Poems by Scott-Patrick Mitchell
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Disappointment
There is no money in poetry. As if we do this for the coin. You’d make more stealing all the silverware. How he’d pat me down after every dinner party. My father hoped that, at the least, I would be a dishwasher. An honest trade. Except I’m allergic to washing up. Just as he is hypersensitive to my ink. Bubbles: in basin; in water; in thoughts; in the spit cornering his mouth. How hate froths. Dirty sonnets, soiled haiku and splayed confessionals were my pornography, crammed beneath my teenage mattress. The look on his face when he found them. Ceramic, chinking to clatter and shatter, haunted me, our home. I still have a scar from his favourite cup. Memory has become a mosaic. The bruise of his tongue licks clean my every poem. When my father dies, I shall bury him with a silver spoon, and never thank him. Soft Purple Warnings In her mouth, they gather, fill our house. The inference is missing: dear mother, what is a thingy-me-bob? Perhaps a screwdriver, amethyst tip. Tighten point to unslip. Or a pan. Heather, collecting. Your thoughts drip, evaporate. Typically it is a hand, reaching out. Grape with grip. Hold on to this. But in Hindi – the language she learnt as child a millennia ago – a prism imbues new Pantones into objects coming into view. In the garden, aams causes bough to bend. Carotene blends into summer. We listen to her stories sticky chinned, enraptured. When a blessing is required, she tells me my pooja are opalescent. Sacred gifts shimmer to send out light, glimmer. Cleanse this space, us. And our mohabbat is the soft green of Valium. Hold back the night. Hold me tight. But still the slippages come. Lesions plum tongue with the ache of this, pooling. There will come a day when we all succumb, our iris incapable of comprehending a room & those within. The spoon will feed conversation into her mouth. She will come undone, body unbuckling from shape of once-was woman, how lilies will choke the vase: magenta is not the colour of healing. But until then, I tell her: Do not swallow these soft purple warnings. They are not bers like the ones you grow. Here is my hand, for holding: do not let go. |
Scott-Patrick Mitchell (SPM) is a copywriter, social media content creator & award winning writer who appears in Contemporary Australian Poetry (2016). Scott-Patrick Mitchell (SPM) is a Perth based post-avant palm reading award winning performance poet. He teaches performance poetry to high school kids via THE RED ROOM COMPANY, occasionally writes for OUTinPerth & is constantly uploading art photographs of his own making to Instagram (@spmpoet).
SPM is regarded by Australian poet John Kinsella as constantly being 'new ahead of the new'. SPM's poetry has been praised for its 'Allen Ginsberg-like spontaneity and sophistication' (The Wire) while his performance style has been described as having 'a little of Laurie Anderson, a touch of Lou Reed and a lot of transmuted Beatdom' (Adelaide Advertiser). At his worst think 'Laurie Anderson meets Julian Clary' (The West Australian). SPM was the winner of the 1999 Talus Prize, the 2009 PressPress Chapbook Award and the 2010 Perth Poetry Slam. He was a founding member of Perth spoken word night COTTONMOUTH and has performed at festivals throughout Australia. Doctoral studies at the WA Academy of Performing Arts have seen him develop a theory on 'the ecology of performance poetry', a concept he has explored at emerging writer-in-residence positions at both Peter Cowan Writer's Centre and FAAWA. He has also appeared as poet-in-residence for the 2012 Local Government Managers National Congress of Australia and as online poet-in-residence for Vibewire.net & AustralianPoetry.org. |
