THE
POET:
Here,
then, is this place – singular & banal
The
last point now of where we are written to.
We
are in a cafe, upstairs, in early spring rain. THE POET is trying to write,
against a low volume of voices, a hum from various essential machines, &
the irregular rhythms of newspaper pages turning & coffee spoons clinking.
This is a common set of conditions, unmeant, unplanned, gently forceful - background
contingency, like all geography.
CUSTOMERS:
Time
to tell. Our movements are our own now
Moving in & out, Poet, from
that universe
You write with.
– But listen (we speak)
What mad, sad voices then are
these?
A
POET:
What
is desired, for God’s sake?
ANOTHER
POET:
What
is to be made of your silence?
A
THIRD POET:
What
is worth being made memorable, and how do you get it?
A
FOUTH POET, FROM A DISTANT TIME:
“Where
are you taking me, and for what purpose?”
ALL
FOUR POETS:
What
you do, fails; what you don’t, fucks.
CUSTOMERS:
OK,
true, let’s push this out then now –
If
we’re ever to leave, you guys better
Stop
licking each other’s pus, for what you’ve got
We’re
told’s a privilege – then live it together now.
THE
POET (BUT NOT IN OWN VOICE):
The
very taking of chance
Inserts
us into time – into
The
present. To take a chance
Is
to enter the moment in
Relation
to it
– it is, as
Musicians
would say, a
Matter
of getting in time, a
Matter
of being with it.
FX:
SOUND OF MOCKING LAUGHTER, FOLLOWED BY MISCELLANEOUS AND VARIED WATER SOUNDS
INCREASING SLOWLY IN VOLUME THROUGHOUT UNTIL END
THE
POET:
OK
then this calls
For
rapid improvisation
Out
of the decaying categories of selfhood
Into
constant fluid process
Escape
now into the poem
Securing
a non-delusory identity for ever.
A
FOURTH POET:
“I
can only say here
That
a poem is never ‘THE’ poem
But
only a small fragment
Of
an infinite calculation.”
