After listening to the head of NATO fawning over Trump hay(na)ku

It's
time to
move to Mars.

wednesday newstrip

Pakistan to nominate DoNuts T.®ump for Nobel peace prize · the US has struck three Iranian nuclear facilities, joining Israel's air campaign · tech tycoon’s superyacht Bayesian hauled up from the seabed after last year's tragedy which is still puzzling experts · former Israeli negotiator says Beenjammin' Notjustanyahoo is leading DoNuts T.®ump 'by the nose' · Australian man left with $130,000 hospital bill after suffering stroke in Japan · at least eight people have been killed when a hot-air balloon carrying 21 passengers caught fire & plummeted to the ground in southern Brazil · Australian Health authority hands down lifetime ban for testosterone salesman whose conduct operating three online testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) clinics had "posed a risk to public safety" · chaos, violence, & war become the norm as the US empire collapses. The US is now the main agent of global chaos. How should Australia’s policymakers respond?

Middle East hay(na)ku

Remember
those "weapons
of mass destruction?"

wednesday newstrip

Bromance over: Muskrat accuses T.®ump of being in Epstein files. Tesla loses $152 billion in market cap · the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a public health alert for a widely sold ground beef product due to possible contamination with E. coli · on June 5, at a Deutsche Bank conference in Paris, Procter & Gamble Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten announced that it will be laying off up to 7000 employees within the next two years · 'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart railed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt over her emblematic cross, which Stewart said "The more she lies, the bigger her cross gets. … It’s like some sort weird Pinocchio cross." The next day, the cross was gone · the US Supreme Court unanimously blocked a lawsuit filed by Mexico against American gun manufacturers · CNN doubles down that Israel did open fire at aid site despite denial of previous claims · 30 Hooters restaurants abruptly closed amid bankruptcy struggle.

wednesday newstrip

Did RFK Jr.’s crew use AI to write error-filled MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — report? · Police have recovered 365 pieces of stolen pounamu after intercepting a vehicle on the Jackson River in South Westland on Wednesday, following a tip-off from the public. Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio chairman Paul Madgwick thanked police, saying the theft of greenstone had been an ongoing issue in remote areas · Pete Hogsbreath calls on Asia to boost military spending in face of 'imminent' threat from China · Australia’s trade minister says T.®ump plan to double steel & aluminium tariffs to 50% 'not the act of a friend' · people hit by cars, run over, 7 cops hurt at 'incredibly reckless' street racer meet attended by 1000 people in Levin, New Zealand on the anniversary of an illegal gathering that turned violent a year ago & there had been rumors a crowd would return · Elongated Muskrat's farewell at the White House has been overshadowed by a black eye, problems at Tesla, & allegations of drug use · New Zealand Cabinet minister Chris Bishop says he should have kept his comments to himself after saying "what a load of crap" during a performance at Thursday night's Aotearoa Music Awards in Auckland.

wednesday newstrip

Disney dumps Venezuelan cast members as the 'House of Mouse' aligns with T.®ump · Australian OnlyFans star Annie Knight hospitalized after sleeping with 583 men in six hours · T.®ump falsely claims Australia being 'inundated' by white South Africans fleeing 'genocide' · court to decide if Tasmanian supermarket discriminated by not allowing alpaca service animal into store · played by Vladimir Putain, a 'weary' DoNuts T.®ump could walk away from Ukraine · Nine Perfect Strangers season two review – not even Nicole Kidman’s new wig makes this worth watching · pro-doping Enhanced Games to debut in Las Vegas with T.®ump Jr. backing · Kim Jong-un furious as North Korea warship partly 'crushed' in launch gone wrong.

