From the Pound Cantos: CENTO XXX

I cannot make it cohere above
the cigar butts, against this
blackness. Here error is all
in the not done, what follows
within & persistently, funda-
mentals in critical moments.
These stones we built on to
put land back under tillage,

not knowing, beyond that,
dry spring, a dry summer,
locusts & rain, gates all open.
Hot wind came from the marshes
seeking a word to make change.
To this offer I had no answer.

Letter to a young poet

Setting out to visit all
those wonderful places
that your mother sends

postcards from is no ex-
cuse for not working —
remember that travel

is often confused with
travail. & be aware that
pterodactyls will come at

you with the sun at their
backs, tout comme ta maman,
whom they closely resemble.

alongside an episode

Bushfires in south-east Australia,
thick sea ice thinning in the Arctic
Ocean, the British economy — your
browser does not currently recognize
any of the video formats available.
All you can find now are morsels of
information about diverse mixing
skills in consonance with electronic
dance music; & how, due to test-score
pressures, the resulting outcomes
have been far worse than predicted.

I / tried to / reel her back

After a year of witty
banter, the first firemen
at the scene said “start the
conversation with an open-
ended question, otherwise
bumps will appear at the
injection sites.” It’s really
a form of manipulation,

they agreed, but the only
other thing that might
possibly negate the out-
break is the arrival of a
new flavour of ice cream,
& that’s hard to arrange.

Mark Young’s most recent books are The Toast, from Luna Bisonte Prods, & The Sasquatch Walks Among Us, from Sandy Press. Songs to Come for the Salamander, Poems 2013-2021, selected & introduced by Thomas Fink, will be co-published in October by Meritage Press & Sandy Press. Mark is editor of Otoliths.

You can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.