Mark Young: 6 poems

  Mark Young

  6 poems
 

  JPR07
 

  A line from Charles Bernstein

One of my favorite soups—
or is it one of my favorite
soaps?—brings back memories
of my Grandma’s kitchen.

Now I make hoecakes regu-
larly. I can notify you when
they’re back in stock. While
waiting, listen to this rhyming

storyline about little Lulu
& her brother & how rocks
occasionally break in two at
the sound of her cuckoo clock.

In the rainy
night I listen to
Charlie Parker

playing Lover-
man. & inside me
the mixing-booth

of my mind over-
dubs it with
the equally raw

emotion of Billie
Holiday’s vocal
version. The

result a citadel
of grief, an expo-
nential anguish.

A week late I finally
get around to turn-
ing the calendar over to
a new month. December
in this loose collection of

post- & past impressionists
is represented by Henri
Rousseau, Le Douanier.
It cheers me up
immediately. But

what a waste. My de-
pression could have
been carried away
in father Junier’s cart
seven days ago.

                                She followed the guide
                book carefully, replacing the
                                    listed sites of interest with                      the actual objects when she                                        found them. Houses that            had a history, a row of shops,
                          fountains, parks, the plaza                            with its famous wall of shame.
                  Once she had the scene she could
                                fill it with inhabiants, just as
          the book did when it decorated
                              cathedral ceilings or described
                    the inside of a hall. Otherwise
                                  façades, or acts of stagecraft.
                        Walls that flickered into being
                as she approached & hid what-
                                        ever lay behind. She saw the
                              railway station & walked to-
                      wards it. Climbed up the steps
                                          to find it was the concourse
                  where the world came to an end.

White spaces filled
with drawings, white
noise transversed
by the song of
wild dogs. Given
that it is essential

nothing is left where
more could be added,
where then to hide
the small hint
of hesitation, the door
that leads outside.

                    We are clearly in motion,
                                moving about the Earth’s
                          surface, leaving a record
              only through large-scale
                              cross-bedding. I am amazed
                    at how quickly time — a property
                          not limited to bacterial colon-
                                ies — goes flying by.
                                      Undulations on a non-
                        cohesive surface discern
                the contours of the conti-
                    nents. Mega-ripples are
                                superimposed on large
                        scale dunes; quantum noise
                          appears as liquid crystals.
                      The pullback in platinum
          reduces frictional drag. But it’s
                              that addition of blood
              sausage — just like the
                              kind you’d pick up in
                  the market in Aix — that
                                really keeps us rolling.

 

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland, & has been publishing poetry for almost sixty years. He is the author of forty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. Recent books include Mineral Terpsichore & Ley Lines, both from gradient books of Finland, & The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago. A new collection, some more strange meteorites, has just been released by Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York.