Gut Plastic

plastic from a shearwater's stomach
photo: Neal Haddaway. Australian Broadcasting Corporation

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-15/birds-crunch-full-plastic-losing-war-waste/105221266

wednesday newstrip

Cannes bans red carpet nudity over celebrity craze for ‘the naked dress’ · stars frock up for exclusive party at Justin Hemmes’ Sydney harborside mansion with host's pregnant partner Madeline Holtznagel showing off her growing baby bump in a daring sheer dress complete with a thigh-high split · Charli XCX's hooded black naked dress totally frees the nip at the 2025 BRIT Awards · in a world of naked dresses, did Bianca Censori & Kanye West's 2025 Grammys stunt take it too far? · on Oscar's night, more celebrities tried the nearly naked look · Zoë Kravitz bares her butt cheeks in NSFW dress at Vanity Fair party · fashionistas bare all in 'cheeky' new trend: 'cracks as accessories' · there was no shortage of naked & barely-there dresses at the 2025 Met Gala · models bare butt cracks at Milan Fashion Week & style gurus are outraged: 'I do not want to live in that world.'

wednesday newstrip

Children may have been doused in petrol by their mother before triple fatal house fire in Toowoomba, Queensland · Denmark summons US diplomat over reports of increased intelligence gathering in Greenland · grandmother charged after two young grandsons found 'suffocated to death' in Coonabarabran, NSW · DoNuts T.®ump sparked widespread outrage Thursday by abruptly firing Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden with a two-sentence email sent by the White House's deputy director of presidential personnel. "The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids," the conservative advocacy group, the American Accountability Foundation, said on its X account earlier on Thursday, just hours before the firing was made public. · police have seized what they say is more than half a billion dollars' worth of cocaine on a boat off the New South Wales Mid North Coast. Officers allege they found more than 1,000 bricks of cocaine, weighing just over a tonne in total · Gaza: ‘Worst-case scenario’ unfolds as brutal aid blockade threatens mass starvation reports the United Nations; The United States defended Israel on Wednesday at the International Court of Justice.

wednesday newstrip

A young Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer, who has yet to obtain his undergraduate degree, has been tasked with using artificial intelligence to rewrite the entire Department of Housing & Urban Development’s rules & regulations · Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Catholic Bishops are 'controlled by Satan' during social media meltdown · a video clip shows former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, just two days before being fired, being left standing on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews as DoNuts T.®ump left for an event in Michigan · T.®ump has signed an executive order to open both US & international waters to deep-sea mining, ignoring a global treaty that controls the high seas · Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has reprised his misleading claims about vaccines, including that the measles jab contains cells from aborted foetuses, at the same time that the country is battling one of its worst outbreaks of the infection in 25 years.

wednesday newstrip

A man is expected to be charged for offensive behaviour after a group including an alleged neo-Nazi booed & heckled a welcome to country at Melbourne’s main Anzac Day dawn ceremony · a Sydney radio station has been using an AI-generated host for about six months without disclosing it — & was not legally obliged to · the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, has condemned a heckler who interrupted an Anzac Day service in Perth this morning. The person disrupted a welcome to country at the Kings Park dawn service, shouting obscenities · possum comes off second best as snake enjoys long weekend lunch · water in a central Auckland fountain was dyed red early this morning in what appeared to be a protest coinciding with Anzac Day · a group of Australian Ford car salesmen had timed vehicle races & did "donuts" on a pristine Otago, N.Z. beach, believing they were allowed to · two struck by lightning as storms disrupt Brisbane Anzac Day ceremony.

wenesday newstrip

T.®ump administration is working to end habitat protections for endangered animals, environmental groups say · a whistleblower accuses Elongated Muskrat & DOGE of being at the origin of a major security breach · Israel's investigation into Hamas' Nova festival massacre leaves families of victims with more questions than answers · Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) says T.®ump administration paid El Salvador $15 million to detain prisoners · 'he's a fake': T.®ump hits back at US Senator Van Hollen for visit with Abrego Garcia · speaking to reporters at Dulles airport in Washington on Friday afternoon, the senator Chris Van Hollen just accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself & Kilmar Ábrego García as they met the night before, to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks · US will abandon Russia-Ukraine peace efforts if no progress soon, T.®ump & Rubberio say · Elongated Muskrat’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” & the T.®ump administration have spared the jobs of US Department of Transportation employees who provide support services for spacecraft launches by Musk’s companies, SpaceX & Starlink – a revelation that raises a new round of conflict-of-interest questions around Doge · thousands of records on the assassination of Robert F Kennedy released · https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/.

wednesday newstrip

'The penguins won': critics roast T.®ump over latest trade-war reversal · Pam Bondi Beach demands Supreme Court 'swiftly constrain' judges’ power to overrule T.®ump admin · homeless residents living in Moreton Bay park in Brisbane have tents, belongings bulldozed & dumped by council rangers · Volodymyr Zelenskyy says 155 Chinese nationals fighting with Russia in Ukraine · 'Breaks promises': T.®ump Education pick accused of 'overextending' her federal authority · Florida teacher is fired after calling student by their preferred name · Trans pilot launches lawsuit against right-wing influencer over false claim regarding DC plane crash · US Naval Academy library yanks Maya Angelou's memoir — & keeps Mein Kampf.

wednesday newstrip

‘Nowhere on Earth is safe’: T.®ump imposes tariffs on uninhabited — apart from penguins —islands near Antarctica · DoNuts T.®ump's big denial as markets continue to bleed: 'Oil Prices Are Down, There Is NO INFLATION' · T.®ump has Australia’s generic medicines in his sights. & no-one’s talking about it · US admiral at NATO fired as part of what appears to be an expanding national security purge of top officials by the T.®ump administration · Interior Secretary Dog Bumrug & his senior staff have reportedly used his position leading the agency to make a series of bizarre demands on his aides to use the agency’s industrial ovens to cook him chocolate chip cookies, instructed political appointees to work as servers for a multi-course meal, & ordered a U.S. Park Police helicopter for personal transport · Democrats in Congress demanded answers from the Pentagon on reported book bans at the service’s elite academies, a new policy that is meant to remove “woke” ideology from the elite colleges.

wednesday newstrip

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO, was sent questions from T.®ump administration asking if it is taking ‘appropriate measures’ against gender ideology · Interior Secretary Dog Bumrug told Fox News host that he "certainly" believes there’s room on Mount Rushmore for President T.®ump’s face, in an interview that aired on Saturday · despite being prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment from standing for election again, President T.®ump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House during an interview with NBC News · quake disaster has exposed a T.®ump-sized void on the world stage. China is stepping in · a Paris court has convicted French far-right leader Marine Le Pen of embezzling money from the European parliament · Iran has reacted with outrage after DoNuts T.®ump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear program.

wednesday newstrip

One of Elongated Muskrat’s own AI chatbots has identified him as being one of the largest spreaders of misinformation on X · T.®ump orders the "most lethal machine ever built," the Boeing F-47 fighter jet · the Australian Opposition Coalition's top economic spokesperson is unable to confirm the size of the opposition's planned public service & migration cuts, the taxpayer cost of building nuclear power plants, or how it would limit government spending · as trust in the US collapses, leaders in Australia & around the world are frantically recalibrating · Israel orders troops to 'seize more territory' in Gaza & threatens to annex land · Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, one of the world’s fastest growing social media platforms, made a bold & widely applauded statement when she took to the stage at SXSW wearing a simple, black T-shirt with the phrase: "Mundus sine caesaribus," Latin for "a world without Caesars," clearly a dig at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who wore a shirt of the same color & typeface while delivering his keynote at the Meta Connect conference last September – only his shirt said: "aut Zuck aut nihil," a play on the ancient Latin phrase, "aut Caesar aut nihil" which translates to "either Caesar or nothing" · "Courageous, angry, passionate: "rallies around Australia honor the memory of women killed by male violence & demand urgent action.

wednesday newstrip aka bring on the T.®umpenproletariat

Following T.®ump's mass pardon of Jan. 6 insurrectionists, there is a new team in the White House whose job it is to "focus on clemency grants that underscore the president’s own grievances about what he sees as the political weaponization of the justice system" · T.®ump's CDC plans major study relitigating vaccination-autism conspiracy theory: report · possibility of T.®ump nominating a Fox host for Supreme Court is 'not a lunatic thought' · T.®ump signed a day-one executive order titled, "Restoring Freedom of Speech & Ending Federal Censorship," that stated, "Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society." Now a purge of so-called woke initiatives revealed by the N.Y. Times includes a list of banned words that came with that order – from phrases like "sense of belonging," "all-inclusive" & "at risk" – to more innocuous terms like "women," "institutional," & "systemic" · T.®ump pick for Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia would be 'crazy' if Taiwan tensions flare · Yes, T.®ump paid for a full-page newspaper ad criticizing US foreign policy in 1987. "Let's not let our great country be laughed at anymore," reads an open letter penned by T.®ump.

