16.7.26

Four Poems by Mark Young

prehensile dog washers

 

Poke out your tongue, wrap

it around a lollipop, & now

try to whistle for the dog to

come inside for its weekly

wash. Nothing happens; or,

 

at least, nothing that was

meant to happen. Locusts

fly down from their perches

on the pyramids of Giza &

eat the Sphinx away. The

 

Red Sea opens & closes, o-

pens & closes, unsure if it

too is meant to be at war. A

dyslexic President abuses

the Pope for washing the

 

peet of the foor, saying he'd

never let such garbage into

his nice white house, then

puts on his corny thrown

before his seance with doG.

 

 

 

Liturgical music

The church is a business

Robert Creeley: After Lorca

 

Once was the rattle of coin, the ringing

of the cash register, given a more noble

form when celebrated in song. Clang,

clang, clang went the trolley, ding, ding,

ding went the bell, sang Judy Garland

when she was met in St. Louis, but her

text holds none of the mystery that is

supposed to be imbued within it. The

Second Vatican Ecumenical Council

had plenty to say about that, 69 clauses

intended to cover every aspect — how

it's important to look & sound your

best, especially if the service is  going

out on TV; what part the various

parts of the organization should play;

what to do if the attendant musicians

lack the desired skills necessary to play

well; & if have them, what celebrations

shouldn't they be permitted to play at.

Masses for the dead are one of the pro-

scribed events, which is possibly why

Creeley also notes that the mourners go

doucement, doucement to the cemetery.

 

 

 

Her only friend was a robot named Desire

 

The person throwing stones

has been known to stand

in the street & yell Stella at

the world. That she has a

voice that reminds one of

Grace Slick is a little off-put-

ting; but it is the summer of

love, though the brutal exe-

cution of Benito Mussolini

is still remembered as a high

point in The Chronicles of Nar-

nia after it was lip-synched

on The Tonight Show with

Johnny Carson & became the

defining moment of an era.

 

 

 

Transparent pterodactyls

 

Like a giant Faraday cage, the

all-metal construction provides

versatility across a wide range

of applications in such areas as

 

writing, editing, & design. Mir-

rors aren't just decorative. Their

studies of hunter–gatherer

locomotion create the illusion

 

of larger spaces; & their theoret-

ical analyses have implications

for manufacturers of religious

artifacts such as baptism tents.

10.7.26

Three Poems by Chad Hoogervorst

Ultramarine   

 

She was throwing grapes to the birds 

when I noticed her rosy-tipped fingers 

and long dark hair bound above her head 

like a fathomless black deed 

as she noticed she turned  

her face smiling eyes crackling 

 

Much later I found the way to her body 

and there was not a soul but a churchyard 

beautifully decorated by ivy  

and veronica colored heliotrope  

I felt crisp fear at how she moved 

in a menacing but superhuman way 

 

And in a flash of understanding 

I knew she was unfinished yet destroyed 

that she had run upon the lion for the wolf 

truth had stepped out holding a mirror 

and I felt the urge to bury my heart 

in the dope-sick warmth of her chest 

 

 

I Want to Go into Your Lying Down Head            

 

“Into her lying down head / His enemies entered bed” Dylan Thomas 

 

And steal a secret  

yank it out like a car stereo  

wires trailing behind frayed 

from the quick theft 

reselling it to the cosmic pawnshop 

of your perception 

 

I want to go into your lying down head 

into your towering conscience  

find the day residue 

speckled about your dreams 

and deliver you mouthed nights 

until atomic joy washes you awake 

         

I want to go into your lying down head 

unpeel your feelings and 

vulture them so I become them 

clad in your atmosphere 

I’d sketch you like a child’s drawing  

with the speech bubble 

“Why can’t I be you?” 

                          

I want to go into your lying down head 

to throw a party for your memories 

so I could meet each one 

shake their hands and mix them a drink 

combing your hair softly afterwards 

in front on the television 

as we rate our guest’s anecdotes 

 

I want to go into your lying down head 

to find the hiccups 

insecurities adjacent to uncertainties 

doubts shelved alphabetically 

orderly as your teeth 

as affectionate as the ribs 

covering your unknowable altar   

 

But mostly  

I want to go into your lying down head 

to get out of my own 

escape the asylum 

the wild animals in there 

at the water’s edge 

cautious and timid like an Irish goodbye 

to see if the sky darkens or lightens 

when I brush against that brainstem 

 


K

 

Starry declination talking 

to yourself again 

you leave so quick and flush 

I fix a drink in the dark 

 

This will leave a wound 

fingered by the sky and 

surely to be autopsied  

for weeks 

 

That’s where we’re moving 

trot to gallop 

carried to the abattoir  

grasping an oyster-colored mane 

 

Anti-body night 

do double murder  

and know that if jealousy takes three 

then it has sides 

 

Above the fuselage of a shining plane 

smooth orange and white 

blinks the sky  

I smile for intensification 

 

Love again has woven  

its extensive index 

into another breast 

and I’m essentially unknowable 

 


24.6.26

Two Poems by Joseph Tate

Alfoxden, now

Wm. unable to go all the way.
The sea very black.

Triton, late,
mute at the conch.

Proteus, soon, stuck in perhaps,—
the eustatic rising. 


Enyalion, to the last

Not enough / Too much
in the business of your cabinet:
past-noon sleepings
& late nights
in soil more than sea.