Encounter
A poem by Mark J. Mitchell

Encounter

Thirty-three years ago
you met a neo-classical poet

in North Beach. Properly
disheveled, he held forth

in perfect pentameter while you
pushed your Duncan, Snyder, Ginsberg

into your backpack. “But,” he said,
“you don’t think what

I just said is poetry,
do you?” His eyes

accused you as he re-tied
his four-in-hand.

You never saw him
again, even on the 30 bus.

But you wish these were couplets
as heroic as that little man.

About the Author:

Mark J. Mitchell  has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel, A Book of Lost Songs is sue out in 2023.He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco

https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

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

I sometimes tweet @Mark J Mitchell.Writer

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