Four Poems by Mark Young

Olbers & the Okapi

 

The okapi survives

through excellent

camouflage. That

& the fact it is the

 

only antelope who

has ever puzzled

over Heinrich Ol-

bers's paradox —

 

if the universe is

infinite & full of

stars, why is the

sky dark at night?

 

 

A / newt's first / law of motion

 

The problem

with being

amphibious

is I can never

remember

whether it’s

the coach

driver or

the dive

coach that’s

supposed

to be looking

after me. 

 

 

Ambit ions

 

Using a

locator

spell, I

track down

my absent

imagination

 

& find it is

currently

a charged

particle

in the queue

waiting to

 

audition

for Ameri-

can Idol.

 

 

Open Letter Operetta

(A Tom Beckett Title)

Librettist:

You don't need a
letter opener to
open a letter when
it's an open letter.

Director:

That's great! Now if we repeat that a number of times then that's the operetta half-written already. What characters did you have in mind?

Librettist:

Was thinking of a cheated-on partner as lead, a mezzo-soprano, a bit of a Taylor Swift voice. Other characters would include the non-singing postal worker who brought a letter from the partner in which they admit their cheating & end with an unapologetic goodbye. The contents of the letter could be sung by the departing partner from a position near the back of the stage.

To go with that, perhaps partly performed as a contrapuntal overlap with the preceding:

Today the post-
woman brought
me a letter from my
ex-partner. I will

not open it be-
cause I am al-
ready aware of
what it will say.

To follow on, we have a scene where the spurned spouse sings or speaks their response as they post it to Facebook or another platform since something that appears on social media can be framed as an open letter for contemporary times.

We must, however, in order to adhere to the spirit of an operetta, retain some comedic aspects even though this is essentially a sad piece. Perhaps introduce a chorus who individually comment on the response, &, collectively, interrupt with a repetitive response such as "letter opener, open letter" or "never getting back together again."

Four Poems by Mark Young

They signed both documents

 

I like to eat either chicken or beef.

Neither is grammatically correct.

Which of those fur coats is yours?

 

This homemade chicken liver pâté

is a real hit. The mink style is often

associated with Hollywood. Mari-

 

lyn Monroe adored wearing real fur

coats, but wearing vintage fur can

be controversial. Consider getting a

 

coat in nutria (Myocastor coypus Mo-

lina), made from the fur of an intro-

duced noxious pest that is destroying

 

thousands of acres of southern US

wetlands. Have you asked about

the fur coat scam out of the trunk of

 

a BMW? Pâté is a French terrine of

seasoned ground meat. Some see it

as a way to honor the animal. Others

 

find it unethical & fill their capsule

cosy wardrobe with the new faux fur

line. Just $734, but often out of stock.

 

 

 

The beguine begins

 

In his lonely room

he sings the songs

of Cole Porter to

the wall. 24/7 in the

modern tongue, in

the old, night & day.

 

 

 

Promenade

 

oblivious to          he walked

       absorbing

fragments      aspects of

 the street  sk  stars  y

             without pause

     without pausing to

look                       listen

           content

    to take everything in

                  osmotically

   potsherds        to be

    putbacktogetheragain

later        into            shapes

          they never were

 

 

 

A line from Samuel R. Delany

 

There is a  link between societal cri-

sis situations & belief in conspiracy

theories. Stresses in the earth's outer

layer push the sides of the fault line

 

together. Sensory overload is real.

It's a subject they kept on talking

about, considering it an area that

shouldn't be neglected. Believing in

 

something paranormal is no longer

rare, if it ever was. Radio silence can

trigger insecurity; there is no articu-

late resonance. The one escape, the

 

populist belief that only politicians

still use it to mock & dismiss allega-

tions against them & draw attention

away from the inner corners of their

 

eyes. We mere mortals use a brown eye-

liner that blends in much better with skin.

The politician, however, who feels loss

more profoundly than we experience an

 

equal gain, settles only for an ultra creamy,

dual-ended, & intense pigment gel-feel hybrid

eyeliner pencil that delivers 24hr smooth,

smudge-proof wear, in just one stroke.

Four Poems by Mark Young

On a Crimean Beachfront

 

The Oligarchs of the Black Sea

come whiffling down the esp-

lanade on their e-scooters. Spring

is here: which, incidentally, is the

title of a Rodgers & Hart song

 

about which & whom the OBSs

have no knowledge, especially of

the fact that, despite its title, it is a

sad song. Emotion has no place in

their portfolios unless sparked by the

 

acquisition by force of something

that belongs to someone else, & even

then they tend to be blasé. Usurp-

ation is a bit like Spring, something

that comes around on a regular basis.

 

 

A halieutic

 

In small-scale

societies every-

one carries the

same alleles as

everyone else.

Many have no

eyelids. Those

that do are cut

in a corkscrew

shape & support

the extradition of

drug traffickers.

