MARK J. MITCHELL - POEMS

Mark J. Mitchell’s latest novel, The Magic War just appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work has appeared in the several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. Three of his chapbooks— Three Visitors, Lent, 1999, and Artifacts and Relics—and the novel, Knight Prisonerare available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble..  He lives with his wife the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster and makes a living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco.
A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

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LATE MORNING INNINGS
                       
            …the facet of a diamond in which the gem’s inner luster is reflected but not exhausted.
                                                            --Albert Camus
                                                  Notebooks, 1935-1942

​ 
                                    An old whiz kid stared at the plate
                                    breathing in new-mown grass and dirt.
                                    The comfortable swing of his magicked arm
                                    called back his runaway boyhood--
                                    all the long afternoons of stiff practice.
                                    This mound was home. The stands were empty.
 
                                    Last time here—running on empty
                                    but still hanging K’s. That shrinking plate,
                                    like the saucers he used for practice
                                    when he was ten. All those balls in the dirt.
                                    He was the phenom of his neighborhood
                                    and that was enough. Now that arm
 
                                    feels each toss. He’s disarmed
                                    on his old home field. The empty
                                    bleachers. The silence from his boyhood
                                    with his vanished father and those chipped plate
                                    meals. Knowing he’s alone, he rubs red dirt
                                    on a ball. Tests a slider—for practice--
 
                                    Low and away. All those doctors. One practiced
                                    elbow voodoo. Another ignored the arm.
                                    Made him regress, form balls of wet dirt,                  
                                    throw at old pictures and empty
                                    frames. That talking doc—Be the plate,
                                    he’d say. He knew it wasn’t childhood.
 
 
 
 
                                    It was eyes. It was aim. Balls found wood
                                    instead of air. Even if he practiced
                                    like some first violinist, he’d miss that plate.
                                    Every tendon, every ache in his lazy arm
                                    recalled lost power. He was empty
                                    as a wall socket. He only ruled dirt
 
                                    and only when his sinker sank. He felt dirty,
                                    useless. He faced the cheap seats, pulling his hood
                                    up against drizzle. All those empty
                                    seats—full in a few hours. Batting practice
                                    still draws die-hards. He rubs the ruined arm,
                                   walks to the backstop and kisses the plate
 
                                   spitting out dirt. He’ll throw batting practice
                                  in another neighborhood. His dangling arm
                                  holds that much. There’s empty air across each plate.
 
                                                            

​

A WINDOW NEAR GOLDEN GATE PARK
​

​                                    A music stand guards the half-shut window,
                                    surveying hills, a hidden town. Watching.
                                    Protecting this tune in its box. Drafts flow
                                    across the sill, but the psalm’s safe as snow.
 
                                    Once, someone stood here reading notes. He blew
                                    them through brass. He was almost praying
                                    with music. He stood, half-slammed the window,    
                                    surveyed his lost hills, his small city. Watching
 
                                    as if words would crawl out of breath. He’d know
                                    where she hid—or you. He waited, counting
                                    time. Then time left. The tune he was playing
                                    melted—vanishing quick as last year’s snow.
                                    Let music stand, guarding this cracked window.
 
 

FOOL’S MATE
 
            Cheating at checkmate by painting the king’s robes
            So that he slides like a queen.
 
                                                             —Robert Graves
                                                                        The Castle
 

​                        In the maiden’s game
                        things move quickly:
 
                        Pieces march with eyes
                        only for the kill,
 
                        never for the mate.
                        Until, midway through
 
                        you come to a knight fork
                        and become paralyzed.
 
                        The poisoned pawn alone
                        in the center. Constantly tempting.
 

​MEETING A SEA GODDESS
 
It is imperative that ideas do not inhibit mystery.
—Hai-yin (ca. 1282)
 

​                        Because you fell fast through her shipwreck dream
                        red tides bit, kissed, cut you. Rusted iron
                        from ghost ships wounded you. Blood—white as cream--
                        spread and water grew transparent. Lungs tired.
                        Moonlight painted your bones white as paper.
                        Your legs still kicked—sense memory. Her face
                        focused bright through foam—the thinnest taper
                        you’d ever seen. The wreck shifts. You’re someplace
                        else—still on a doomed boat. Endless gray walls.
                        Boots ring on metal. Eternal gray halls
                        lead to a room. She waits as if she’d seen
                        the movie before. Knives, glasses, gray plates
                        are set. Past struggle, you watch her serene
                        smile. Days will break but nothing—nothing—waits.
 

 

NEAR HOLLYWOOD, 1948
​

​ 
                                    The outside man
                                    from poverty row
                                    never met his angels on time.
                                    So very bad movies
                                    remained unmade and spools
                                    of lovely, silver acetate
                                    stayed unexposed.
 
                                    There was a girl
                                    whose smile would have
                                    glittered in the dark and sold
                                    a lot of popcorn
                                    after the newsreel before
                                    the real movie.
                                    He saw her once. He wanted
                                    to shoot just one scene.
 
                                    He almost spoke
                                    but he was running late
                                    and angels are not--
                                    well, patient. She met
                                    a very nice milkman.
                                    They married.
                                    For no reason at all
                                    she never missed
                                    a B picture.