from The Pope's Easter message

"Now that postmodernism’s been (with a wink) flushed, can we, for a moment, glance back wistfully to that cinema of more naïve possibilities, before the insular film school homilies of 'queer cinema' swamped us, when post-new wave sex & politics anarchically mixed in ignorance of our contemporary Sundance straightjackets of liberal visibility politics, body image conventionalism, festival entertainment, & jury-prize prostitution? Such films were made not by technofetishistically schooled 'filmmakers' but by renaissance theater artists like Terayama & Arrabal, who would deride with a magnanimous grin all foisted philistine pigeonholes. But prepare for disillusionment, too, for these artists were blissfully ignorant of more than just the watery liberalism we now cringingly sip like gelid, day-old, decaf."

wednesday newstrip

Elongated Muskrat’s SpaceX Starship explodes, debris streaks through Florida skies · Ukraine war briefing: US-Ukraine talks to take place in Saudi Arabia in the next week, Zelenskyy says · Muskrat can’t fire employees, T.®ump reportedly tells cabinet secretaries · "Small & weak countries will get burnt first, & the international order & rules will be under severe shock," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. "Major countries should undertake their international obligations … & not seek to profit from & bully the weak" · rattled markets, negative polls: some say T.®ump’s honeymoon is over · 'shadowy, unelected figures': analyst says DOGE is the very thing 'it claims to fear most' · a century-old shipwreck has resurfaced on the east coast of Australia, unearthed by Cyclone Alfred's wild weather over 130 years after it was first swallowed by the sea in another cyclone in the 1800s.

Some recent books

Mark Young
The Hit List
52 pages
b&w free downloadable pdf
Scud Editions
url: https://scudlit.blogspot.com/p/editions.html

A collection of around 55 recent poems.

*

harry k stammer, Mark Cunningham, & Mark Young
Gravel
66 pages
poetry & visuals
full color
paperback ($US15.00)& Kindle($US5.00)
Sandy Press
url: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DY56DHV7

Gravel. Might have been called that because it was like walking over it in bare feet to get three grumpy old men to agree on how this book should be put together — identifiers or anonymous; interspersed small offerings or a three-tiered cake; with or without an intro?

Or? Call it that because it's a word with other, quite divergent, words built in & easily accessed — rave, ave, grave, Ravel — & that's before discarding the original order.

Or? Each of the pieces, as denoted by the poet's name, being inserted into the document in a random way, like gravel on a path. The point here is to cross each author's approach in a way that does or doesn’t affect the how of how the pieces relate to each other. Does this matter in terms of how a reader understands each alone & at the same time how a reader may understand the whole & the poetry within the total work?

Or? What is there to introduce? The Pisan Cantos and Zukofsky's A made do without introductions, if I recall. Maybe when you’re famous—or post-famous, so that people need to be told how important you are. Were. Is that “you” plural? Or, as with Aram Saroyan’s Complete Minimal Poems, you can have a blurb with more words in it than most of the books included. Then you can get somebody to write an introduction to tell us who the blurb writer, Vito Acconci, is. Was. Who will introduce the introducer?

Or? The only true blurb would be along the lines of: "If you read this book and get irritated as hell & say to yourself, 'Anybody could do that,' then you're got the real spirit of the book."

Take all of the above, & it's no wonder they invited me in to compose the introduction. All suggestions will be welcomed. Keep watching this space.

— Kasimir Malevich, February 1915 2025, Red Square

*

Mark Young
Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama
88 pages
poetry & visuals
full color
paperback ($US24.75)
Otoliths
url: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/some-unrecorded-voyages-of-vasco-da-gama/paperback/product-e748z2j.html?page=1&pageSize=4

My first poem in the geographies series appeared on my gamma ways blog at the beginning of 2009. I feel that the best description of my intent comes from Sam Lohmann who published some in an issue of the journal Peaches & Bats that he was editing at the time: "These pieces by Mark Young have a disturbing and comic speed, and seem, as a group, to get at some essential weirdness of the 'global' info-capitalist culture we're all trying to survive and live in."

