Poetry: Mark Young

Mark Young

Interior Design

Each unto some other

thing. Seeking variety.

She says: go fetch. Not

like dog, more harvest

festival. So you mean-

der & bring driftglass

& gull's feather from

the beach, tree-root

curved from the earth's

compression, flowers &

stalks of wheat from the

opening of the field. Re-

bus. Distributed. Finally

some thrift-shop thing, an

old cushion revitalized

through careful washing,

or a small print, Turner,

the Thames in fog. &

the house, so long in

building, comes together.

***

Mantra

Mainly poor & main-

ly colored, living

organisms arrive

spontaneously. It is

a harsh portrayal of

the crueller aspects

of nature. Deviating

to either side, dilated

at the tip, the material

world resembles iron

but is not magnetic. The

waste empties through

a small channel where

water is re-absorbed

& enters values in

whatever cells it

finds. Intoned repeatedly

they can assist

concentration though

some are tree dwellers

& do not hibernate.

***

Why conscious decisions don't always work

Stay away from

the highway &

the tanks. Ignore

the helicopters I see

strutting across the sky

from my workplace

window. Turn my back

on the Defense Force

footage purporting

to be news on the

local TV station. But

what can I do about

the Hercules that

suddenly rears up

over the hill I'm

coming to from the

other side — so low

I see the barnacles

on its belly, so close

I think I'm going to

hit it — except

drive off the road?

***

Conjugation

It was the afternoons he enjoyed the most at the Summer Palace. Spent doing grammar lessons on the lawn with a succession of tutors, always male, often English, occasionally consumptive.

He discarded his mistakes with the arrogance of a child who had never picked up anything in their life. Someone was always there to do that for him. Some times some thing. Here it was the ducks who swallowed those errors soft enough to digest. A groundsman with a captured Uhlan's helmet to which a handle had been attached gathered up what they left.

It was an unreal life. But that he only realized years later when the Revolution came along. A flash of insight in the darkness behind the blindfold, reality hitting him just before the bullets did. It was remarked that until then his pleas for mercy were endless, pointless, but grammatically precise. Just like his universally disliked decrees.

***

A fragment from the past

Yesterday was meant to

be my day off work

to do my own

work; & then the

letter from the Utility

Company to say

they were pulling up

power poles in the

neighborhood, that

there'd be no electricity

for most of the day. &

this morning, before I'd

even had a chance to

think about thinking

about sleeping in

there were workmen

tearing up next door's

backyard as part

of their plan to upgrade

the sewerage system. Fucking

suburbia. Time to move

to that island I've

always dreamed off, crap

in the forest, cook on

hot coals, sit on the

beach & write in

the notebook that I

only seem to use to

keep my coffee on. Then

night falls suddenly

like it does in the

tropics, & I can't see

to read or write &

I step on my own shit

when I go to have

a piss, & there's

nothing to do except

listen to the waves

watch the stars

fight off the mosquitoes

because the palmtree

up the beach doesn't

stock citronella candles

& wonder if they've

started showing

the last series of

The West Wing yet.

***

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Setu, December 2024