 

 

A line from Miley Cyrus

 

Being on the internet just doesn't feel

as much fun anymore. Algorithms

loom over aesthetics, over-exposure

to celebrity images changes viewing

 

experiences. Seeing all those altered

faces on social media has led to many

devotees facing an aesthetic conun-

drum akin to wondering whether

 

or not learn Australian English. I

have an opinion. I have my own taste —

unlike those people who often don't

realize that they’re devoid of either.

 

 

scratchings

 

slowly

one thought before another

the poem

one word after another

shows &

phrase pause phrase

shapes

sentient sentence

itself

Four Poems by Mark Young

Curriculum Vitae

 

beginning:

 

her father was

an orthopaedic

surgeon, her

mother a relaunched

hippy. both were un-

imaginative. she

grew up

footloose &

fancy free.

 

intermission:

 

patience

wears thin

through prolonged

use. it should be

changed at

least every other

day or

sooner

if you

can’t stand

waiting.

 

end:

 

the night.

the left-over

layers

 

 

A / Pilgrim Father / walks past Mar-a-Lago

 

The granaries are choked

with fervor. Dust spills

& spreads, excludes the sky,

occludes the light. A virtual

night I walk & talk through,

articulated limbs but un-

articulated fears. In some

strange manner I’ve become

 

a reluctant pedestrian on

someone else’s treadmill. Have

found myself, have found

myself to be what I am

most afraid of. Uncertain.

& these are certain times.

 

 

La Carriole du Père Junier

 

A week late I finally

get around to turning

over the calendar. De-

cember in this collection

of loose impressionists

is represented by the

pompous toll-collector,

Le Douanier, Henri

 

Rousseau. It cheers me

up immediately. But what

a waste. My depression

could have been carried

away in Father Junier's

cart seven days ago.

 

 

After Cézanne

 

Two peaches

one orange

two nectarines

four kiwifruit

one green apple

two red apples

 

a white bowl

side table

clear satin varnish

a light burnish of dust.

 

One peach

one nectarine

three kiwifruit

one green apple

one red apple

 

a white bowl

side table

clear satin varnish

fingermarks.

Four Poems by Mark Young

I cannot attest to the truth of this story,

 

told to me many years ago at a friend's house by Barry Humphries before he became more famous via his alter-ego Dame Edna Everage.

About being in a bar, in New York, & a drunken Jack Kerouac lookalike came up to him & invited him to a party. He declined the invitation. Was given the address anyway. Discovered about half an hour later that it had, in fact, been Kerouac. Rushed off to the address. Found it to be the premises of a removal company & that the party was taking place in the back of a moving Moving van that had left fifteen minutes earlier & was now out on the road, somewhere, anywhere, in the city.

 

 

A midnight census

 

In the background the pool pump hums. Put clarifier in the water, & now it has to circulate for thirty-six hours to let the clouding particles coalesce.                There is a smoke smell in the air. Drove around over the last few days on roads impinged upon by opportunistic grasses. A day of rain & they grow. A month later they are dry, primed for burning. Easier to set them alight than mow the strip that runs along the road- side.           The static geometry of the house separates the evening into panels. A quintych. Angular, o- blique. Trees fill in some of the gaps, but the most striking are those where there are gaps in the trees themselves, one in part- icular, bite-shaped, as if some- one had tried an apple & then abandoned it. Acute.                                       Touch yourself. Only flesh, which the hand passes through as if

& along the way     cigarettes   coffee   chicken   & rice       burnt   grass   a tart   plum           it wasn't there.

 

Meadow Saffrons (Les Colchiques)

—Guillaume Apollinaire

 

The meadow is poisonous but pretty in autumn

The cows grazing there

are slowly poisoning themselves

Meadow saffron the color of your eye-shadow of lilacs

flower there your eyes are like that flower

Violet like the eye-shadow & like the autumn

& for your eyes my life slowly poisons itself

 

School children come noisily

dressed in their smocks & playing harmonicas

They pick the meadow saffrons which are like mothers

Daughters of their daughters & the color of your eyelids

which flutter like flowers caught in a crazy wind

 

The cowherd sings very softly

whilst the slow lowing cows abandon

this great meadow ill-flowered by the autumn

 

(translated by M. Y.)

 

 

A line from Kurt Schwitters (3)

 

We were a modern family on

whom rebel militants launched

a large-scale attack following

weeks of simmering low-level

 

violence. The family began to

fall apart, particularly when we

started injecting black tar heroin.

Additional risk factors included

 

low-socioeconomic status, an

increase in gun violence, a steak

pie which says simmer on the

hob for 60 minutes. Soups are

 

also dangerous, especially when

they are served without rinsing

away the dirt. Anxieties are run-

ning high; we are spending too

 

much time in the danger zone.

