Ceresously?

Asteroids will have a tough
time sticking to their orbits
now that donations to the

Kickstarter campaign begun
to seek out those that might
be rich in precious metals,

then send robotic spacecraft
to mine them, are steadily
increasing day after day.

Her thirty-third studio album

Miss Kitty tweets that
the extreme weather
sweeping the world

has left New York City
reeling as it realizes
there are now less

than 50 pre-mixed cock-
tails in their plastic juice
jars left in the entire city.

Today the post-
woman brought
me a brochure
from EARWAX—
extinct animal 
resurrection with 
academic expertise—
suggesting that if 
I donated both
money & a sample 
of my DNA they 
might be able 
to bring back 
the Amazonian 
smilodon. I de-
clined. Now if it 
had have been 
the mastodon . . .

geographies: St. Arnaud

 

skeleton echo

There was no rear toe
near or here or there-
abouts, so it probably 
didn't work out the way 
she hoped it would. In-
stead had to wait for a
recording to come out
on Bandcamp. Which it
did, but this time with
the phalanges missing.
Meant it couldn't play
along with her, nothing
there to tap time with.

wednesday newstrip

Nintendo: unopened copy of Super Mario 64 from 1996 sells for $2.24 million · fungal leather production could mean change of tack for equestrians · UFO chaser claims photo taken from International Space Station shows aliens circling above Earth · unvaccinated Belgian woman contracted two COVID variants simultaneously · meet the baby Juicero you didn’t know you needed · Jackass star attacked by shark during stunt gone wrong · United States citizens, companies buying up New Zealand land for farming, forestry, wine-making · teardrop star reveals hidden supernova doom.

geographies: Kyneton

 

Today the post-
woman brought
me The Shorter
Oxford English
Dictionary. Such
generosity! I was
lost for words.

wednesday newstrip

Capitol rioters who deleted social media posts of their involvement may have further incriminated themselves · some 53 per cent of Republicans believe DoNuts T.®ump won last year's election & blame his loss on illegal voting; one-quarter of the overall public agreed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed · US switched off the lights & left Bagram airbase without telling the Afghans · Ukrainian female troops march in heels, sparking outrage about 'medieval mindset' · blazing fire on ocean surface due to gas leak extinguished in Gulf of Mexico · cyber attack on US businesses through Kaseya software to be investigated for Russia links · male dragonflies lose their 'bling' in hotter climates.

Now out from sandy press

The Sasquatch that walks among us has a wide-ranging wardrobe, ranging from the stylish to the stochastic. Poems about places that may never have existed, or if they did are described in a way that makes them unrecognizable. Poems about people who did exist, but never thought the thoughts that are ascribed to them here. Poems that the Sasquatch themself has inscribed on the walls of the modern-day forest they have come out in.

The Sasquatch Walks Among Us
sandy press, California
ISBN: 978-1-7368160-2-8
direct URL: at Amazon.
$US14.95

 

Blurbs

These are poems conscious of mortality’s fate. What results is music as would be played, not in but by, dusk. Thus, wryness, anger of the type refusing to go gentle in the night, acceptance, humor, irony, and more until “the noise / divides & / the song /breaks through.” They form a read so compelling that instead of “reading out of books,” you “read things into them.” Specifically, you read your life into these poems so that you can only hope your life will have contained enough of what creates the lyric: “A light moves on the north sky line … & a world is covered with jade,” or “the moon got in / under his finger- / nails like a fragment of / a Bach cantata.” — Eileen R. Tabios

Almost all of Mark Young's poems in The Sasquatch Walks Among Us comment on current culture, society, and politics fairly directly, doing so with varying levels of wryness, dismay, and humor. This variety in attitude and emotional response makes for a consistently engaging reading experience, enhanced by a great variety of forms and perspectives in the book, including prose poems, centos, sonnets, tercets, doublets, and quatrains in various combinations, and many mixed forms. There are also some poems that use wordplay, such as the almost Lettristic “Quick!”, which riffs on the letters A and I.

In a previous book, Sorties, (sandy press, 2021), a book of essays and commentary, Young describes his influences as: “No poetry”. His writing in The Sasquatch... certainly reflects this attitude, especially in the condensed prose-like diction of many of the pieces, an enhancement of prose which is not prose at all, really. “Cento I”, part of a series interspersed throughout the book, based on Pound's Cantos, is a good example of something quite different: it is a carefully constructed, and beautiful, sonnet which shows a deep familiarity with the formal aspects and sound patterns of poetry. “No poetry” is, however, a useful frame of mind to ignore so-called influences in order to write more freely and independently, which Young certainly does extremely well. Perhaps influence is the wrong word for the experience of writing out from a swarm, or an atmosphere, a deep culture of many voices of poetry, writing against them, inside them, and writing through their swarming. It is a complex evolution within a changing context. In another poem, “Strut”, he expresses dismay at the commercialization of some poetry; Ginsberg used in a fashion show, for example. I can only say that I suspect there is little danger of Young's poetry, or that of the vast majority of poets he publishes in his essential journal Otoliths, being used that way. Which is a very good thing indeed. The Sasquatch... is a wonderful book, which challenges the mind, the emotions, and one's sense of beauty again and again. — John M. Bennett

wednesday newstrip

Mysterious mineral only ever seen in meteorites inexplicably found in sediment near the Dead Sea · Queensland Premier & the state’s Health Minister have blasted the Australian Pram Minister Scat SorrySon's Federal Feudal government over the bungled international border policy · black holes gobbling up neutron stars confirmed as source of gravitational waves for first time · mouth closing device to fight obesity causes scandal · hundreds dead as record-breaking heat wave hits Canada & United States · Apple releases beta versions of iOS15, iPadOS 15, & WatchOS 8 · intact beetle found in 230 million-year-old lizard dung.

