https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
 http://offcourse.org
 ISSN 1556-4975

OffCourse Literary Journal

A journal for poetry, criticism, reviews, stories and essays published by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg since 1998.


 

Poems by Mark Young.

 

After Aristotle (2)

 

Accidents are. Substance
undergone. Modification.

: the size : the shape : the color :

Accidents exist / only when
there is / substance to which
an / accident can 

: occur :

: yesterday : the day before :

: location :

Accidental
         icebox 

substantial
         plums.



 


A line from Zachary Taylor

People's perception of car
brands dictates resale 
values. The dictates of 
religion mean that no-

thing is remaindered, & 
if you're young & gay 
& Jewish then you won't be
staying long in Minnesota.

 


 

a sometimes ithaca

A half-remembered story
or a myth? Ulysses—was
it?—being told to take
an—was it?—oar & go
inland until he came 
across a village where 
the implement was
unknown. Shutters go 

up inside the brain as the 
cold increases. He drove. 
Nowhere in particular, 
just trying to find a spot 
where he recognized 
none of the landmarks.

 


 

Entropic sunset

                    The stones define themselves
          by doing cartwheels on the
edges of the lawn. They catch
          alight. Random numbers or
                   chaos theory asks the newsagent

                   when I go there for a haircut. An
          icecream van melts as it makes
its campanological way down
          the street. Birds cluster beneath
                   a carapace of broken grass.

 


 

A line from Grover Cleveland (1)

Kale chips are no new 
thing, but continually 
discovering biologically 
active compounds in 

a collection of Chinese 
netizen humor is a form-
ula for career success. 
Many animals can store 

sperm for a long time with
a high probability of con-
tinued efficacy—& you 
can sell a digital version of

that in the Kindle Store if
you hold the rights. Making 
the sick walk all the way to 
the back of the store for milk

has  found a comfortable home 
in rural Ohio. Soda pallets fly
apart in the middle of no-
where. We miss the authentic.

 


Included in all of Mark Young's most recent books — the e-book Asemic Colon from The Red Ceilings Press,  The Codicils, a 600-page selection of poems written between 2009 & 2012, out from Otoliths, & the eclectic world from gradient books of Finland — are poems that first appeared in Offcourse. See his work in #56, https://www.albany.edu/offcourse/issue56/mark_young.html



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