THE PROPAGATION
By Mark Young
The Mackerel
Fish school when
the moon is out. Be-
fore. Separate. At
various levels with
disparate meanings.
States of grace. Wait-
ing for the cast of light
across the surface of
the water. On app-
earance drawn to it.
Coalesce, luminescent.
In the fine mesh of the
right net they might
become a poem.
A line from Edgar Allan Poe
The to-do list for anyone
who takes the future
seriously includes buying
a graphics tablet that sup-
ports heavy loads, moves
fluidly, & locks firmly into
position. Also, a hi-tech
drone camera whose high
gloss chrome is changed
to a matt finish that often
appears as a fish bearing a
brazier of fire. The time-
lapses are awesome, offer
testimony as an angel, span
history from Roman times
to a 21st century incarnation.
The propagation
of the bird’s-
eye chillies is
continued
by a black-
faced cuckoo
shrike as it
pendulums
between two
branches,
snatching the
small red fruit
from alternate
sides of the
bush in
each down-
ward motion.
Sympathy for the Devil
Not what I
grew up on but
what I grew in-
to. The Stones
in Hyde Park,
London, 1969.
Brian Jones al-
ready two
days gone &
stayed that
way, but other-
wise Dorian
Gray in re-
verse. Pouty
Mick & sweet
Keef—the kept
picture that
does not
age. The
signs are there.
The Toledo ficcione
Willard J. Daniels re-
putedly named
Toledo after the
city in Spain
famous for its steel
because it “is easy to
pronounce, is
pleasant in sound,
& there is no other city
of that name on the
American continent.” The
reality is he was
a dreamer, foresaw
the design of cities
in the future, blue-
printed a glass industry
for Ohio, assumed the
easy association be-
tween the common name
would conjoin their
outputs. Steel + glass
inevitably = skyscrapers.
About the Author:
Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry for almost sixty years. He is the author of over forty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. His most recent books are Ley Lines & bricolage, both from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York.
