Thursday, November 07, 2024

A line from Youssou N'Dour

My nose runs, eventually syn-
chronizes with the nearby Alle-
gheny River & the cable cars of
memory — the funicular railway 

in Wellington, the Perugia People 
Mover. I am enamored of carriages 
that pass in the day, especially 
those that pause at the same station, 

pointing in different directions be-
cause it means the observation time
will be longer. My eyes run across
the passengers in the carriage beside 

me, hoping to see aspects of myself 
among them since it is often said we
recognize ourselves in others. & if I
do, I slide down the window & say to

them "Please accept these biscuits as a
small token of recognition, along with
a metal bookmark & a TOAD attack,
fresh from the Cambridge Dictionary."

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Climate crisis: October saw record floods & rains across the globe · "She's a radical war hawk," said DoNits T.®amp of Liz Cheney. "Let's put her with a rifle standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face" · Ms Cheney's riposte: "This is how dictators destroy free nations," she wrote on X. "They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country & our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant" · Queensland's Truth-Telling & Healing inquiry to pause its work plan as new right-wing State Premier David Crisafuilli stands by plan to stop process · on the eve of New Zealand’s Māori language celebration week, the country’s right-wing political leaders ordered public agencies to stop affirmative action policies for Māori people, who are disadvantaged on almost every metric · Cassius, the world's largest crocodile in captivity, dies in Far North Queensland.

Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Leaving LaGuardia

When finished being polished, 
the Mayor of New York has a
warm red color & is often used
for jewelry by the Bantu. It is
one amongst many manifestations 
of him in their mythology. Some-
times he is depicted as a female 

nude, big-breasted, long-necked,
wide-hipped, with all the orifices 
one would expect from a blow-up 
doll made from synthesized Ro-
manticism. Elsewhere he is seen
as the last surviving member of 
an ancient group of gymnosperms.

But those the popular aspects. The 
Priests have greater regard. To them 
he is the pinochle of perfection, a 
messiah already come. One who 
has achieved enlightenment but 
still remains on the human plane, 
ready to put the self into sacrifice.

Monday, November 04, 2024

Military Maneuvers

No ice on the water, not 
yet cold enough for that.
So, perhaps it's CGI, or a
rolled-out simulacrum, 
blue-tinged, as if the light 

is reflecting off something
solid. The animals crossed 
first, horses & ostriches, then 
the tanks & troop carriers. 
Scribes recorded the pass-

ages of passage, read back 
what they had written, & 
then they crossed as well. 
Providing a verbal sense of 
armies on the move, but

with little seismic evidence. 
Later, as night fell, an old 
man in a dog cart full of 
kindling forded the stream. 
It was then the earth shook. 

Sunday, November 03, 2024

gryphon

open

in a new
window

target ="_blank"

cando
code so 
easy

but can't
do when
the mind is 
struggling

& is other-
wise

closed

Saturday, November 02, 2024

Life cycle

It is a place where lost stones go to die. Otherwise, what use is there for it? It, too, is stone; nothing will grow there. So, accumulate to survive.

Accommodate to accumulate. Stones keep a memory of those who have picked them up, hefted them, thrown or skipped them. Battered with them, wept over them. They hold in their implacable stoniness traces of all human excrescence. They take its shapes, retain, retrain them, become its prototypes.

Sun bakes, ice cracks. Stone gets carved in words. Anchor, gravestone, opal, obelisk, fossil, cairn, menhir. In this place waiting for the hand that fits them. Growing boulder.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Western Australia man diagnosed with scurvy · at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers now inside Russia on the way to Ukraine, US says · DoNuts T.®ump prefers the "dictator approach" to running a country, & openly wished he had "Hitler's generals" when he was US president, his former White House chief of staff says · Türkiye's interior minister says five people have been killed & 22 others injured in what he describes as a "terrorist attack" in central Türkiye · Iran recruiting Israeli citizens to spy against their government, with social media the key to luring them in · gas industry in damage control as landmark study finds LNG 'worse than coal' for the climate · New Zealand still complicit in global shark fin trade.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Republican nominee DoNuts T.®ump has requested a military plane to use during the final weeks of the campaign, citing concerns that Iran is trying to kill him · a 65-year-old female sergeant is under investigation by Victoria Police, following allegations she performed a Nazi salute in front of police recruits · British woman who killed her parents & lived with their bodies for four years is sentenced to life · Sydney’s Coogee beach closed after mysterious black 'tar balls' wash ashore · Northern Territory's new conservative government passes legislation to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, in first week of parliament · Police say babies in Indonesia are being sold for as little as $AU1,450 · man falls into sewage tank in rural Ōtaki: 20 minutes later, Vivian St in Wellington flooded.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Australian Opposition leader Putrid Dustbin attacks Prime Minister for including calls for ceasefire & de-escalation in motion reflecting on 7 October · Bunnings Australia shoppers go wild over $15 item for transforming dirty grout: 'Holy grail' · T.®ump spoke with Putain at least seven times since leaving White House, Bob Woodward reports · McDonald's Australia brings back beloved $2.50 menu item after three years · Evangelicals for Harris claim Franklin Graham is threatening to sue them · classic Aussie phrase — 'mate' — offending people in 2024 · Notjustanyahoo says Israel has killed late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's successors · T.®ump stuns social media as he dances along to YMCA at the end of speech about October 7 attacks.

