Okay, that's all done for you                                                           15 March 2008


Hence the title. There are several versions. One goes as follows: words are black "as obvious as the sky is blue", but to go back to the beginning reduces time to a cinder. Whether that's its purpose or not is another story. Poetry with all its faults doesn't flow from the barrel of a gun, nor is it pushed to the limits by breathing heavily, biros contain ink and when that comes into contact with the page that very same page has seen it all before. Of course I do respect the page, after all I'm a pageboy, but about the body I have my doubts. Doubts are as natural to my body as disasters are to any confrontation with superior powers. Second thoughts and triple doubts travel from action to discourse, from thought to speech (for some, silence for most), from mind to mouth, from monologue to dialogue, from question to answer, from language to poetry, from rock bottom to peak time. And back, but only for those who don't return in time or at all. Poetry is not the art of the possible, that's politics; poetry is the art of the impossible, of language that has no place in reality, nor is it looking for any. Poets who want to escape from language find themselves in a place without alibi, i.e. having a body but no signature that underwrites a shared approach across time and place, as if the person stands outside his/her own body when thinking or speaking. Holes-in-the-wall give the illusion of personal transactions. [Spare me a thought — spare me the thought!] So, when a spending spree can be incorporated in a performance the body is willing and whatever is weak will wither leaving nothing but dust on the rough-and-ready table of representation. Flawed theories won't survive a level playing field; they thrive on silence and authority. By definition the page is finite, poets therefore can begin and finish any time anywhere without having to look over their shoulders. Shoulders are not to cry on but only to look over, certainly not after. It would be nice if poets could make readers read but I believe mice were first on the scene.