Dylan Mitchell

A SUNRISE SHOULDN'T SOUND LIKE THIS

The noise was not within: The trees outside
were startled awake, by the menacing
sounds of mangled streets and broken blocks,
as numbered trucks and cranes destroyed the calm
face of a deserted boulevard at dawn.
I could hear their thunderous advance,
as I abandoned sleep, and stumbled toward
the open window. Man-made progression
was happening outside. The machines moved
like angry animals, eating silence whole.

BIRTHDAY LETTER

Fall is almost over.
Last night
(although you condemned it),
I read Ted Hughes' 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.


 

Dylan Mitchell's poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. His most recent book is, 100 Men I Have Slept With (And Other Poems). It is available on Amazon.com. Several of his poems, essays, and book reviews can be had for free online: www.roughpoet.blogspot.com. He lives alone in Portland, Oregon.