Monday, October 14, 2024

A couple of new books



Mark Young
The Magritte Poems
Sandy Press
ISBN: 979-8-9898666-3-2
Amazon URL: https://a.co/d/65ZzzPr
648 pages
Paperback: $US24.99
Kindle: $US12.00

This is a book 21 years in the making. The first Series Magritte poem — three words, three lines — was composed on the front step of a motel room at Yarra Glen, about 50 kilometers from Melbourne. It appeared on the As/Is blog in — I think — November 2003, was followed by another twenty or so at the same blog, & then, in March 2024, the following post appeared at my then main blog, Pelican Dreaming:

I have decided to start a blog for my Series Magritte poems. The URL is https://seriesmagritte.blogspot.com.

As I write this, there are 547 poems up at Series Magritte. I have included all of them in this book. Interspersed among them are a number of other poems — the Florence Foucault centos, composed of extracts from Michel Foucault's book on Magritte, This Is Not a Pipe, & the 1860 The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, by Florence Hartley, some of which actually appeared under the pseudonym of Florence Foucault, & also included are other of my poems that reference Magritte, including one that dates back to 1974. My admiration for René Magritte goes back a long way!

This is a collected, not a selected, so it may be uneven in quality. I would also have liked to include some of the Magritte paintings that inspired the poems, but that would undoubtedly have raised copyright issues as well as ending up as a seriously expensive tome. I have no intention of stopping writing Magritte poems, but I've decided to bring a dotted line to the venture so that I can see what it looks & feels like in book form. For those that don’t like the heft of such things, there is also a Kindle edition which Amazon warns may take a while to download.

I want to thank Javant Biarujia for his introduction, which is up at Sandy Press, & Sheila E. Murphy for her blurb which can be found on the Amazon page. Their words are more than I deserve.

I also want to thank Bill Allegrezza & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen for publishing earlier selections of my Magritte poems. I want to thank harry k stammer for publishing this collection & for doing the covers of some of the aforementioned smaller books. Lastly, I'd like to pay tribute to René Magritte for making the invisible visible.

There's also a recently published collection of my non-Magritte poems.






Alkaline Pageantry
Serious Publications
Lulu URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/alkaline-pageantry/paperback/product-rmenkpq.html?page=1&pageSize=4
76 pages
$US4.82

Alkaline Pageantry is the latest collection of poems by Mark Young that reflect — like much of his previous work — the insanity & inanity of the modern world. 'Give me a seagull with a / positronic brain & I'll / give you the next leader / of the modern world.' The poems come from the last six years, before, during, & after Covid; touch on the duplicity of world leaders; use search engines as a creative tool; deploy humor as a weapon to lay waste to civilization as it’s currently presented. 'Sorry, / nothing / matched your / search terms. Please / try / again with / a different fish.'

Sunday, October 13, 2024


Today the post
woman brought
me a trans-
Atlantic passenger
liner. I tried to

sail it in the lagoon
at the bottom of the
street but when I got
it in there it wouldn't
budge, something to

do with Newton's
unpublished fourth
law of motion which,
in précis, posits big
fish / big pool. I've

decided to leave the
liner where it is,
open it up as
an hotel. The
pelicans are pissed.
  

Wednesday, October 09, 2024

wednesday newstrip

DoNuts T.®ump encourages Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites · the NSW Education Standards Authority has announced that teaching of the Aboriginal past prior to European arrival will be excluded from the Year 7–10 syllabus as of 2027 · A-list star ‘horrified’ as alleged Diddy sex tape gets pushed to media outlets: ‘he feels like he was victimized years ago’ · Sydney woman allegedly killed & dismembered husband in ‘bizarre’ murder case, police say · a scorned Canadian wife has opened up about how she ate her dead husband’s ashes after finding out about his string of affairs · a year into the Israel-Gaza war, the Middle East is on the verge of chaos. How does it end?

