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Mitch Highfill reads from 5

Mitch Highfill lives on a beautiful out of the way street in Brooklyn that has both sun and quiet. I went over to Mitch’s a few weeks ago to do what I have been wanting to do for a long time, record him.

Mitch is a generous poet with an imagination that leaves much to the imagination, and I mean that in the best way, poems that are concrete and abstract at the same time, sights and sounds I can savor as I read along, or like a puzzle disassemble and put back together making it my own, a for real creativity shared by the reader, the poet, and the poem. 

Allen Ginsberg once told me that when people give you a book they’ve written, open it up in the middle and take a look. I opened Mitch Highfill’s 5 in the middle. Here the third section of the book begins. It’s called “Koenig’s Sphere,” and I decided to type out a few poems from there to put on the blog. As serendipity will have it, when I recorded Mitch, he opened his book to the middle and began to read some of the poems that I’d typed out so as Mitch reads, you may read along. 

The video begins with “Tea Time at Tehama.” Tehama is the street Mitch lives on in Brooklyn that has both sun and quiet. All of the other poems Mitch reads from 5. Enjoy.

 

I

 

In tug of war

the players wait

for the red flag

to drop between

them, hands tight

on the rope, eyeing

each other, nervous

and like the locked

door of the church,

green wood against

grey stone, quarried

in Long Island

a while back, before

their knees locked,

weight gently tugging

the line away from

the center

 

3

 

Ill-fitting shoes and bad 

attitude prevail, miniature 

sheep dog sniffing parking 

meters from here 

to the corner of the known 

world, a place where 

people wear their loyalties 

on their t-shirts, logos abound 

not one thing without text 

and image, the job is yours, 

you can start today 

…………………………….wear these

 

8

 

Paint over the flaw.

Big trucks cast big shadows. 

The melodramatic shadow 

hard to settle for this many 

years later, and like 

a Merrie Melodies toon 

from the 40’s, we row 

across the kitchen sink in 

bottle caps. Dated, 

but charming.

 

12

 

Standing and swinging 

swinging and standing up 

down from the upswing 

up for the down 

size downsizing 

the owl carving 

from K-Mart.

80 degrees and rising.

 

14

 

Rowboats hurry smack 

in the middle, birds around 

something clean and clear. 

Snowy egret on one 

leg. Chinese checkers 

on a peg board. A dice 

cup in a gondola. Lazy 

watercolors of beaches and 

sailboats matching the blue 

of the couch—what art is for, 

I guess.

 

18

 

Try that with no arms 

or legs, and in your head 

what you’re not supposed to 

feel, taking snapshots at 

the fountain, another 

original idea—flutes 

into headphones, zebra 

stripes and white concrete. 

Excuse me, sir, do you have 

a light? Yes, I am only 

light, different organs flicker 

different frequencies, even 

my crutches vibrate slowly, 

hands on hips, fingernails just 

security guards at the well 

of touch.

 

The final poem in 5 is called “I let a song go.” It’s the perfect poem to end on. 

 

I let a song go

 

out of my heart

out of my hands

out of my arms

out of my bed

out of my door

out of my night

through which

the hands of the clock

go round and round

in front of my open

eyes.

5 is published by Lunar Chandelier Collective Press. You can check it out here:

https://www.lunarchandeliercollectivepress.com/product-page/five-mitch-highfill

photo by Christopher Funkhouser

 

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