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

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