Fillmore Sutra – a poem by Mark J. Mitchell

Fillmore Sutra

Buddha is black and laughing.
From my fire escape
I overhear her fire sermon.
This wanting nothing,
it says,
wants practice.

Buddha is black and crying
for bass mantras
that boom from cars,
for children bound
in vests and ties,
for a poet on a fire escape.

Buddha is black and laughing:
On the street
she chooses to see me
and asks for change.

Mark J. Mitchell’s latest novel, The Magic War just appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work has appeared in the several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. Three of his chapbooks— Three Visitors;  Lent, 1999, and Artifacts and Relics—and the novel, Knight Prisoner are available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. He lives with his wife Joan Juster and makes a living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco.