Friday, March 29, 2024

100 Titles From Tom Beckett: #20

The Nine Stages of the Decomposition of a Corpse

9.  shōsō (reduced to dust)


One wonders about the provenance of the departed. Described in one set of paintings as a “noble lady,” in another as a “courtesan.” Elsewhere identified as a ninth-century poetess, & named. Given those discrepancies she is not named —or shamed — here, though the presence of that stupa is more indicative of nobleness. But the dust she is reduced to has no regard for class. Nor for meditation. That should be done earlier say the sutras: “meditations based on corpses are best done in the company of the corpse.”

Thursday, March 28, 2024

In excess of the posted speed limit

Everyone going 80, 
& I got bagged.

What does ; mean?
Either Spring is here :
or : calling out a function 
using dot notation.

Decompose the outline 
of complex parts. Vehe-
mence, pure undiluted 
aggro, trollism, & per-
sonal axe-grinding.

What does that mean?
A bag of poo formed 
by grinding down a pro-
fessional achievement.

It's official: Rizz is the 
word of the year. A lot of
our language is gendered.

What Does Peace Mean?

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Man dies after falling from hot-air balloon in Melbourne’s north · Putain has no successor, no living rivals & no retirement plan – his eventual death will set off a vicious power struggle · Uber to pay Australian taxi operators $272 million in class action settlement · Sharon Stone names co-star she was told she had to sleep with to ‘save’ a movie · billion-dollar deal to supply Australian-made Boxer military vehicles to Germany signed · first patient of Elongated Muskrat's Neuralink brain chip implant demonstrates playing online chess with his mind · DoNuts T.®ump has promised to "root out" what he called "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie & steal & cheat on elections".

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Medusa

Telekinesis raises an ugly eye-
brow & hits me between my
shoulder blades, not with a

fist but with a cudgel plucked
from the pages of a 19th century
novel. A selective choice. The

original paragraph was bal-
anced phrase by phrase; but 
here only the most threatening 

have been used. The season of
darkness . . . the winter of despair. 
What the dickens is going on?

Monday, March 25, 2024

100 Titles From Tom Beckett: #33

Parts and Holes are Desire’s Templates

Drag hence her husband to some secret hole, And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust. Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus
Bring your unique vision to life. I shall be pleased to detail the procedure. Mark the places you desire holes. Take a pin, push it through the template to leave small holes. You may never use them all. Enlarge those you need. Parts are ever-changing, but don't let that burn a hole in your pocket. Befriending all the different parts of yourself will give you more choice. Become more aware of the parts that respond to challenges in unskilful ways. Bending your metal & plastic parts adds just $19.00 to your cart total.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

À propos of a hickory walking stick

Un bâton de marche, 1-O-Kind-
Orig, noir, grown in the Ozarks,
has already provided us plenty 
of greens & radishes a bit ahead 
of schedule due to the heat & a 
wet spring. Plus, the flooding of 
1993 had a lot to do with the fai-
lure of the falafel mix. Thought 
to have started with the 1991 e-
ruption of Mt. Pinatubo in Luzon
in The Philippines. Now caskets 
float down the Missouri washed 
loose from a cemetery, engineered 
defenses collapse; & even though 
the Swiss cheese model of acci-
dent causation posits that failure 
cannot be traced back to a single 
root cause, & fallibility is an in-
escapable part of the human con-
dition, we still search Ebay for a
sturdy hickory stick to go out & 
beat some convenient heads with.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Swept away: $500,000 sand dune built to protect US homes in Massachusetts disappears in days · McDonald’s restaurants hit by technology outage at outlets across Australia · vote against T.®ump, former supporters urge in $50m video campaign · Pandemic PPE: how Australia entrusted a small-time retailer with $100m & got 46m unusable masks · Covid-19: U.K. Government writes off £10bn on unusable, overpriced, or undelivered PPE · fury as waste disposal firms are given £35million of taxpayers' money to burn unused PPE · the Australian Tax Office is reviving old tax debts totalling billions, threatening some taxpayers with bankruptcy · Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart in a blood-splattering revenge tale that is already queer heart-throb canon.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

wednesday newstrip

South-east Australia to bake in near-record heat while cyclone threat returns to north · as Gaza teeters on the brink of famine, Israeli girls drink water & try to block aid trucks at the border · Tasmanian dumpster divers tell supermarket prices inquiry about 'massive' food waste · Irish referendums: voters reject changes to family & care definition in the constitution · ‘Not good enough’: Australian Federal Minister lashes Meta as losses rise from scams on Facebook · a video of three children with their wrists cabled-tied together was taken in Broome, Western Australia, earlier this week, & sparked national outrage.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Out-of-control wildfires scorch Texas Panhandle, prompt shutdown of nuclear weapons facility · T.®ump's claim of being a 'prophet' appears to be a sign of his 'mental disorder' · University of Florida terminating all diversity, equity & inclusion positions · changes around Māori language come into focus as New Zealand government approaches 100-day milestone · thousands defy Kremlin to attend Navalny’s funeral · Haiti violence: gangs free 4,000 inmates in mass jailbreak · new RMIT, CDU study finds cannabis has 'deadly' effect on melanomas in laboratory · proposed class action lawsuit accuses Apple of monopolizing cloud storage for its devices · controversial pro-life society at University of Manchester founded by a male president who 'opposes abortion' shares photo of its first official meeting after the event was met by thousands of protesters · DoNuts T.®ump suffered his first loss in a GOP 2024 primary on Sunday, & he didn't take it very well.

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Ruby Tuesday

A couple of notices.

Have a chapbook, Melancholy, out from SurVision Books.

(Cover image by Victoria Chernyakhivska)

Available at http://www.survisionmagazine.com/jamestateprizewinners.htm.
Price €7.50 plus postage.

