Poetry: Mark Young

Mark Young

In the plantain patch

 

The road that wraps around the

Conservatory is full of palanquins

parked end to end. Which is a

surprising fact given that there is

 

never anyone here in need of a ride;

&, even if there were, there are no

gharry drivers in sight on site to take

their place between the handles to

 

carry them away. The music that this

place is famous for has disappeared.

It reappears sometime later as comp-

anion to news footage that depicts a

 

procession of men carrying a convoy

of occupied palanquins behind some

marching band. Subsequent forensic

analysis reveals the footage is fake.

 

for Miss M.

 

cat / kookaburra

late-night owl

the

avariciousness

of another

avatar

 

attacked by

angry ants &

in defence

a self-

inflicted

mortal blow

 

auto-erotic

asphyxiation

attempting

to emulate

the Worm

Ouroboros

via our messaging apps

 

Something cuts me off in

traffic. Looks like an in-

creasingly sonorous adult

coloring book. Quantum in-

determinacy is such a fre-

quent annoyance of con-

 

temporary life. It may be

perfectly valid, but the cog-

nitive process involved is

still ill-defined as a scientific

concept, especially when you

add in trips to the gas station.

 

The Vitruvian Man

 

Revolution. Evolution. & I am

strapped to it like that man

drawn by da Vinci, limbs outstr-

etched to approximate the spokes.

 

Do not ask where the axle goes.

 

I am listening – no, not really

listening, not deliberately. Rather

the sound pokes through the

floorboards & I have one ear

in contact with it, an ear that is

flattened more with each turn

of the wheel. My earrings are

crushed, one is already torn off,

the blood paints my neck as if

it were an external jugular.

 

I have drifted. That’s what pain

does. But there is no pain, just my

being confronted with the counting

down of a nominal two hundred

greatest hits of the century list — &

meant by that the most popular

songs from the last several decades

since nobody remembers anything

further back than that. Evolution.

Revolution. Chained to the wheel —

which didn't make it into the list.

 

& move in all directions.

 

Military planes in strange

liveries — Hercules / Cargo-

masters /  helicopters. I weave

my way through khaki convoys

heading south down the highway —

& no doubt north though I have

no call to go that way. The war

games over, the Coalition of the

 

Right/eous won. & so they should,

since that is what this is all about.

A formal forties war, with scales

weighted in their direction, a P.R.

exercise. & only themselves to fight

against. It is the only war they win.

 

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa New Zealand but now lives in a small town on traditional Juru land in North Queensland, Australia. He has been publishing poetry for just under sixty-five years, & is the author of seventy books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, memoir, and art history. His most recent book is One Hundred Titles From Tom Beckett, with paintings by Thomas Fink, published by Otoliths in June, 2024. His The Magritte Poems will be coming out from Sandy Press later this year.

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Setu, August 2024