike from purplish clouds against a red-orange sunset in the Sonoran Desert - image captured by Liz Kemp
pie chart showing, in the U.S. between 2013-2022, that 75% of political killings are committed by right-wing extremists, 20% committed by Islamic extremists, 4% committed by left-wing extremists, and 1% committed by "other"
album cover of Peter Gabriel's "Us" - abstract image of Peter Gabriel standing with arms outstretched, wearing a dark blue suit
Keep fighting for the good. Keep showing up. Keep loving. Keep giving back. Keep being kind. Keep being brave. Keep caring. Keep trying new things. Keep showing grace. Keep on. The world needs you to believe in the good.
Panel that says, "It's so hot that my shadow just went back inside and gave me the finger."
black and white photo of slaves sitting on and standing around a wooden cart to be pulled by a work horse
From “Funeral” Black leather shoes feel stiff and tight on my feet, too new, the wool suit scratchy on my skin. Open windows and dogs barking in the distance. People I barely know fill the pews behind me, their voices a low hum of blackberry thorns and catfish ponds, I barely notice the frumpy woman sit at the organ and begin to play “Amazing Grace,” his favorite hymn. None of this feels correct, the music wrong. The pastor proclaims the virtue of a man he never knew, all the words tumbling from his mouth create a pile on the crimson carpet, the mother weeping, the sister silent in her relief, my cold hands sweating as attention drifts to willow fronds he forced me to cut before lashing me, blood stains. His face absolute gray, foreshadowing the furnace. *There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for everything under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die….* Those words hang in the air as my heart stops, no one in the church moving, silence as even the breath in my lungs became still, a fly pinned mid-air, wings frozen in place, vision blurs, colors swirl, textures pulse and vibrate, darkness fills the vast space between body and being, an opening or maybe an end, and from the chaos I emerge standing at ocean’s edge, wind coarse on my skin, so many questions caught in my throat.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland entered this "preamble" into the official record: "Mr. Speaker, I found a Preamble to this Big Ugly Bill. We the billionaires, and our King, in order to deform and sicken our Union, establish injustice, ensure domestic servility, weaken our peoples defenses, undermine our general welfare, and reserve to ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do herby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their healthcare, increase copays, premiums and deductibles for everyone else, cut 42 million people off of nutritional assistance, increase the national debt by 4 trillion dollars, trash renewable energy systems, increase our electric bills for the carbon kings, all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America. Please include this Preamble in the legislative record. I yield back."
a new poem: This is a prayer Ten thousand stars emerge from every teetering second. I answer, forever… The cat crawled into a box and has been dead for weeks. People mill about in the streets Beneath yellow lights and whisper of red balloons drifitng across the sky. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… No, not that… Two girls costumed in Sunday dresses skip through a dark alley strewing rose petals amid the broken glass, cigarette butts, used condoms. I used to know why the coyotes howl. Our fathers are dead and buried, their voices forgotten beneath the sirens and music. In the morning the air will be heavy with smoke and dry earth, beetles caressing each moment as though the rain has fallen. There is no history in the breathing. This is a prayer. Listen…
Sign that says "no kings, yas queens"
Rainbow striped American flag that says "We the people means everyone"
chart shows DoD funding changes from 2024 to 2025 for various health issues and cancers impacting military personnel
a new poem about my father's death: Aftermath I was thirteen when his heart reverted to stone When she lost herself in a forest of grief When being came unstuck in time When crows blackened a field of oaks When I closed the coffin and buried god When I discovered a cave in the Siskiyous When I tasted the warm emptiness of whiskey When Coyote lead me to his den and I believed When darkness became the only medicine When gray became the lens filtering the world When that cave become a cool sanctuary When liberty caps liberated the underworld When Coyote tricked his way into dreams When I discovered he stopped taking his meds When the irises he planted died in a late frost When Grayback offered a glimpse of peace When memory swallowed itself and choked When a snowy winter field whispered silence When morning became a curse of sunlight When I lost the key to the chains I put on
cartoon of single cells leaving the primary tumor, entering the bloodstream (intravasation), and then leaving the bloodstream to form a metastatic tumor (extravasation)
a poem: The carnival My little sister cried when the purple balloon tied loosely Around her wrist broke free of its tether and floated Into a canyon of sky. There were loud black grackles In the carnival parking lot, goofy pigeons, and ravens Circling high above, warily watching the rubber creature Bouncing on the breeze as it became a speck of color In the distance. The mother tried to comfort my sister, Offered her sticky baby blue cotton candy, a ride On the ferris wheel, or maybe the bumper cars. She Chose the giant ferris wheel, and I had to ride with her Even though I hated that ride since the year when We got stuck atop the grinding wheel for hours While my sister cried and threw up and my mother Paced frantically on the ground below. But this day The ride functioned normally, and from the pinnacle I could see far across the valley soft green hillsides promising gentle grasses, grazing horses, quiet hours Of rolling down the hill until I was too dizzy to stand.
