“He feels himself watched/as he counts accents./He knows the painter’s/watching for the precise moment/when his blue ink freezes.”
Villanelle on a Theme from Rimbaud
—Était-ce doc ceci?
—E le rêve fraîchit
Arthur Rimbaud
Vigils, Illuminations
and was it only this? Did our dreams cool
like tea kettles rattling on unwanted flames?
Did we drop them off like children at school?
We left some behind on purpose, like rules
forbidding gone sins. Some we pinned with names
and only that. Those dreams we meant to cool.
Other dreams, built of fears, with harsh light pools
under threatening lamps. Sidewalks stayed the same
as always, but led to a fierce, gray school.
We forgave them. We lost them—a way to fool
ourselves into shifting lost tons of blame
only they sent. Dreams that were never cool.
Still, conjuring each misplaced face, each jeweled
memory we question the forgotten games
we thought we played. We dropped like cliques at school.
Time’s cunning and kind—shows us toys as tools
to swing doors, grant wisdom and it explains
only this: We dreamed it, never cool
we’re still aging children trapped in old schools.
A Mind of Winter
…Mais mon ancre estoit gelé
—François Villon
The painter sees
blue in all the white.
Her brush supplies accents
of leftover holiday bulbs.
Trees guard their own
greens and browns.
A geometer draws her eyes
so she sees into a closed cabin
where a poet scribbles
blue words on white paper.
He feels himself watched
as he counts accents.
He knows the painter’s
watching for the precise moment
when his blue ink freezes.
B Sides
A wind, warm for the season, blows music
to you. Big hit single, chords from when you
were so much younger. You bought singles new
and played B-sides for friends. They’d start to skip
after a few days. But it’s a fresh wind—
not memory. It cools the park just enough
that you pity kids trapped in schools. The stuff
they’re forced to learn. You start to think of sins
they can’t know yet—so maybe it’s those chords—
or sun glinting off monuments that mean
something different now. Or you’re half-bored
by nice weather. There was a dance and she
looked your way—it wasn’t that song, but one
so much like it. Start to walk, get away
from the park, the tune. Enjoy soft March sun.
Who sang it? Those blue eyes. What did she say?.
Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He is the author of five full-length collections and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel that includes some poetry, A Book of Lost Songs is due out next Spring. He is fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he points out pretty things.