Monday, October 07, 2024

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

wednesday newstrip

T.®ump praises Russia's military record in argument to stop funding Ukraine's fight · Murk Suckerbug says Meta AI has nearly 500 million users · fatal stabbing of Japanese schoolboy in China sparks debate on the country's patriotic education · Israeli politicians across spectrum praise assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah · Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers splashed with soup · Australian Broadcasting Corporation crew becomes subject of Russian criminal investigation for crossing border from Ukraine · thousands attended Auckland's Eden Park in an attempt to reclaim the Guinness World Record for the largest haka. The attempt was successful, decisively beating the previous official record of 4028, inexplicably held by France since 2014.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Tupperware files for bankruptcy as its colorful containers lose relevance · ex-porn star tells cops in 2018 he’s Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ alleged sex slave in resurfaced video · sugar prices surge as Brazil's drought & fires tighten global supply · man arrested in Italy nearly 50 years after two Melbourne women found dead in their home · Israel struck a building in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, killing Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil & at least 30 other people, & wounding 66 · a US Secret Service probe found communication gaps & complacency before the July assassination attempt on DoNuts T.®ump · can mouth-taping lead to a better night's sleep? · former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed a 'monster,' victims' lawyers say · US public schools banned 10,000 books in most recent academic year.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Leader of the Australian Federal Opposition, Putrid Dustbin, to take axe to green groups, turbocharge mining, if his coalition wins the next election · thousands of protesters disrupt Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition, an industry-only trade expo for the defense sector, in Melbourne's CBD · the arrest of Apollo Quiboloy of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church changes the political landscape of the Philippines · Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters says he has become father of baby girl born ‘outside my marriage’ · Australian breaker Raygun is currently ranked number one in the world · an estimated 67 million viewers across 17 networks watched the Trump-Harris debate according to Nielsen data · Bungie says Destiny 2's future lies in "unusual formats," like "roguelikes or survival shooters."

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

wednesday newstrip

During his visit to Indonesia, the Pope may have subtly hinted how sin can enter 'through the pocket' · investor who risked it all on Black Myth: Wukong now minting millions · Putain, with a wry smile, says Russia backs Kamala Harris in US election · Hollywood legend Michael Keaton is going back to using his real name, Michael Keaton Douglas · China to build first-ever thorium molten salt nuclear power station in Gobi Desert · Aotearoa New Zealand's next Māori monarch named as Kiingi Tuheitia is buried, placed beside generations of family · Japan may join US marines in northern Australia, strengthening military ties · thousands of Australians are being asked to pay membership fees to general practitioner (GP) clinics to access bulk-billed medical care.

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

wednesday newstrip

“The growth of Parkinson’s across the world has been called a pandemic — it’s the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease,” a visiting neurologist tells a crowd of potato farmers. “Many people are under the misunderstanding that it’s a genetic condition. But for the most part, it appears to be mostly environmental.” · Australia's 3G network is shutting down · Surcharges — which cost Australians about $960 million a year, according to a March analysis of Reserve Bank of Australia data by the ABC — are becoming increasingly common across Australia. Some retailers add them to cover the cost of processing a transaction. Surcharges are banned in the United States, Canada, Europe, & Britain · neighbor of nudist resort couple arrested after duo's disappearance · The Pacific Islands Forum has removed references to Taiwan from a communiqué issued on Friday after the region’s annual leaders meeting, after complaints by China’s envoy · Army confirms T.®ump staff 'pushed' Arlington cemetery worker · New Zealand's Māori King Tuheitia dies at 69 after heart surgery.

Monday, September 02, 2024

An introduction; though when finished will be an afterword.

During my trawling through past posts & pages for 100 Titles From Tom Beckett, I rediscovered a January 2013 entry on Tom’s l’amour fou blog. He posted:
Anyway, in a section of Appearances that I'm working on now I list titles of imaginary songs that appear on an imaginary jukebox in an imaginary bar called the Cave, a very special club house for the legendary performance art group Vaudeville without Organs.

