Mark Young Returns With A Kestrel Attack In A Nordic Novel, Antarctican Kites, And A Bad Case Of Flood Denial

Nordic Noir

The kestrel in the churchyard keeps crying out for lingonberries.

"This is not a Nordic crime novel," I remind it. "I can give you jackfruit, or mangoes, or even those rotten-smelling durian whose popularity in China is rivalled only by the iPhone, but the lingonberry is beyond my reach."

I turn away, miss the kestrel flying to attack me, eyes first, & then that critical vein in the neck. My last thought just before I pass: "Lars Kepler might get a novel out of this."


 
Drag & Drop

An exhausted pair of pranksters needed police help to drag a giant metal cockroach they had moved six meters along Rundle Mall early this morning.

Domenic Esposito dropped a 10-foot, 800-pound sculpture of a heroin spoon on the sidewalk in front of a Coventry Pharmaceutical company.

Businesswoman dragging a giant heavy weight on chain, Guilt written on the ball. Cartoon vector flat-style concept illustration.

Hogan drops an elbow on the prone Giant, & another, & another.

Two German painters are dragging a giant pen through Utah, Colorado, & Wyoming.

Man uses bulldozer to drop giant boulder on a pickup truck & destroys its suspension.

Wilson will be traveling alone, using only skis & kites, dragging a giant pair of pink breasts full of enough survival supplies for 80 days across Antarctica.

Wilderness hill giants used to be an active place for F2P pking. Double the drop rate of Giant Key from hill giants in the wilderness. Hopefully this could add some interesting incentive to F2P players to enter the wilderness.


 
for Joe Zawinul, a weather report

Rising rivers vomit glossy
coffee table books on Brutalist
edifices of the 1930s. Sane adults

narrow down a list of options
for substance use. I'm camped
out here in the middle of a flood

reciting supposedly helpful
mantras for making the water
recede. I think I'm in denial.





Mark Young's most recent books are les échiquiers effrontés, a collection of surrealist visual poems laid out on chessboard grids, published by Luna Bisonte Prods; The Word Factory: a miscellany, from gradient books of Finland; & The Perfume of The Abyss from Moria Books. 

Adam Levon Brown Basks In The Dusk Of The Lyres While Jewels Cry From The Abyss In A Galactic Shine

Hallelujah Sunshine

Highways separate

into colliding stars,

wishing themselves

into being

from galactic shine

Singing Hallelujah,

I have found life!

I have found the pearls

of blood-drenched wisdom.

I have found the separate keys

on the piano which try to stay hidden

I have bled in rivulets of sunshine

to find my way home.

I have found the questions,

but never the answers.

Let them sizzle beneath

your skin,

and sing for awakening

in the grimmest of weather,

Bolted down to the doors

of your trust, and hidden

behind your gates

of razor blade truths

Let them in,

Let them in.

Hurtles go unheard

in the Sonnets of lyre

dusk

Preening themselves from fire

and hiding the dust

behind eyes of lust

Pretentious and declared

mute, the shadows quake

at the thought of eclipsing

your shame

Buried in the heels

of your feet, waiting

to give birth to Hermes,

Your smile erupts

and singes the emptiness

you call your home.

Darkness Reality

Lips of escaping

meadow signal

the depths of Abyss-worn

crowns

Cracked and smeared

with gun powder and silenced

by night fall

Jewels cry your name

as you fall deeper

into the ebony glance

of darkness reality

And luck calls

for you inside your mind,

as you attempt to claw

your psyche

from the depths of abyss

Adam Levon Brown is an internationally published poet and author in 14 countries. He has had his work translated in Spanish, Albanian, Arabic, and Afrikaans. Boasting over 300 published pieces, you can find his writing at such publications as Burningword Literary Journal, Firefly Magazine, Zany Zygote Review, Epigraph, Angel City Review, and Ariel Chart. He was long-listed in the 2016 Erbacce Prize poetry competition and received a special mention in the Pangolin Prize 2018 competition.