Ellis street - Mark J. Mitchell

Roy’s left hand dangles over Ellis Street.

His cigarette glows soft as a brake light

while late evening becomes early night.

The only music a lunatic shriek

from a tired bus. Neon crackles outside

and stiff voices argue next to the closed

post office station—its only window’s

still cracked. He exhales smoke through the good side

of his face. Pearl’s the devil’s true daughter,

he thinks, or some fisherman’s ex-wife.

Coughing, he remembers her cold laughter—

it’s threaded through his dreams—a leitmotif

composed of broken glass and cracked shutters

and lost salt air blown off an unreal reef.

Bio:

Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just published by Norfolk Publishing. Starting from Tu Fu was recently published by Encircle Publications. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster where he made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, like everyone else, he’s unemployed. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full length collections so far. Titles on request. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

A primitive web site now exists: https://mark-j-mitchell.square.site/

I sometimes tweet @Mark J Mitchell_Writer