| Survivisection A coal stove burns in the corner. I don’t want a coal stove. In a survival situation, versatility is essential. Knife, ax & machete — these items are extremely necessary. Other minimal lists have taken the count- ing challenge to the limit. I now own 15 things. Je veux un hamburger. “Yes. Much as I expected.” The other eats, hates himself for eating, & then purges it out. Houses are the best places to hide out in. I exit out of the tail with CTRL+C & continue. Assume that everything is case specific. My biggest fear is that I’ll fall back down the hole. Ramen noodles aren’t the most nutritional food but they are cheap. & easy to prepare. I no longer have a coal stove or pots & pans or water, but I watched a video & now know how to cook ramen in a cactus. Constant Craving The day is spinning wildly on its turntable, & even out of it the vibrations can still be clearly felt. I’m trapped in what might as well be Mach- iavellian Merchandise, a tent on sideshow alley, where there’s nothing you want or need or can afford but still feel compelled to spend up big before you go. Either by the purchase of a cutprice epiphany that is not yet spoken for—which in itself is indicative of its value—or doing a dodgy deal in wagyu beef futures. Neither of which… But I am brought down to earth & saved from calamity by a track squeezing through from the dodgems next door, k.d. lang singing so in love, the Cole Porter song, that acts as axis to steady everything around. The Greek ficcione On being told that his latest work had been rejected for a literary grant, Socrates stamped his sandal & stormed out of the Atrium in a fit of pique, muttering something about never being able to trust platonic lovers who were always badmouthing you behind your back. That there had been a mistake wasn’t discovered until a day later; but by the time they found him to tell him it was actually Sophocles who wasn’t getting any money, it was too late. The hemlock had done its work. To save face the committee of eminent citizens pretended no mix-up had occurred, expressed their sadness over the death of Socrates, & then announced they were going to subsidize Sophocles’ new play, Antigone. It was a great tragedy. Pelican Dreaming Revisited Today the postman brought me a postcard of Venice, sent by one of the pelicans that usually lives on the lagoon at the bottom of the street. “Strange to be fishing through a culture that’s only a few thousand years old,” she wrote. “But easy to see how the Europeans managed to fuck Australia over in just a couple of centuries after we’d looked after it for 60,000 years. Look at this place. Effluent in the lagoon, dead fish, houses in decay or sinking below the water- line. Gone to the doges, as the locals say. Still, it’s great to be a cultural nomad for a while. Paris last week, the Greek Isles next. Now & again I have to pinch myself, just to make sure I’m not dreaming.” A line from Lady Gaga Some years after the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys, on a visit to Copenhagen, climbed the helix spire of the baroque Church of Our Savior by way of its external winding staircase to see if he could see any bishōnen — beautiful youth — in the street below. None were visible, nor could he find any manga stockists here; so, to pacify his needs, he paid a visit to a production of Twelfth Night by graduates from the Performing Arts School. “I love androgyny,” he said, “& the fact that Viola gets around in men’s clothes provokes an infinite imagination of gender ambi- guity & quiet homoerotica.” About the Author: Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry since 1959. He is the author of around fifty 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. |