Michael Fletcher's Blog

 I’ve recently been pestered by a couple of old and familiar ghosts which have wafted over here from Southeast Asia.  I thought that these spirits from the past were buried where I once left them, in the place where I served in the US Army as a young enlisted man, and ten years later as a humanitarian relief worker.  But it seems that I’m once again obliged to conjure up and scribble down the memories evoked from that patch of God’s green earth – a 30-kilometer swath of jungle and parched rice p...

Ten years later, I showed up for the second time in that very same patch of jungle and red laterite roads where I spent time with the US Army.  But this time, things were different.  I brought a new me, with me.  In fact, I had no idea that I’d somehow be back ten years later, although I had that country and its sad story stuck in the corner of my mind for the decade I was away.  I had watched as the shitstorm unfurled in Cambodia, when Phnom Penh fell and the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975.  I k...

This selection of writing is a poem that I wrote, about my wife and I, coping with the death of our son.

The Fourth of April

Jesse left us three years ago.
And remembering him this morning, we wandered over to the empty place where
Our blundering footsteps had taken us on that day.
Stopping, we explored each other’s faces, and we listened.
Exhausted by merely thinking of the words that should be said,
None could be spoken.
Not even the utterance of a single word.

There, without words, we took our seat...

I’m not sure whether the following is a “normal progression,” or not, but, in terms of time investments — comparing the hours/days to produce a poem or a personal essay, to the months/years to produce a novel — the expanding time scale from poetry to the novel does seem like a progression of sorts. 

And I think that trying one’s hand at the three forms is a good investment, not only in terms of time, but also in terms of creative explorations.  I’ve dabbled in all three, and not sure that this p...

The culture of Thailand was, say, 50 years ago something of a throwback to much earlier times when the Kingdom was affectionately called “The Land of Smiles.”   Of course, much has changed since then, but the charm of this country still stands out.   In fact, many cultural attributes remain basically intact although perhaps a bit faded and less interesting to the younger generation of Thais.  Amongst these surviving themes are the Thai folktales and stories derived from the Ayutthaya Period wh...

I’ve had a second novel in draft form for some time now.  Again, it has a religious theme. The premise for the story occurs at the confluence of Christianity and Buddhism — a place I am drawn to, for reasons beyond my current understanding.  I like to tinker around at the fringes of orthodoxy, in places which are often a long way from the comfort zone of many fellow Catholics.  It is as place where the language is rough and the characters undeserving. In this new story, the spirit of John the ...