Poems by Mark Young

Lenticular plastic machinery

Surf the meridian line
if you must, but a
lack of quality control
in the manufacture
of its output/input
connectivity means the
steam-run perpetual

motion machine is
grinding to a halt.
Now Micronesia has
a cold, the U.S. is under-
studying the oompah
person in a jug band,
Tierra del Fuego is

considering invading
a conglomerate of not-
for-profit organizations
that were never meant
to be that way. Leave
me out of it. I'm happy
living in a donut hole.

 

Environmental Architects

                           Using a combination of 
                                          natural instinct & modern 
                   technology, the new blue-
                                  eyed boys on Dalal Street
                                                  sliced the ball up 
                                perpendicularly to its 
                          axis of rotation & turned
                             it into very small cylinders
                           of detrital zircon. It's not 
                                         as sexy as the original 1845 
                     will of Thomas Hunt of 
                                    Sussex County, Virginia 
                                                    which contains slave 
                               information, but it follows 
                                        current trends of loops & 
                                   beat, &, as Hegel said, 
                           history is one of a collective 
                     consciousness. He added
                                               that December should be
                               declared iPod month, at 
                                      which point the Snake River 
                           system of the northern Rockies
                        took to the streets, & Higher-
                  Education stocks rebounded.

 

Bass line

Most of the
time I'm a
B♭ kind of
guy, light
blues, laid-
back, drifting
along with
only the
occasional
backbeat
snare rap
or Mingusian
bass run
added for
emphasis. No-
body knows—
& even I
forget some-
times—that
there's a
Toccata &
Fugue in D
minor tux
hanging in
the ward-
robe eager
to emerge
with all the
stops out.

 

The Pound Cantos: CENTO XXIX

Out of nothing, a breathing. Out
of nothing, dry forms in the æther.
The smell of hay under the olive-
trees. Lifeless air become sinewed.

The walls tinted discreet, the modish,
darkish green-blue. The silver mir-
rors catch the bright stones & flare.  
Hooves clink & click on the cobbles.

In the gloom, the gold gathers the
light against it. The scarlet curtain
throws a less scarlet shadow. We sit

here under the wall, near the old sarco-
phagi smothered in grass. The filagree
hiding the gothic. Now ivory stillness.

 

Tungsten

works the night-
shift; &, so, often
spends its day
sitting around
the pool trying
to get a tan,
eating durian—
doesn't mind the
smell—reading
books on nuclear
physics for self-
improvement, &
working out to
the music of AC/
DC in order
to improve body
mass & event-
ually make it
into the realm
of heavy metal.