a snapshot of the unbiased views of Sky News Australia's self-claimed centrist commentators

Rupert Murdoch denounces 'woke orthodoxy'

Sky News leads the way in claiming that every progressive cause, from climate action to anti-racism to feminism, signals a capitulation to woke 'lefty lunacy'

The 'woke agenda' undermines the principles which 'sustained us for generations'

Ordinary people do not like the politics of woke

'the calling card of the woke left' is to 'attack mainstream Australians to prove their own superiority'

Woke-left hatred of 'normal' is 'a fear of what it represents' & 'real life is against them'

'Brutal & unforgiving' new 'woke religion' offers no 'absolution' in sporting world

'Being woke' is an inexcusable defence for just being 'insensitive' & 'uncivilized'

Schooling overhaul dumbs down kids in push to be 'woke'

so disappointing that we've got another example of this woke rubbish which is being developed by some of our academics in our education faculties

'We have evidence that woke politics is making the west desperately weak'

Australia has become so 'weak' so 'woke' and so 'broke'

China 'relish' in Australia 'rotting' because of woke culture

The woke will 'destroy our language', unless we 'have names for them'

geographies: Zumsteins

 

What most macros will decry

Hold mass readings on the
borders. They're intellectual

activities that create sensory
perceptions which help identify

aspects of the outside world
that headsets don't pick up.

The Motel down the street

 

wednesday newstrip

Genshin Impact: Kazuha story quest release date, time, & leaks revealed · Antarctic lake disappears after ice shelf fractures · a 2023 deadline to phase out the use of plastic fruit stickers has come as a surprise to New Zealand's fruit-growing & packaging industry · outspoken Hole singer Courtney Love has sledged “rude” teen star Olivia Rodrigo in a series of social media posts, accusing her of copying her work · classified British defence papers found at bus stop · 'Dragon man' skull forces researchers to rethink human evolution · ‘fool’s gold’ contains a newly discovered type of real gold.

geographies: Ararat

 

a note on mosquitoes

Only
the female
sucks the blood.

The male feeds
on plant 
juices.

wednesday newstrip

Crayfish take more risks while on antidepressants, study shows · physicists bring human-scale object to near standstill, reaching a quantum state · David Eagleman: ‘The working of the brain resembles drug dealers in Albuquerque’ · English Heritage reject Enid Blyton for coin commemoration, calling her a "racist, sexist, homophobe" · could horse-derived antibody therapy be effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern? · massive icebergs once made epic trek all the way from Canada to Florida · 'Great failure': health expert slams handling of Australia's vaccine rollout · China's Mars rover took a selfie.

The Downhill Raceway

 

wednesday newstrip

Man looking for shark teeth in a Florida river survives an alligator bite to his head · no, DoNuts T.®ump didn’t wear his pants backwards · calls for Australia to reclaim Cocos (Keeling) Islands' internet domain, which has become a haven for child sex abuse · ex-Giant Bomb duders’ new project is already blowing up on Patreon · tiny creatures survive after being frozen for 24,000 years in Siberian tundra · the Dead Sea is disappearing, leaving behind a landscape shattered by sinkholes · Fastly blames global website outage on software bug that was accidentally triggered by customer · Siloscape malware escapes Windows containers to backdoor Kubernetes clusters.

geographies: Parachilna

 

Oh / the things / that one finds!

This poem was written nearly sixty years ago. No idea who made this video, which is recent, know nothing about it. The poem has appeared in a number of anthologies over the years, including one from the Caribbean.

Varnishing Point

 

wednesday newstrip

Clever maker with hand tremors turned a smartphone gimbal into a soldering iron stabilizer · China watches on as a herd of elephants wanders from town to town, causing over $1 million in damage · cop sacked over groin wax wins in appeal · bomb-sniffing rat retires after award-winning Cambodian career · Knockout City doesn’t show your overall stats, which is a bummer · the World's oldest water lies deep below Canada & is 2 billion years old · New Zealand dairy worker had fatal fall while doing a trick on his farm bike · Facebook suspends former US Prissygent DoNuts T.®ump's accounts for two years.

geographies: Little Topar

 

A Pope Porked

 

wednesday newstrip

People in the US state of Texas will soon be allowed to carry handguns without a licence · Greenland's melting ice sheet is unleashing an astonishing amount of mercury into the nation's rivers & fjords · the Australian Federal Court has ruled that the Environment Minister Ley-z Sussan has a legal duty not to cause harm to young people of Australia by exacerbating climate change when approving coal mining projects · Sri Lanka faces 'worst beach pollution' in history from burning ship · global car manufacturer says Australia is failing to lure electric vehicle importers · Israeli soldiers have shot & killed a Palestinian during a protest in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry has said.