a poem title: How I imagine my grandmother, pregnant, 1926 None of this matters when the final night falls A distant roar, dirty engines in the city All the words gathered into wooden crates Minutes fall away, a dog sleeps in the corner She has never worn the red-checked apron Boiling water, potato skins piled on the floor Moths circle a single bulb hanging from a cord Pot belly stove, spider webs cling to ceiling Simple recipes scribbled on yellowing paper No more poems, swollen belly occupies all She never imagines any possible futures A few babies, apples rot in the cold night God is a dust storm before the crops ripen Fenced in dirt, prayers for rain unanswered Each night feels longer than the one before The baby kicks, a sad smile crosses her lips
a poem called "Cycles" There are monsters in the night Eyes that can see behind the mirror There are eyes behind the mirror Ivy tendrils wrap around the spine There is a spine of woody ivy Angry voices in the darkness There is darkness in their voices Words weave a web of sorrow There is sorrow dripping from a web Syllables carved as runes on stone There are syllables heavier than stone Monsters prowl quietly in the night
Picture of a crow. Text says "Crows collect the broken, the overlooked, the shiny pieces of a world that ignores them, building lives out of things no one else wanted."
Picture of a small being watering a plant that has a giant heart where the flower would be.
Variations The void dropped ecstasy and birthed the world. Life is a labyrinth of loss dressed in flowers. Can anyone be known as other than flesh? The ocean teases with its violent disguises. Coyotes howl riddles in the desert nights. If only language contained living cells. A drop of rain can fall unseen and profound. Surely, death is a silent stone in the river.
Spacious silence The sacred space between words, between Syllables, and even deeper the solemn Space between atoms coalescing to form Molecules that become ink and page A craving for that spacious silence Flows in the blood, wires cells to seek Emptiness, wind whispering in pines And aspens, ravens circling overhead Sitting beside the brook, mossy stones listen For the music of water seeking source, The space between fluid notes rumbling Through a canyon far from the world Blue irises bloom in the cool spring air, A pause between seconds swallows all ~ 3.21.25
The New York Times is the first to put out comprehensive estimates on the cost of a year without U.S.A.I.D. and they’re higher than I thought: - 1.65 million deaths from AIDS - 500,000 from lack of vaccines - 550,000 from lack of food aid - 290,000 from malaria - 310,000 from TB
Getting older is just one body part after another saying, "Ha ha, you think that's bad? Watch this."
a poem: Coyote dreams Coyote used to whisper datura dreams into my head Rattlesnakes, yellow prickly pear blooms, scorpions Lightening and creosote in callous monsoon rains The dream is lost when light emerges in the east Years surrendered chasing visions, those visitations Nights spent dancing frenzied around underworld fires Memories woven into cells, sinew, embodied in muscle How to explain the inside of a molecule to a lizard So many secrets lurking behind the eyes of another Saguaros and ravens, moonlight over Sabino Creek
Sidewalk stencil in red paint that says, "let's be better humans."
memory Was there a crunchy blanket of snow that morning? Ghost children in galoshes push the merry-go-round Crows come together in the creek-rooted skeletal oak Steam curls from the creek still flowing in December Tossing syllables as rune-carved vertebrae on the page Did the red wine’s warmth forever color the scene? A blue balloon bounces across the icy playground Ground fog obscures the imagined camera lens All the minutes have fallen into the creek and drowned 2.27.25 – 3.1.25
Republican Party Chain of Command - Putin at the top, then Musk, then Fox News and Trump, then RFK, Jr, Patel, and Vance
Blue puffer fish with tan dreads, bug eyes, and frowning.
a poem called Sunday Mass, 1974
movie poster for the new Mike Leigh film, Hard Truths, showing the face of the main character who is played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Picture of ice over moving water along the Pecos River in New Mexico.
a poem