Poetry: Mark Young

Mark Young
Dancing in the Dark

The beginning so saccharine; 
& yet it redefined a market 

segment that would otherwise 
have had limited appeal, de-

spite being full of fresh ingred-
ients, & bold, contrasting colors. 
***

A line from Aristotle

According to either
Rolling Stone or Harper's
BAZAAR, dance is
partly a visual aesthetic 

& partly conceptual, an
art won by training &
habituation. But that 
doesn't explain why 

polymath book editors 
don't seem to favor 
al fresco jiving, even 
when there are savings 

to be made by using 
coupons. Something 
about the cinnamon 
is not quite right.
***

 
an embarrassed trireme

The metabolic state of ketosis
in the poetry of the Anglo-
Saxons led us up the wrong
couloir. Civilizations collapsed

because they didn't share the 
saliva in their mouths in a time 
of drought. She had this huge
crush on an eerie concrete ghost

tower that believed it was a girl.
Soldier-builders at the site were
still clearly visible although
apparently in financial distress.
***


From the Pound Cantos: CENTO XXXIV

I fell against the buttress a second 
time. Then, strong with the blood, 
prayed I many a prayer to the sickly
death’s-heads to keep off the impet-

uous impotent dead. A phantom 
with weighted motion moved before
me, drinking the tone of things. So
many reflections. One may watch 

them turning & moving, with heads 
down now, & now up, stumbling 
with this love of death that is in them.

Then came to me in a vision a voice 
from a time behind me. May you 
live for 10,000 years. Always too late.
***


whereabouts his thereabouts

The overall loss of iron probably 
doesn't demand nutritional supple-
ments, but to facilitate cell phone 
access, dinner will be served at 
6:30. It's a major shift for those on
the committee for the Post Office
who are without any formal social 
work training; but, as with high 
value stocks, they stand to benefit 
from their sensitivity to the chains 
that are attached to fixed points at 
the top of each swing set. "That's how
a pendulum is meant to work," said
the Secretary of Defense. "What I
want to know is it post or ante 
meridiem when I'll be able to eat?"
***

Bio: Mark Young’s first published poetry appeared over sixty-two years ago. Much more recent work has appeared in Offcourse, Scud, Ygdrasil, Mobius, SurVision, Don’t Submit!, Unlikely Stories, & Word For/Word.

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