look out below!  another killer issue of otoliths from poet/publisher/all-round cool dude mark young.  look within and you'll find my poetry collaborations with poet-extraordinaire lars palm.  we are in great company.  dig in, get reading, and happy last day of poetry month!

* * * *

There's some Herodotus quote about cyclones not staying us from accomplishing our appointed course; &, despite two more — one of which tripped harmlessly down our main street — since the one that caused the previous issue to come out a couple of days early, we're back on schedule & issue thirty-three of Otoliths is now up.

In this quarter's mailbag, missives from Anne Gorrick, SS Prasad, Richard Lopez & Lars Palm, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Mark Melnicove, Mark Reep, Márton Koppány, Peter Ganick, Philip Byron Oakes, Jack Galmitz, Eric Hoffman, David-Baptiste Chirot, Bob Marcacci, David Dick, Youdhisthir Maharjan, Raymond Farr, Steven Fraccaro, Heidi A. Howell, Scott Metz, A. J. Huffman, Richard J. Fleming, John M. Bennett, Les Wicks, Howie Good, Jean Vengua, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Martin Edmond, Sheila e. Black & Courtney Spohn, Sheila e. Black & Caleb Puckett, Andrew Taylor, Sophie Herxheimer & Andrew Taylor, Bobbi Lurie, Wayne Mason, Cecelia Chapman & Jeff Crouch, Diana Magallón, Mitchell Garrard, Robert McDonald, Joe Balaz, Claudio Parentela, Sara Jean Lane, Chris Ashby, Anne Elvey, bruno neiva, Lakey Comess, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Nicholas Bon, Francesco Aprile, Simon Perchik, Steve Tills, Owen Bullock, Anela Aliotis, Olivier Cans, Mark DuCharme, Sarah James, Roger Williams, Massimo Stirneri, Jeff Harrison, Alberto Vitacchio, Neil Ellman, Carla Bertola, Aditya Bahl, Cat Leonard, Anne-Marie JEANJEAN, John Pursch, sean burn, Lucy Wilks, Pete Spence, Willie Smith, Jake Goetz, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Marcia Arrieta, Sam Langer, Susan Kachor Conlon, J. D. Nelson, nathaxn walker, Jim Eigo, Michael Brandonisio, Bob Heman, Spencer Selby, Bogdan Puslenghea, Ric Carfagna, Reijo Valta, Carey Scott Wilkerson, Katrinka Moore, & Javant Biarujia.


Enjoy
Mark Young

dailies

slow day at work stopped at the library returned

avenue by michael o'brien

students street people someone with a nasty cough

reading in the stacks pulling book after book

off the shelves

making discoveries

neither a man of intellect or a man of action

much like what parra said of himself

i am neither very bright nor a total fool

i am a human whose presence requires language

who seeks adventures in the dictionary

drive in massacre [1977]

i never seen it at the drive-ins.  i wish i had because this is the sort of grade-z crap that i love.  the most appropriate viewing venue is the drive-ins.  but alas no.  i watched but just the opening scene last night via the roku [if you don't know a roku is an online multi-channel streaming device for movies, tv and other content; netflix is one of the channels, so are amazon prime and hulu].  there are tons of cool channels for the horror/exploitation movie freak, you know, like me.

drive in massacre is a selection from the drive in movie channel, natch.  how could i pass it up?  but for the print was so muddy and the sound all kinds of crap the flick was barely watchable.  i got thru the first murder at the eponymous drive in -- ain't too bad in the special fx dept. -- and stopped the movie when the two detectives showed up to do their bestest to find the killer at the drive in.  will i go back to the movie?  who knows.  i've been such an old man this week.  my spirits are pretty good.  the weekends have been packed with activities including a lovely flight with friends in a small plane to a small town in the foothills, and going to the sac 6 drive ins with nick, b. and j.  but when i get home from work i want to veg out, read a bit, watch parts of movies and then crawl in to bed.

ah mr grumps!  as anna likes to call me.  the thing we all know about aging is that the future seems to narrow and the past gets wide.  but still, i've been waking with a smile on my mug because i know that nothing is permanent and age flows like a river.  you can fight the current or you can surf the stream.  sometimes you can do both.  at any rate a pic like this one not under review renews my hope in human invention.  the producer, writer and director got together and with little money and much work created a kind of cinema that only a connoiseur of crap can appreciate.  but the film was made and is available to all who want to experience it.  in all of our projects we should be so lucky. 

