Five Poems by Mark Young

 

The Soft Machine

 

Faultlines. Call-

igraphies of

longing. Some-

times feldspar.

Young girls on

cellphones con-

gregate outside

the Mall. Zoo-

notic. Cross-

species trans-

mission. Txt me.

aka The Song Dynasty

 

Kernel or colonel? The uniforms

give nothing away. But we have

just arrived in Hysteria, a land

 

where thyme stands outnumber

taco & hot dog trucks, & the rags

& skeletons of the last military pa-

 

rade held here still line the road

leading out from the airport &

on up to the Grand Central Canal.

 

 

café terrier



The retro metal tin sign is made

from cabernet sauvignon & has

specific play dates every Saturday



night. It is machine washable; &

merges house & garden with wild-

fires to create hazy skies & spark



air quality alerts, something of a

drawback for anyone wishing to

visit any nearby sightseeing spot.

The Super Bowl winner sat on the grass

 

In the early chapters of the Acts of

the Apostles, my team used linears

such as a move into coal-fired power

to clear challenge mode. Then, using

the environment as a second teacher,

found an unhealthy way to express

themselves through a military strategy

based around an overwhelming power

center. The stench of chlorine now fills

the air. Particles less than 10 microns in

diameter produce the biggest threats.

 

Trip Wire Sentience

 

I am not too sure how to

interpret this title. Do I

take it to refer to someone

who is aware of where

 

the trip wires are? Or does

it postulate that in these

days of rampant AI, where

some people believe that

 

some programs now have

a soul, the trip wires

themselves have become

 

sentient & know just how

to wirelessly lay traps to

trip us simple humans up?

 

 

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He is the author of more than sixty books, the most recent of which is with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish, published by Sandy Press in May, 2023. A free downloadable pdf of visuals & poems, Mercator Projected, will be published by Half Day Moon Press later this year.