I began the visual geographies just under a couple of years later. At first they tended to be poems on a background, but gradually transformed into digital manipulations of images from places I looked up on the web. As time went on, I refined those locations to Australia & New Zealand, sometimes with a word or two added; but the intent was the same for the visuals as for the poems — the world is something different to what it's claimed to be.

There have been five standalone collections of geographies over the years, mainly in chapbook or pdf format, plus a significant tranche in the wide-ranging 600-page collection, The Codicils, that came out from Otoliths in 2013. This new collection, Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, contains a number of visuals &, probably, the final geographies poems.

— Mark Young

*

Mark Young
Closed Environment
24 pages
b&w free & downloadable
Neo-Mimeo Editions, from Nualláin House
url: https://nuallainhousepublishers.com/2025/03/03/closed-environment/

"Neo-Mimeo endeavors to return to the fast and cheap no frills esthetic of mimeo in a non-scrolling digital slideshow left to right reading format. The texts are replicated in the limited typewriter font styles then available, generally Courier or Prestige, but in a larger point size (16 vs.12) to accommodate readability on the small screen. The bold text presentation alludes to the often over inked stencils in mimeo production. Each Neo-Mimeo poetry selection, like many original mimeo books, is limited to approximately 20 pages. A pdf file of Neo-Mimeo titles is available for those who wish to produce their own hard copy; staples not included."

— Pat Nolan

*

Mark Young
The Complete Post Person Poems
138 pages
b&w (paperback), full color (Kindle)
(paperback) $US12.50 (Kindle) $US6.25
Sandy Press
url: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZHXYYH7

One never knows what's going to turn up in Mark's mail. I've even turned up — all 6'7" of me — in the postbag. Every page holds a surprise. Mark delivers! —Tom Beckett

In The Complete Post Person Poems, Mark Young delivers “the can” or rather, cans "of worms/ I’d always/ wanted to open.” Master builder/decorator of “a room to put/ the elephant in,” Young helps us achieve some measure of “Gunk Control” through an ironic, fiercely punny wit that is replete with cogent historical and current allusions and accounts of wild misprisions. His “melodious thunks” provide superb rejoinders to the “polemic/ pandemic” that assails the globe. —Thomas Fink

In The Complete Post Person Poems intellectual Tom-Foolery via the official postal system has at it at full speed! — Cathy M. Bennett

All writers have a fraught relationship with the postal service. Mark Young’s remedy is The Complete Post Person Poems, a uniquely multifaceted otherworldly disco ball showering kaleidoscopic colors down onto poetry’s dance floor. Shake that thang. —Pat Nolan

The Complete Post Person Poems does nothing less than bring the world to you. How lucky we are to receive Mark Young's mail. —Brad Liening

After reading this book, I will never think of aubergines in the same way again. Now I must realize: I don't even know what an aubergine is. And the author makes me feel funny about my subscription to the Conspiracy Theory Quarterly. I think he did this on purpose. He is dangerous and no one should read this book. —Mark Cunningham

Mark Young picks a thread in a ball of golden wool and gives it a pull and it never ends. Magic everywhere. —John Geraets

Chance and its output, notably infinite shades of humor, when examined and relished, teach even beyond experience, offering as a bonus “a room to put the elephant in.” —Sheila E. Murphy

Mark Young has given the meaning of a postman's "meaning" in meaning a delivery god. Send and ye shall receive. — harry k stammer

Mark Young IS the Complete Post Person, delivering to us all the news we need to read, to reread, to remember. For these poems we will remember. Here he's given us back so much of our world – the terrible and the terrific – and for that we need to say: thank you, Mark. —Michael Gottlieb

Don’t
call me
biased for concluding

the Hay(na)ku created
its best
poem

because its postman
delivered with
sensitivity
—Eileen R. Tabios

*

& a note for those of you who have a Kindle Unlimited membership. The Magritte Poems, which was released late last year, is now available for no charge as part of that membership.