the happiest place on earth

we spent a long day cleaning out clutter today.  two sheds worth of bric a brac.  i felt the number of my years.  then there is the afterward.  b. and i took our kids, nick and j., to the happiest place on earth in sac: the drive-in movies.  sac 6 drive-in theaters upgraded a couple of years ago to digital projection.  the grounds are kept neat.  the operation is well-organized.  such a change in a few short years.  b. and i have made a visit to the drive-ins a yearly ritual before our kids were born.  10 years ago the theater was a dump.  i don't mean metaphorically i mean the place was a dump.  garbage strewn hither and yawn.  bathrooms unspeakable.  food, well, you took your tummy into your own hands with the snack bar.  today is such a sea-change.  there was a dude dressed as the easter bunny handing out candy to the kids.  the play areas have been refurbished and are safer for the kids to play on.  the snack bar is a'plenty with snack-bar like edibles like popcorn, candy, pizza and burgers with scores lined up eager to gobble these delectables up.  on the tarmac outside the snack bar are booths of goods being sold by private vendors of such variety one wonders who these items for sale might be for.  at the drive-ins is a whole carnival of life.  it is the happiest place on earth.  and the movie?  you don't go to the drive-ins just for the movie.  you go to drink it all in.  the all of it.  the whole enchilada.  the all of life.

no og go on

forgive me if i may be so bold the bang of creation began with the light from your eyes and the shape of the shadows upon your fingers i couldn't help but watch the shape of your ass as you moved from here to there for in your movement was the beginning of the word therefore my heart almost burst out of my chest in admiration and desire and i decided right then to endeavor to go on 

dailies

good golly ms. molly

what is the sound of no hand writing

in the presence of death we find

death is nothing and ordinary

de nada of no days

i have seen things you people wouldn't believe

try us we would believe it

how many lives do you get after death you anchor being in to doing no no-action action there is no no life and no no death

crazy days / crazy nights

work all day play all night.  at least that is the ideal balance.  this week i find myself up to my eyeballs in work, play and family affairs.  the particulars are of no importance accept to the people directly involved [like me!] but since i haven't mastered the art of la perruque at the end of a long day i take a book to bed and pass out after reading a few paragraphs and then arise in the morning for more of something similar.

c'est la vie, right.  i am doing my damnedest to practice gratitude.  for example, stop what i am doing look around and be glad i have been given the gift of presence.  this here now.  i mean how many lives do we get to have?  if this one doesn't work out shall i have another?  unlikely.  so stop yer bitchin' and get to livin'.

but let me point out my delight in the start up again after two year hiatus of the on-going interview blog antic view by allen bramhall and jeff harrison.   

and remember, yes, it is national poetry month which means bill cohen is posting his tattooed poets series at tattoosday.

so many books, so many movies, so many poems, so many ways of participating in creation.  spring is sprung.  for some that means the start of baseball.  for me it means going to the drive-ins.  what is better than sitting under the stars before a large outdoor screen with a few burritos from jimboys tacos sodas and/or beer bag of chips and the company of good friends and family.  some think of baseball as the passage of spring and warm weather.  i think of the drive-ins as the start of summer livin'.   

swoosh

late not that late tonight right now

the cats flap the cord 

tied to the laptop

this morning i saw

a video of a rock 

from space a meteor 

this meteor swooshed right past 

the camera and open canopy 

of a canadian skydiver

early evening drive down j st. nick and i in the pilot the rains break i open the sunroof and the windows all the world comes to this point of cool spring air sliver of moon thick juicy bass and drum snare blast from the stereo

the cruelest month

another national poetry month?!  wasn't it april just a couple months ago?  i mean, the time, right, the time goes like a rocket on a trip to mars.  at any rate, i thought, well it is the cruelest month maybe i should write a poem a day and post it here.  then i remembered i usually write a poem a day and post it here.  not everyday but the series dailies have taken a life of its own.  i think i've been publishing those poems for at least two years now.  i practice and live in poetry everyday.  i don't need a month to celebrate poetry.  to use a phrase by the great ms. chatelaine, eileen tabios, i do my best to practice poetry as a way of life everyday, every month.  each month is the cruelest month.  dare i eat a peach?  does a bear shit in the woods?  you betcha.