Anne Mitchell's newest collection of poetry is now available in a chapbook from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com. Cover photo: Martha Casanave.

Sky of Lapis frothed clouds sail in with the west wind, valley heat teases sea. Chaised, gaze up at old pine tower, thank him for roots...

I’d like to meet those empty nest planets out there, perhaps rifling through the fledglings’ things left behind, their first big bang and...

In Pacific Grove, mint pastel cottages line the seaside streets. Deer families stroll through backyards, on sidewalks. Pre-teen white...

Any old day on the job, our clients may bite into their last meal, perhaps choking on the shrimp stir-fry, that final home delivery,...

Once, in a flower market in Jakarta, surrounded by intoxicant hues, perfumed in frangipani, among mounds of rose petal baskets, I found a...

I’d like to write poems with Billy Collins, invite him to sit next to me on the center beam of the redwood eaves crisscrossing my living...

A 100-year-old hotel, glows mauve, sunset bounces light up from Carmel beach-a W.P.A. mural greets me, Austrian coats of arms, Dirndls...

Before you reach for the hand of grace you must shed skin. Sense all comfort molt from shattered cells like needles from a dead pine in...

Rue nothing. Not the yellow jacket Cliff’s Notes skimmed In place of The Scarlet Letter, not the TV Cinderella you sang along with to be...

Fog so low it kisses the artichoke blooms, hovers over a snaking traffic jam of field workers, white school busses off-load into the...

I run my fingers along the scalloped, frayed photo, touch the rough edge my father held when he jotted my name on the back side with his...

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—John Keats At two a.m. I ponder Sonnet’s art- a form meets torment, to love eon’s night,...

When days equal night and the air is crisp, sand etches tides into swirls and I breathe ferment of apples and hungry wasps’ wisp, before...

“The Queen’s bees have been informed of her death” “Please stay”, he begs of the broods while wrapping them in black satin ribbons, bows...

thick fog morphs soft rain distant cats yowl mate or fight voyeur gulls cackle redhead woodpeckers hula dance mist off feathers phone...

There’s the story of me sitting in the grass in the dark on a lounge of rattan, hot chocolate in hand. Aumakua-Pueo, Hawaiian Owl,...

Life will not always go your way. The bees will disappear from the hive in your garden and your orange Tomcat will wander off to die...

Don’t you wonder if they will ever slow down, images bouncing round in your mind, popcorn maker, dimes in a coke can to ward off...

What is a poem? A poem breathes quietly in an abecedarian’s basement, dark, like the black lagoon some creature in a little cart with...

Skim headlines then re-write the rosy side. Your blue sky will come with the gold of spring. Losses of winter disappear in spring- babies...

To write about what formed me into this Anne at a point in life sandwiched between passing of parents, flyaway of a child, covid-era...

In old Carmel, Bohemians shared poems from a shelter of Cypress Wickiups, the abalone butterflyed open into pearled rainbows- Now, Red...

In Mandalay my guesthouse hostess Alice, served sweet milk tea in little glass cups. “I was an English Professor at University before...

You do not have to figure it all out. You don’t have to bow to what they say you should feel, look like, do for a living. You need only...

I sit in the garden after work to enjoy the decay of fall. Oak moths flutter reaper fairies aflame to a serenade from three crows. The...

A Century plant pierces through grey fog above a white stucco house. Sentry agave tower to cloud nine beside her white stucco house. She...

After Billy Collins’ “Christmas Sparrow” What caught my eye first, was the updraft of feathers, weightless, suspicious. Remnants of a...

Weightlessness. A Caribbean winter of forgotten fins, Stingray stares a barb of trust through us, you knifed him freedom from a net, and...

In the bedroom we burrow a nest, our sleepy time tundra walled in saffron. Palms sway and sing, a breeze of back up strings to the...

May I walk through this door from black and white to meander like Toto in Technicolor, from the tsunami of trashcans brimming in...

We left Salt Lake City at dawn, westward on I-80, onyx river over salt, daughter furled in a seat-belted nest, over landscapes of Pluto,...

I wake you into a pot at 3:30 am, grace in hazel, eyes barely open. A plunge into the pool of Cashew Milk & Colorado Honey. You perfume...

I watched the surfers this morning. A ballet of arrowheads floated over jade glass, Cormorants as audience dove alongside. They remind me...

I squirm at that phantom hand of smoke, a clawed finger beckons toward a carnie operator, keeper of the wheel in plaid knickers, who...