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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Setu, July 2022