Mark Young

A line from Allen Tate

The colder months are a 
chart, a psychological 
blueprint for the basics 
of both pop & traditional 

Chinese medicine. Intro-
duce a few new elements—
the sampling & mixing of
diverse downtown apart-

ments; germination ecology 
of the clonal grassland; issues 
with city government—& 
any incoherence can now be 

better understood in terms of
creative interaction between 
objects or the careful feeding 
of cats to keep them healthy.

***

Utamaro in the Everglades

After the storm

he / gathered
driftwood &

seaweed, sat

back, replayed
their patterns

on the green-

screen of his

mind. Three

geisha took 
turns to bring

him tea, each

geta clack a

caesura that 

broke his

thoughts be-

fore each

break. Else-

where 
flamingos 
gathered to 

test the re-
shaped edges 
of the river.

***

languish

How do you go about creating a language?

Do you start with the I, make it egocentric? Or do you create conjuncted verbs, so that the person is secondary, the action paramount? Do you generate a list of what's about you, name them, add the sensual verbs & create additional adjectives? Do you apply some sort of Grimm's Law, d to th, that sort of thing, so the language is an extension of what currently exists?

Is there a purpose, a reason, for a new language? It also presupposes someone to speak it with or write in it to. Someone who wants to share it with you. You is now I though they are the / same person. Which brings in they, though it's really we, though it's really me broken in two. The interior. The exterior. In that case, what's the word for the entire?

Do I/you/they/we plus plurals where applicable need to be able to define concepts before beginning? Or should the conceptual be shaped by the shape of the language? Should (pronoun) — will (pronouns) exist in a new language? Will (pronoun(s)) shape the language or should the language shape itself? Will itself exist by itself?

She spoke in a way no-one had ever spoken before. Everybody listened. No-one heard.

***

bse

verb 
is a 
noun 

numbers 
is 
letters 

palindrome 
is not a 
palindrome 

silent

word

***

the basis of all later versions

Mendicant friars say all the
repositories are up to date even
though there are some broken 
pages. My brother says the local 
packages are newer than those 
existing in the repositories but
their messages are all in Greek. 

An alternative sperm bank 
for finding sperm donors 
is alive & thriving in down-
town Montreal. My brother 
has taken a page out of the 
“bring traffic to your website” 
handbook, setting the stage 
for clickbait by the posting of
headlines that will catch the eye.

(Voir aussi parent, foster parent, 
lone parent, lone parent family.)

My brother, who has never 
attended a weight-loss clinic,
remains committed to a 
legally incoherent vision of 
invisible banking Trojans.
Please support his work by
making a donation via PayPal.

***

A line from Jimmy Carter

Contemporary Manhattan is a

beautiful mosaic. But overlay

a database of all ground-

mounted solar projects upon it

& detailed schemata of the re-

mains of exotic animals & the

water systems entombed beneath

emerge. The body begins to use

its stored sugar & any scaffold

that is not standard. There are

arcane rules revived, which is how

they took our planet from us. Now

Karl Marx traces the historical pro-

cesses of modern expropriation in

a new series that is due to premiere

on HBO. I need to call Mother.

***
***

Caleb Puckett

Warpath

Still

it would
be good
to know

one way 

or another

***
***

Virginie Colline

Haiku on the Fence

Bright side of the street

the Rockwellian picket fence
smiles its toothy smile

​


Photo by Jack Barnosky

***

***

Jeff Harrison

Maenad Noon

O Maenad Noon,
now that you are a year older,
invocations are letter-authentic
ooh ooh Maenad Noo-oohn,
ooh ooh Maenad Noo-oohn
you deserve a break today
so get up and break away
now you see me now you don't
look for me where the paper boats float
in this flight from lions,
the detour is subterranean
and we meet Eurydice coming up
alone to be devoured

***
***

Craig Kurtz

In Praise of Losers

“However high the praise, there’s nothing worse 

Than sharing honors with the universe. 

Esteem is founded on comparison: 

To honor all men is to honor none.”

— Molière, The Misanthrope; trans. Richard Wilbur. 

Let us praise the insecure,

the mediocre & the dull;

let us laud the guileless sod,

the hapless dolt & witless clod.

Here is an era epicene,

where puissance promotes gangrene;

where weakness is a virtue earned

& victimhood makes honor roll.

Who suffers most compels the best,

who is oppressed has highest rank;

it’s echelon turned inside out

& schadenfreude made valiant.

Where once the tyrannized rebelled,

they now have meetings to shed tears;

they hug & moan & wait their turn

to one-up the last sad story told.

There is no end to specialness

conferred upon laments & plaints;

establishing adversity

endows effete monocracy.

Identity is negative

& persecution the new boast;

status, once derived from skill,

now goes to those who snivel most.

