New Poetry by Paul Mitchell

 
Three on the Tree

Gold HG Holden Premier nineteen seventy-one
sedan with single dint on side door panel
installed a decent hi-fi in it played
Red Hot Chili Peppers on it took
fifteen minutes to warm up
each morning backed into a ditch
on the school run workmen
hauled it out with a winch.
 
Drove it drunk to a pub with mates
listening to Bee Gees Tragedy or something
bought it with the help of a mate who said
it’s gold could see that and what he meant.
 
Cost three-thousand five-hundred
two years later needed money divorcee
dad on the wrong side of what
there’s no right side of.
 
Sold it to a bloke who said
he’d put a new motor in it
mag wheels on it got three
thousand five-hundred for it.
 
Tired of being watched
wherever it went wanted to go
in cognito bought a Daewoo
Station Wagon didn’t have to go
that far but did so sorry at least
let me show you the photos.

- © Paul Mitchell 2022

Paul Mitchell is the author of six books, including last year’s essay collection Matters of Life and Faith, a novel, We. Are. Family, a short story collection, Dodging the Bull, and three poetry collections: Minorphysics, Awake Despite the Hour, and Standard Variation. Minorphysics won the IP Picks national prize for an unpublished Australian manuscript, and Standard Variation was short-listed for the Adelaide Writers’ Week poetry prize. He’s judged the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry and his poems, essays and stories have appeared over the past twenty-five years in numerous magazines and journals, most recently The Guardian, Westerly, Antipodes, Meniscus, and Eureka Street. He’s written several works for stage and he’s currently a co-writer with director Chris Nelius on a commissioned feature film for Madman Entertainment. He also co-wrote Actions to Live By, a recent AFL documentary on the Brisbane Lions of 2001 to 2003.