*

At Dichtung Yammer, Thomas Fink has an exchange with me about "A line from Mick Jagger," a poem included in my recent Ley Lines II, out from Sandy Press & available through Amazon.

Mick Jagger seems quite excited about it.


Thursday, February 29, 2024

Don't ask why

because I have no idea, but Ogden Nash is running around in my head this morning.

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.

(&, in passing, I never knew, or perhaps had forgotten, that Joyce Kilmer was a guy.)

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Kilt-wearing pervert is arrested after going into antique stores & shoving items up his rectum before placing them 'back on the shelf for display' · Victorian man vanishes after receiving about $500,000 in cryptocurrency account error · DoNuts T.®ump wins South Carolina Republican presidential primary beating out the state's former governor Nikki HailMary · Australia is condemned as a 'police state' after Americans notice unusual detail at Taylor Swift's sold-out concert in Sydney · China's new patriotic education law targets its people living overseas, but is law possible to be enforced in Australia? · Ukraine war: Zelensky says 31,000 troops killed since Russia's full-scale invasion · NotJustanyahoo: Cease-fire would only delay Rafah invasion 'somewhat.'

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Now out from Otoliths

Otoliths has just released my un saut de chat.



Mark Young
un saut de chat
b&w
118 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6455483-2-7
$US17.45
Direct URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/un-saut-de-chat/paperback/product-v8k9n2k.html?page=1&pageSize=4

“I’m a couple of years into my ninth decade, & have decided it’s time to tidy a few things up, specifically creating some trope-based collections, rather than collections of recent work.

“Retrospectively, my Ley Lines II that came out in November 2023 from Sandy Press should probably be considered the first collation: a single trope (‘A line from . . .’), a significant number of poems (just under 100), & written over a number of years (2014-2021).

un saut de chat is composed primarily of prose poems, with some found poems & a few ficciones included. There are around 140 pieces in the book, from the past twenty years. I feel, displayed this way, that it gives greater insight into thematic aspects of my work that are not so easy to discern otherwise.

“The next book in this loose grouping will be my entire Magritte poems, all twenty years of them. It will probably come in at around 600 pages, & be ready for printing around the end of the year.”


[Lulu have discounts running during the week. Promo codes for the current week can be found each Monday at the Lulu Press Facebook page.]

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

wednesday newstrip

DoNuts T.®ump must pay $US355 milllion in penalties, barred from NY business for three years, judge rules · key event in Sydney Mardi Gras calendar scrapped over asbestos mulch concerns · fake alligators at Riverview Park in Mesa, AZ., fooling people into calling emergency services · Federal politicians pass motion urging US & UK to allow Julian Assange's return to Australia · Kristen Stewart stripped down for the most recent cover of Rolling Stone last weeek, posing with her hand inside a jockstrap · getting the brush-off: First Nations artists walk away from Brisbane Portrait Prize over AI · jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny dead at 47, region's prison service says · DoNuts T.®ump again threatens to sacrifice NATO allies to Russia.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Israeli prime minister rejects Hamas cease-fire offer, vows to fight until 'absolute victory' · Woolworths responds to mud cake outrage after ‘final straw’ for Aussie shoppers · Pink is partnering with PEN America to distribute 2,000 banned books at her shows in South Florida, CNN reports · Taylor Swift has issued a cease & desist to a Florida college student who uses public data & social media to track her private jet · Sydney motorist ordered to surrender 'OCT7TH' personalized number plates · World Surf League spits on greatest ever surfer Carissa Moore after Lexus Pipe Pro exit · Notjustanyahoo tells Israeli army to prepare to evacuate Rafah before invasion to destroy Hamas — but where can 1.5 million Palestinians go?

Friday, February 09, 2024

Today the post-
woman brought
me a fart in a

jar. Damn that
voice recognition
AI software—I'd 

asked for a jam 
tart to go with my
morning coffee.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

wednesday newstrip

A woman wearing what appears to be leather lingerie has been charged with drink driving following a collision with an e-bike in Sydney’s Moore Park overnight · BidenMyTime called T.®ump the 'sitting President' during January 2024 speech · Lowitja O’Donoghue, celebrated campaigner for Aboriginal Australians, dies aged 91 · Victorian police chief labels protesters who confronted police taking part in a Pride march 'an ugly rabble' · King Charles has reportedly given his blessing to Prince Andrew & Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, to remarry each other · rallies held in support of offshore wind farms as Newcastle, Wollongong residents hopeful of job opportunities · Australian academic Yang Hengjun given suspended death sentence by Chinese court.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Australia must consider bringing back conscription as ‘all-out war’ with Russia looms, expert says · NotJustAnyahoo is defiant after UN court ruling, says Israel presses offensive for 'complete victory' · Rip Curl joins Australian swimwear companies in heavy pivot to growing trans market · women over 50 are the new gamers · Pram Minister Anthony Overeasy has been booed by the crowd at the Australian Open tennis men's final · North Korean leader Kim supervises tests of cruise missiles designed to be fired from submarines · activists throw soup at Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre in climate protest.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Friday, January 26, 2024

Today the post-
woman brought
me Tropical Cy-
clone Kirrily. I
was blown away.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

wednesday newstrip

Israeli Prime Minister BeenJammin’ NotJustAnyahoo rejects US calls for Palestinian state after Gaza war · Māori leaders & others in New Zealand attend a rare national meeting called by the Māori King due to concerns about the new government’s policies on indigenous rights · ex UK Prom Minister Bore-us Johnson says T.®ump back in White House is ‘what the world needs’ · Microsoft discovers state-backed Russian hackers accessed emails of some senior employees · Palworld, aka ‘Pokémon With Guns,’ is tearing up the steam & twitch charts · Jodie Foster is showing us all how to age naturally.