A jukebox is a treasure trove of information about the sort of establishment it exists within. Herewith a list, alphabetically sorted, of a few of the song titles in the Cave’s jukebox,
followed by a list of a list of sixteen titles, & a closing message:
Mark, you're welcome to any of these titles if you're looking for some.
I can’t claim not to have seen this post since, in the comments box, is the following:
(from) mark young January 2, 2013 at 2:52 AM
You been a peepin at my wurlitzer again!
Jukeboxes are a shared pleasure. On my side, I’ve lost track of how many times — posts & poems — I’ve referred to those songs that rise unbidden to the surface of what I call my juxebox of the mind. In what is admittedly a very belated response, I’ve begun pushing the buttons on this refound Wurlitzer to see what wonders we can wring from it.

Starting tomorrow, the first poem in the series. The remainder will follow at irregular intervals.

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Dying Light: The Beast has way more guns than we expected · Olympic breakdancing controversy ignores sport's cultural roots · ISIL claims responsibility for stabbing attack in Germany’s Solingen · Transgender woman's exclusion from female-only app was unlawful, Australian Federal judge finds · Lily Allen branded an 'awful person' by fans after returning rescue dog · NASA unveils plan to return stranded Boeing Starliner crew to Earth · almost 70,000 Japanese people will die alone this year & with the populaiton rapidly aging it could become much worse · Jackson Hole gathering reveals fresh concern for central bankers · first prisoner swap since Ukraine incursion into Russia sees 115 prisoners released on each side.

Thursday, August 22, 2024

A midnight census

In the background the pool pump hums. Put clarifier in the water, & now it has to circulate for thirty-six hours to let the clouding particles coalesce. There is a smoke smell in the air. Drove around over the last few days on roads impinged upon by opportunistic grasses. A day of rain & they grow. A month later they are dry, primed for burning. Easier to set them alight than mow the strip that runs along the road- side. The static geometry of the house separates the evening into panels. A quintych. Angular, o- blique. Trees fill in some of the gaps, but the most striking are those where there are gaps in the trees themselves, one in part- icular, bite-shaped, as if some- one had tried an apple & then abandoned it. Acute. Touch yourself. Only flesh,
which the hand passes
along the way cigarettes coffee chicken & rice burnt grass a tart plum
through as if it wasn’t there.

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

wednesday newstrip

A charity in New Zealand has mistakenly distributed pineapple sweets laced with a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamine · Israeli leaders condemn settler attacks in West Bank in rare rebuke of violence · Google just released the newest version of its AI image generator · Tasmanian paramedic sacked after callout to woman with ping pong ball stuck in body · Chinese experts have called on Beijing to begin preparations to take over Taiwan "as soon as possible" in the face of a potential DoNuts T.®ump presidency · first case of polio confirmed in a 10-month-old child in Gaza, Palestinian health officials say · brawl erupts in Turkish parliament during debate — leaves at least two lawmakers injured · woman posed as three different people in brazen plot to extort millions from Elvis Presley's family & auction off Graceland.

Thursday, August 15, 2024

She left the train at a station whose name now escapes her ;

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Israel's far-right finance minister suggests that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians "might be just & moral" · New Zealand unlikely to have megaquake, but dangers exist — seismologist · around 100 Palestinians killed in Israeli air strike on school in Gaza, local authorities say · DoNuts T.®ump's campaign says some of its internal communications were hacked, blaming the Iranian government without providing direct evidence · pro-Israeli lobby group United Democracy Project spent more than $14 million on TV advertising targeting the primary of one Democrat Israel critic in Congress & $8 million on another Congress member's primary & succeeded in having them replaced as candidates in the next election · Winda Woppa locals stunned by 'devastating' coastal erosion at Jimmy's Beach.

Saturday, August 10, 2024

The Camembert of Time (an early draft from 20 years ago)


                    To
     demonstrate
               the persistence 
                    of memory 
          Dali
                took an 
                     ice cube
out of the freezer
           & closed
                his fingers 
                      over it. When 
     he opened them 
                      there was
     a small 
                 pool of water 
            in his palm. He said:
      you remember
            the piece of ice. I
feel its retained coldness
            & recall
            some frames from 
                        a movie 
        I made with Buñuel.
                  A man’s hand.
                         A hole
                         in it.
             Ants.

Time is
plastic, just like
these watches. Why
we remember 
some things & 
not others
is because they come 
closer to us. The
cliffs of
Catalonia are static
but the ants
will eat
away at them &
eventually
they’ll decay. I lie
here, unable to
remember what 
I looked like.
The painting
is about the impermanence
of memory, & yet
most people
who’ve seen it
always seem
to remember 
what it looked
like.