“OK, so here we are. No escape
from this feast. Nor its feet. This is,
. . . uhhh . . . , hopeful, yeah, hopeful; and only
faintly garbled. There will be worse. You will wait for this and it will come.
First play, then a wait. But to be fair, well, to be fair . . .
is . . . like .
. . just more or less how things are on
a good day, at least for some one, if not for me. So it’s for you. And you. And
you. Each fucking one. I haven’t time. Haven’t bloody time—“
“Oh the sun’s good, is it?
Suddenly value suffuses this whole lot of things & they all turn golden and
glad. O cock of ages, crow for me now! I
don’t think so. It’s actually all grey, the cold & mist thick, like vomit
or coughed up phlegm. Bits of everything, have just dropped off. The only thing
that’s clear’s the waste of being, hanging on into a fuzzy midwinter. The circles
are small now. Minimal oscillation – not possible.”
“Look, listen, whatever – this
isn’t the end of the world, it’s the ending of the poem. Not answers – silence.
The people who come after this – they’ll have their own problems & their
own solutions. What we’ve got, just vestigial, ruinous, vermiform. They’re
singing – can’t you know this? - & we’re, well, we’re just doing what we’re
doing. Droning on and on.”
“Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn
it off. No, of course you can’t. That’s not muzak, that’s consciousness. Just
more unstable. Is it natural, I hear you ask (I am good at auditory delusion)?
No, just obtruding. ‘These fuckers think, & think they’re different. They
are.’ That’s why the whole thing is grinding down. Not springing. Falling; into
here. End it, end it at once. ‘But your fall is endless.’ See you next year.
Leave it all.”
“Still too much coffee. Not
enough fragmentation. Things are only just beginning to sparkle. I guess it’s
Xmas come again. Time to play, this time to pay, time to pee, time to be. No?
Be what? Hunhh, like some fucking aphorism? A for ism! – No!”
“I’m glad you asked about the
revolution – yes, I can hear you quite clearly, thank you. The cold air is good
for that. Where’s it to, now, 9.16 on the morning of December 13th,
2012, a Thursday in Bishops Stortford? And what’s with the poets? How will
their entry be made? What is to be done, the man said. Ohhhh. There’s lots of
things, most of them bad, self-delusions, utopian hopes, the stern pleasures of
socialist rigour, all that lousy in‑group stuff. It isn’t good; it doesn’t stop
– that’s actually the point – it turns over & around, milling &
churning. The death throes of the old order are the death throes of the new
order. There isn’t control,[1]
there isn’t an end or closure or goal. Fuck you, Hegel; fuck you, Marx. It isn’t
so. Nonethebloodyless – Keep thinking, revolving, resolving, resolute & together,
is a choice (that helps).[2]
‘All people that on earth do dwell.’
Yes.[3]”
“Another six hours. It’s never
tomorrow. Can you remember any? It’s never justice, either. Can’t be undone.
And who isn’t guilty? Who doesn’t, sometimes, resemble oneself? [PAUSE] I don’t know, though some people claim to,
to not to. Perhaps it hasn’t even started yet. ‘I’m not even going there.’ I
don’t know where I’m going, that’s all I’m saying. Whoever, whenever, where . .
. ever.[4]”
“Oh, children, yes, I think, it
was, children, yes, family no. And you should let them sleep. It isn’t their
ending, and they will wake up (unlike us). Clear & still; communal &
involved; beyond this. At rest for now. They’ll examine the bloody, gristly
mess we make, sometime, that is, in their own time, not ours.”
“This feels like another poem,
don’t you think? Let’s shake it & see —
[PINK POWDER FLIES AROUND] —
that’s what it is? The mutuality and mystery of language in all its expressive
divinity just some sweet, not very luscious, powder? Disappointing. Time to
wake & wash, though, to sweep it up. Yes, toys are useful here [SWEEPS UP WITH TOY DUSTPAN &
BRUSH] What I’ve promised myself
once I’ve finished with all this, is bouncing on the bed, with bears again at
last. Oh, at last. And no backswash.”
[1]
Not like the circling airliners above as this is written.
[2]
Or just put on your jacket, or even Sean Bonney’s, stride out & do it. Good
advice in that imitating action, leads to action acting – it’s somehow
reflected in that word. Be Sean Bonney or whoever, Allen Fisher, Denise Riley,
Simon Howard, Mark Hyett, Lyn Hejinian, Odd Réal
Constant, whatever.
Being, doing, writhing, writing like that, like this.
[3]
I know, Bourgeois music, Calvinist even, let alone the rest. That’s the point,
though, about good collective action – it is actually affirmative regardless, if
you sing it well enough. Silence sure won’t help anyone.
[4]
No, no relief, no poetry, no voice.
