Mark Young is a New Zealander now living in Sydney, Australia. An AnotherSun favourite, recent poetry has also appeared in Big Bridge, Niederngasse, sidereality, Sendecki.com among other places, & is forthcoming in Moria, Snow Monkey and the Spring edition of the muse apprentice guild. An earlier version of The Unicorn appeared in his 1999 collection The right foot of the giant. Links to his online work can be found at the New Zealand electronic poetry |
Self analysis Neatly, ever so neatly, I have taken the top off my skull. Spread mesh across the opening to create co-ordinates & am now gently excavating the contents & sifting them to see what appears. I am pleased to report that I have found no fossils though there is a midden where previous inhabitants have apparently come down to the waterside to eat the shellfish they found there. Already the diggings cover half the backyard. I have raised up some rows in which to plant potatoes, will train runner beans to follow the neural pathways that are drying in the sun. & I have in mind if I had a mind to have it in an exquisite bonsai maple which will sit perfectly in the brain cavity. Mnemonic If I were truly a surrealist I would let this unbidden phrase coagulate like a glottal stop survive on its own & not question how it came. Let it lie where it fell, add another phrase & then another to it. Building up a set of sequential lines that, as a construct, might be meaning full or beauty full or any one of several other fulls, all of which I would suffer gladly. If I were truly a surrealist I would lay down its antecedents as a random series of found moments made synchronous by being annotated at this moment where I find myself. I would deny that it is the I that binds them all together, that there is an epicentre, one instant of composite activity that restores the threads that tie the others in to it. If I were truly a surrealist I would name the poem for its geographical points & leave out all reference as to why these were important. Or write the poem so: Leipzig Auckland Vancouver Sydney with repetitions to acknowledge linear time, then use the phrase to close. Instead I puzzle over its anatomical correctness. If I were truly a surrealist I would take crayon or paintbrush or aerosol can &, in one continuous stroke, like an Oriental calligrapher who has spent all their life preparing for this moment, write the phrase on the wall of an otherwise unadorned public building, for others to interpret. If I were truly a surrealist I would have worked the phrase away immediately. Your future lies with the letter d Take what is given. No, not in that sense, not as a gift, but rather the set of given assumptions that you proceed from, the paradigm. It is the comfort zone. It is driving the same way to work each day, taking the dog for the same walk each night. It is Friday evening Thai takeaway. It is. Or. Start by taking what others take as given. If the thought of an abrupt transition causes you discomfort then slide into it by making minor modifications to your existing behaviour - buy Japanese food on Friday, ride the bus to work. Small steps will make it easier to usurp the ways of others when the time seems right. Appropriate. Appropriated. You choose. Piaf took all those things in her life she regretted doing not doing laid them end to end not quite touching to form a perforation she could tear along & so sing with clear conscience je regrette rien. The unicorn I wait, wondering if your car will come. There is this tension about me, the taste of metal in the throat. Outside, in the bright night air, the planes coming in to land have the sound of bombers. Each with its load of passengers, many of whom, on some alternative tourist trail, will soon come knocking at my door, looking to see how the other half lives. I will show them through the house, past peacocks & persian cats, & artifacts of long forgotten tribes. Then I will open the door of the secret room, from out of which comes flowers & fireworks, hiding the rancid sweatsmell of the unicorn that lives there. Its hooves strike sparks that burn the eyes. It is growing hungry. I will have to feed it soon. I wait, wondering if your car will come. (c) Mark Young 2003 |
Mark Young is a New Zealander now living in Sydney, Australia. An AnotherSun favourite, recent poetry has also appeared in Big Bridge, Niederngasse, sidereality, Sendecki.com among other places, & is forthcoming in Moria, Snow Monkey and the Spring edition of the muse apprentice guild. An earlier version of The Unicorn appeared in his 1999 collection The right foot of the giant. Links to his online work can be found at the New Zealand electronic poetry |
