Sunday, December 30, 2012

2012 BEST OF THE NET


James H. Duncan has informed me that he's nominating my poem "Birthday Letter" for the 2012 Best of the Net award. Considering how much respect I have for him and his poetry, I am humbled and honored. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. And I published my first poem almost thirty years ago!

So I would like to thank James and Hobo Camp Review for making 2012 a most memorable year for me. If you want to read some awesome poetry and prose from the road - feel free to take a long peek:

http://hobocampreview.blogspot.com

My wish is that 2013 will be a happy and productive year for all. Thanks for reading!


BIRTHDAY LETTER

Fall is almost over.
Last night
(although you condemned it),
I read Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters,
and liked it a lot.
After I'd finished,
the soft rain returned,
gently bringing me back
to the hard place I'd escaped from:
I am mending. I am mending.
Yesterday, a kind
stranger spoke to me in the market,
and I did not turn away.
I'm beginning to see it was you.
The old crushed season is almost over;
I'll no longer mourn its early passing.

Poem © 2012 by Dylan Mitchell

HELLO


I want to see the
sea of your eyes
Deep and blue in the
moonlight forever

Poem © 2012 by Dylan Mitchell

Saturday, December 8, 2012

FOOL'S CHRISTMAS


This kind of Midnight Mass is not what I need:
Two bearded dwarfs in leather tear up the floor.
The sharp tongue of a dark god makes my ear bleed.
All Madonna's virgins are decked out like whores.

How this thick smoke burns my eyes! Whatever
happened to snow? This intense heat is a river
of flames I try to dance on forever:
I stumble and fall down hard. Some unknown lover

hauls me up before I drown in the fire.
The half-remembered poem I recite reminds
me of school: Lear's Fool could not be a liar
and disappears forever, while more unkind

players tell pretty lies and survive the play.
This bar is a stage; this stage isn't holy:
They make me get out. I haven't a cent to pay
for the long ride home, alone in Hell's folly.

Poem © 2012 by Dylan Mitchell