Four Poems by Mark Young

A line from Du Fu

 

Off-screen, a psychiatrist can be heard

leading conversations which exhort

patients to let ego go & move to a

different dimension where Netflix is

 

part of the Persian Empire. Temper

outbursts become routine, the wee-

ping voices rise straight up, cry out

for attention since they lack the nec-

 

essary skills to self-settle. The Kurds

of Turkey & Iran say that crying is

necessary to develop the voice. It

seems they always loved soul music.

 

 

Concertina Bliss

 

Find the sunlight. Drink a glass

       of water. Drag the large

red pin with the dot to any desi-

       red location. As promised

by the realtor it's practically fail-

       proof & very easy to use.

That is, until the butterfly effect

       takes over or there's no

GPS signal, & a dense & busy sche-

       matic results. Metallic

gold foil may now glitter in the

       light; but how do you

communicate a circuit to a human?

       How does a defibrillator

work? How to demonstrate that

       each clustering algorithm

comes in two variants as stated in

       the client list that the att-

orney general says she has on her

       desk? Learning about sci-

ence can sometimes seem scary, so

       get that ebook for free now!

 

 

Deconstruction / Reconstruction

 

Robert Rauschenburg took

a Willem de Kooning nude

& rubbed it out to make the

point that all art is transitory.

 

Jorge Luis Borges tells of the

rewriting of Don Quixote in

a manner indistinguishable

from the original of Miguel

 

de Cervantes. Then there was

William Seward Burroughs

who cut up text, & rearranged

it in a different order in order

 

to create new texts. Who, when

describing the technique in a Times

Literary Supplement piece, attri-

buted it to a Lady Sutton-Smith.

 

 

Slightly belligerent

 

The presence of new actors in

modern asymmetric conflicts

calls for visual aids that can

significantly enhance under-

standing. It's important to

foster an environment in

which the skills & disposi-

tions associated with those

 

axiomatic rules of war can be

updated to allow complex in-

formation to be visually navi-

gated so that dynamic spaces

exist for interactive problem

solving.

Two Poems by Damon Hubbs

Poem for the Society of Classical Poets 

why does it 

sound 

like prog rock

you had

your dick in your hand 

when Medusa 

turned you to stone 

is that a suite… 

let’s have 

some beers 

& trash 

the bathroom 

Poem for Volcanoes

I couldn’t tell 

if I was coping with grief

from a distance 

or if it was 

a vulvic stadium 

with black-winged gods

of love 

Damon Hubbs

Two Poems by erica anderson-senter

TWO BODIES TOUCH IN THIS POEM 

 

Maybe the bodies in this poem are my body: 

one now in my office chair looking occasionally at night. 

One when I cried and cried 

myself sick in the groaning hours of grief. 

I barely remember my body then, but I’m sure 

I had one. The milk of memory is thick, 

but somehow I only see my tired hands,

my ribs and, hear me, I had far too many ribs.

They multiply with sadness—each bone honeycomb

and bees flew from my mouth.
That body is foreign to me right now

in this moment. I’m looking through that door:

all my bodies line up like country men 

in the French hills ready to cascade 

through tall grass. Somewhere I am still small. 

Somewhere my tongue is in my beloved’s mouth 

for the first time, his hand on my back. 

Somewhere I am old with wisps of hair braided
and bones again. These days my poems are all

bones and neck and I-am-in-grief-lost-in-time.

I can never anchor. Somewhere I am the anchor 

and freshwater lungs; blue-gill swim in circles 

around me. Once I swam in the sun: hair whirling

out, alone—tiny lake-dust pillowing up, 

light on my greenskin—hum of water-silence:

alone in that body then—and now, right now.

I’M SORRY IT HURT; I’M SORRY YOU WERE ALONE

How long did you breathe shallow
Did you breathe shallow
Did panic grab you

Where did panic grab you first 

Where did you feel it last

Which part was warm 

Did you remember 

Do you remember 

Did you know your heart was stopping 

Where did it hurt 

How could I know 

How can I know

Why did you lay on your left side

Did you think of that New Year’s Eve when I wore 

stripes and you a blue collared shirt and a friend

grabbed a picture of us smiling, your hand

on my hip, your head tilted, smiling face-

to-face- and all the hope glowing

What is a new year

or a day or even one slim minute without you

I wanted you to get better

What is better now 

Where you are

What do you see 

I am nearly blind.

erica anderson-senter