Sean Damlos-Mitchell - Bedstuy, Brooklyn - April 2017.

Sean M. Damlos-Mitchell studied poetry at The New School and they gave him an MFA for it. He has previously published poems in Sink Review, Whole Beast Rag, Poem Tiger, The Mackinac, & Hot Street. Additionally, he is the author of SINCERELY SPACEMAN, a chapbook by The New Megaphone. Sean grew up in Arizona but currently lives in Brooklyn with all the other poets. Two of his poems, “EXT. / INT.” & “INT. / EXT.” appear within Issue No. 1 - Summer 2017, and are presented below.

- Portrait by Emily Fishman

EXT.  /  INT.  

most misty days      /      how like my apartment I am        a thing

appearing slightly      /      strewn about it        likewise strewn about

obscured,  on the north side

& high above & outside      /      me        there are photographs          

visible only from the leeward window      /      most of them are of me & I 

the Japanese fortress, impenetrable      /      am looking at them        looking like

grey concrete shrouded in grey      /      back at me        empty bottles 

the whole of it never able to be perceived at once                                               

at once, a composite in the minds-eye
built-up over time, the key to its being  –     /      maybe that's just me        am I

/      a room        I mean am I

on sunnier day
sa fortress, no fortress 

no scaling up      /      the drinker of the bottles or the thing that's drunk

its wall, only me      /      there is furniture in places        corners mostly

with nowhere to escape

/      &  it holds  me up  or holds  me in

half-strength fluorescence litters / its arms & of course I'm describing

floor & wall alike, flickering      /      a chair    –    I could just as easily be describing

from this rooftop vantage point      /      a lover       I mean really   I could be

the evening sky, staying too late      /      a    room

/////      this room

___________________________

INT.  /  EXT.   

to take an outside something
make it inside – what is lost

in the processing – I’d like very much
to save something, grow it & forever –
 
better still how do we bring the inside
outside, shares to those in need –
 
I wish I were better able to understand
the subject, the subjunctive, the subjective

is this what it means to be solely terrorized?
freedom fighter, fidget spinner, gin & tonic 

to be preserved at earth’s expense
debit unrecorded, annihilated credit

what futures do I have to offer? listen up
little kids, you have to understand

the world’s a very different place –
it will never be again. the city’s gone!

Continue Reading - Issue No. 1 - Summer 2017.