Return Revitalized

Take comfort
in, not the
small things
but the familiar.
Return to
raw Miles, those
first pick-up

bands that
occasionally found
Coltrane in
there, equally
raw. Or the
Sherlock Holmes
stories. Bach

for the first
time, de Chirico
& Hieronymus
Bosch. Byzantine
plazas, gardens
of earthly delights
which were

previously un-
known but
so familiar. An-
cestral memories, the
starting places
at which you
still stop by, to

stand still
for a moment,
focus, &
come out of
ready
to hit the
ground running.

Circumnavigating the bee yards

Take what’s on
offer & then
move on, an op-
portunistic journey.
Circles that trace
the outside of
other circles,
in the nomadic

manner of those
beehives that I
saw alongside
the gravel road
tracing the south
bank of the river.

for Denise Levertov

          some
of the time

the line
goes taut
o-
illogical

& I am
beaten to
the body

left only with
a grab-bag
full

of  glassy-
eyed

head-
lines

“…the last day the sharks appeared.”

Mark Young’s most recent books are One Hundred Titles From Tom Beckett, with paintings by Thomas Fink, published by Otoliths in June, 2024; Alkaline Pageantry, published by Serious Publications in September, 2024; & The Magritte Poems which came out from Sandy Press in October. 

Yu can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.