"A line from Francis Bacon," "A line from Max Ernst," and "A line from Kenneth Patchen"

 A line from Francis Bacon

My nephew leaves me voicemails
brainstorming an interactive art
installation, something about
knee rolls fitted with double pad-
 
ding for rider comfort since the
effeminate tomboy is considered
somewhat more socially acceptable
these days. I have no idea what
 
he means. I go out very rarely &
so am not exposed to the many fads
currently floating about. Still I
make a search for what he might be
 
talking about, to be told that (a) the
requested resource could not be
found on the server, & (b) that the rain-
bow haired rapper failed to appear.

 


 

A line from Max Ernst

Even though the LEGO®
culture was embedded in the
office, it could've saved me
several hours if someone had
 
explained to me just how to
get the source code out for
some event already seen. No
one likes to admit they've
 
missed a major cultural hap-
pening. How different people
focus their attention on an
event will affect what they re-
 
member. Right now, we find
ourselves at the beginning of
the latest mass extinction. At
least 48 transgender or gender
 
non-conforming people have
been fatally shot or killed by
other violent means. Some
say it's due to the impacts of
 
higher evaporation & precipi-
tation rates, or the Egyptian
bureaucracy at work, despite
the parade route being repaved
 
to minimize jostling during a
variety of challenges. There's
something on for everyone.
Come & sample some canapes.

 


 

A line from Kenneth Patchen

Three days stuck in planes be-
fore arriving.  I tried to engage in
conversations over dinner coffee, to
discover that being ironic or sar-
 
donic or sarcastic — anything in fact,
apart from using platitudes — serves
only to breach what passes as
cultural norms hereabouts. The
 
signs of the Black Death can still be
seen. Now a bittersweet place, that
neither technology nor the rapid con-
sumption of shooters can transform.

 

 

Mark Young

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He is the author of more than sixty books, the most recent of which are with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish, published by Sandy Press in May, 2023, & a free downloadable chapbook of visuals & poems, Mercator Projected, published by Half Day Moon Press in August 2023. Mark recommends the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Friday, August 26, 2022 - 22:00