Perhaps an anomaly, or will

light & visibility dictate if full

body hi-vis clothing is required?

The Hit List, by Mark Young

Four Poems by Mark Young

Taxonomy

 

It is the

animal entire

though taken apart

it might not

seem so. An-

alysis is a

handy tool

but draws

the breath

from. Leaving

shavings in

the long grass,

bleached bones,

the meat dis-

carded since

it otherwise

hides the frame.

 

 

The Ladies of the Afternoon

 

It is a different time

of day; & so the term —

though similar — de-

scribes a totally different

coterie. The ladies of

the afternoon, all

members of the same

choir, sit in their long

 

dresses in the drawing-

room listening to

one of their number

play Pathétique on

the new piano. A deli-

cate applause follows.

 

 

Later

 

The root here is "dote;"

which, based on an older

version of Adobe's now-

defunct Flash Player, means

"to show affection." That's

an empirical overview —

further analysis, whose

political purpose is

to imagine the kind of

interruption & disturbance

Taylor Swift & James Taylor

singing, say, Falling in Love

with Love on a prime-

time variety TV show

might do to the economy,

reveals a series of

corrections. How we

look now is not how

we have always traveled.

 

 

 

Galapagos

 

Thunder somewhere. Again

the moths. Light bends in a

severe curve to show me

where I've been, not where

I'm going. Star Trek re-runs

taping upstairs, L. in Mel-

bourne, the cat having to be

shown the meat in her bowl

 

before she starts eating it once

more. Like me she's growing

old, too foolish to come in out

of the heat, out of a humidity so

thick my cigarette smoke needs

claws to fight its way through.

Four Poems by Mark Young

A line from Alain Delon

 

I am learning the ropes of a new

role. I am not sure I want to join,

but persuade myself it's time to

escape the empty chatter that fills

 

most lives. I am somewhat uncer-

tain that it is wise to do so, still

believe that, in the main, we're all

loners, to differing degrees, that

 

close friends will always be hard

to find & maintain relationships

with. YouTube videos paint a world

without conflict, where we thrive

 

from connection, are certain that

we matter. The kind of solitude

that I desire is born from a disparity

between my personal ability & my

 

creative vision. I intend to avoid

talking about current events: what

would you like to talk about? I'm

ready. Grief demands to be felt.

 

 

retirement

 

What can we take

out of it? Just

some com-

promised

 

memories; &

perhaps a small

poem in lieu of

severance pay.

 

 

Leaving LaGuardia

 

When finished being polished,

the Mayor of New York has a

warm red color & is often used

for jewelry by the Bantu. It is

one amongst many manifestations

of him in their mythology. Some-

times he is depicted as a female

 

nude, big-breasted, long-necked,

wide-hipped, with all the orifices

one would expect from a blow-up

doll made from synthesized Ro-

manticism. Elsewhere he is seen

as the last surviving member of

an ancient group of gymnosperms.

 

But those the popular aspects. The

Priests have greater regard. To them

he is the pinochle of perfection, a

messiah already come. One who

has achieved enlightenment but

still remains on the human plane,

ready to put the self into sacrifice.

 

 

The Gates of Paradise

 

Dogs at the gates, alligators

in the conservatory — all part

of a playground for inhuman

resources. Within which, sin-

ging either in a descant or with

the assistance of a tight ankle

bracelet, impresarios line up

to offer services outside any

 

human rights laws. The key

shifts; now suitable only for a-

moebae & a few axolotls. A

changed rhythm, also. We try

to sing along, a long song, in

an impossible counterpoint.

Four Poems by Mark Young

a small gazetteer for harry k stammer

 

It is a bipolar re-

ordering, unencom-

 

passed by direction.

South is elsewhen —

 

places you came

from, been, are.

 

North is the point

you move towards.

 

Bosch's oranges,

dreaming giraffes.

 

 

 

re: verse

 

rage road

unseen sight

example shining

mail express

paper daily

charge static

card credit

merchant dream

stones rolling

pot chimney

fire open

cabin holiday

shave close

fight title

water open

pole south

chapter final

 

 

sequins / sequence

 

appear

 

fruit

of the

loom

 

the punched card

programmed

loom

the fruit

of

Joseph Marie Jacquard

 

who was

the apple of

Babbage's

eye

 

lum-

inary

for

Turing

 

enigma

 

 

Badiou’s Bad IOU Blues

                    aka A line from Alain Badiou

 

The word as notion. Love is.

Don't the moon look lonesome

shining through the trees? Who

does Badiou owe? Why does he

 

wish to pay them back? Noun as

an oddment, the minimal form of

communism. 33 words unscram-

bled from the letters in NOTION.

 

Sent for you yesterday & here you

come today. What is the reason

for his ill will & when did it come

about? Evil is the interruption of

 

a truth. Can it be comprehended

through listening &/or reading?

How will he achieve his desires?

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