
100 Titles From Tom Beckett
56: Translate Objects
We started by creating a scene.
Then came the arguments.
The first argument set what
import format to expect, set
the attributes. The second argu-
ment set the format to output.
A translated object doesn’t
change — it just goes some-
where else. At least that’s the
translation of Euclid’s defin-
ition of translate. That if every
point of a shape or figure is
moved by the same distance
in a predetermined direction,
even though it may end up
in another place, it’s still the
same object.
Animists believe that all objects
share the breath of life. Trans-
lated, that means everything’s
got a soul. Or a brand new bag.
Hi. I just found a way to move
objects around. Was wondering
if this is the best way to do it.
Nothing to merit treatment
What does Proverbs 26:24 mean? Meta-
phorically: the glaze covering a clay
pot may be attractive, but it’s just a thin
disguise. She preferred solar flares light
up the undercarriage. A battle of concepts.
Fashion crime, thought crime — they
don’t break the law despite the will of
the one who practices them. Some doc-
trines are intuitive, others invoke Stare
Decisis, “let the decision stand,” adher-
ing to a precedent that determines the
relative weight to be accorded to different
cases. Always the chance of being more
upset by the things that you didn’t do.
TyouBE
Instead of writing one or
several poems — which is
what I should be doing —
I sidle into YouTube & into
a sequence of songs that —
effort for output —seems
much more productive,
even though it will end up
being a private poem. But,
hey, I’m in there singing
along, even if the only evi-
dence of that is some cryptic
reference in a public poem
written many months later.
Mark Young was born in Aotearoa New Zealand but now lives in a small town on traditional Juru land in North Queensland, Australia. He is the author of more than sixty-five books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, memoir, and art history. His most recent books are a pdf, Mercator Projected, published by Half Day Moon Press (Turkey) in August 2023; Ley Lines II published by Sandy Press (California) in November 2023; un saut de chat published by Otoliths Books (Australia) in February 2024; and Melancholy, a James Tate Poetry Prize winner, published by SurVision Books (Ireland) in March 2024.
You can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Image by Thomas Fink, who has published 12 books of poetry– most recently Zeugma (Marsh Hawk Press, 2022) and A Pageant for Every Addiction (Marsh Hawk, 2020), written collaboratively with Maya D. Mason. His Selected Poems & Poetic Series appeared in 2016. He is the author of Reading Poetry with College and University Students: Overcoming Barriers and Deepening Engagement (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), as well as two books of criticism, and three edited anthologies. His work appeared in Best American Poetry 2007. Fink’s paintings hang in various collections. He is Professor of English at CUNY-LaGuardia.