Let’s elevate the booboisie

& celebrate their wretchedness;

how ’bout we outlaw excellence

to consecrate incompetence.

Now that everyone’s a laureate

distinction doesn’t mean a whit;

when high praise goes to all maumets

valor offends, or else its wit submits.

Three cheers for the dumb,

let’s hear it for the chumps;

the addlepated get first prize,

all winners should be penalized!

***

Synopsis of a Courtship

It’s the gentlest storm,

this barometric pressure

presaging a unison.

Curiosity infers a missing.

Trees may sway in the wind,

a future imploring their skin.

Denial unravels when it’s confronting

the problem of rain.

It’s the quietest of storms,

these exchanges of words

exploring respective similitudes.

Assessing foretokens a longing.

The soil absorbs information

to succor refurbished nutrition.

Circumspection submits to acuteness,

confessing the problem of thirst.

It’s the most complaisant of storms,

this ushering of puissance

amidst convergent elements.

Motion concedes desideratum.

Clouds unfetter unsettled satiety

upon earthly circuits of covetousness.

Parsimony capitulates to quenching,

attesting the dilemma of appetence.

It’s the tranquilest of phenomena,

this interosculated motion

redounding dialectics of pith.

Reciprocation is indispensible.

Roots will swell and luxuriate with weal,

transmitting data to enraptured land.

Ambivalence expires, for all matter is made facile

when rudiments of cupidity impetrate the soil.

***

The Altruistic Art of Unpopular Complaint

CHORUS:

Arguments & squabbles,

contretemps & quibbling;

all social progress does begin

with bellyaching & complaints.

Way back in history when people lived in caves,

spiders were for lunch & nightcrawlers, midnight snacks.

When leaves from trees were clothes

& globs of mud warmed up one’s toes

there was a person who declared, “This rather sucks,

I’m sick of it, we need a source of heat.”

This individual proceeded to rub sticks,

thinking that the friction

might create a calid flash. But hark!

Everyone in that town — deep in caves underground —

admonished him (or was it her),

“Desist & cease your ceaseless gripes.

We have lived a long, full life shivering & liking ice

& we’ll have no complaining here or, worse,

remediation thus; it’s radical — nay, dangerous —

to rub at sticks or coax a flame, 

it’s always best to stay the same,

tralatitious & inane, & so you must submit to us —

progress is a villainy.” Of course, this person

rubbing sticks did not desist & — lo! behold! —

made a fire which quite contrived to make

a warmer world. The genesis of this great deed

wasn’t necessarily raw food or caves or cold

or ice but dissatisfaction & remonstrances

which authored forward motion in the

human race.

CHORUS:

Expostulations & polemics,

objurgations & philippics;

social motion is the story

of invectives & chagrin.

Next, there came an era when

all the people stayed in place —

the towns were small, the lives were dull

& everybody felt crowded. 

There was a chap (or perhaps a lass)

who had the thought of travelling 

across the sea with boats that float

to find some other place 

where things were new.

It started with “Ah, screw this town!

I just can’t stand to be confined

with the same faces everyday. Nothing’s

new, it’s always trite, this & that all day & night —

it’s tedious!” But, lo! behold! this chap (or lass)

commenced to build a ship (or two)

but all at once the whole town said,

“You must desist, the world is small,

you’ll never get a better place, it won’t work,

you’ll not succeed — just be a rustic bumpkin

like the rest of us.” Well, we can all appreciate

our lucky stars that tack went flat

& ships did sail & lands were found

& railroads built & here we are, computering

& sipping Cokes & all that jazz — & all because

disrelishments & abhorrence

is part & parcel of progress.

CHORUS:

Deprecations & dischord,

brickbats & disparagements;

evolvement of society

begins with sour obloquy.

Pissing & moaning, kvetching & bitching,

where would we be if we had 

no disgruntlement?

If everyone was happy

& contentment was the rule,

who would make a lightbulb

or invent a ball-point pen?

There wouldn’t be improvements

like the wheel or shaving cream,

penicillin, instant coffee or the

DSL connection. We’d still be

eating bugs, scratching fleas &

feudal serfs; we wouldn’t have

the woman’s vote, postmodernism or ice cubes.

Feeding Christians to the lions

& the Spanish Inquisition,

burning witches at the stake

or shrinking heads of other tribes —

these were rules that had to go

& challenging the status quo

started with a grunt that articulated gripes,

then evolved into complaints & blossomed forth

new governments. “Be the change within yourself”

is what all despots will suggest, but

complacency is fit for fools

whereas sedition is the gift of saints.

CHORUS:

Expletives & calumnies,

epithets & billingsgate;

amelioration of the world

began when the first curse was hurled.1

1. “The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” — Sigmund Freud.

***

***