Eighty-Eight
(For Al Filreis)

--This is how we think outside of the box:  Repeat after me: “This is how we think outside of the box.”
--“This is how we think outside of the box!”
--Do you think outside of the box?
--Yes, I think outside of the box!
--Good!  “A” for you!
What does that do to your head?
She only existed because she was permitted to exist by a Bohemian moment.
I think it’s ironic and not ironic at the same time.
Everything’s a poem about poetry.
Let’s make the box the art.
We do this with concepts like “ America.”
Can you wrap your arms around Enron?
Some thing there is that doesn’t love an Enron!
Let¹s abandon the space.
Does it work?  That’s the question.
Awhhooooooooo!
What the hell is he talking about?  Ready?  Tell me what it’s about.
Exotic squallor?  Thank you, that’s perfect.
You connect everything, dontcha?  The brain connects, but writing resists that.
The rules rush in as soon as you start to think about them.
Take my brain out, it hurts!
There is no such thing as a natural language.
The most interesting poetry being written today is non-narrative.  Narrative can still come in the back door.
Writing is digression.  Writing is what you’re not supposed to write.
It makes things happen now.  But where?
It’s great cocktail party conversation.
Something not essentially gay, but aesthetically gay.
Wow, holy shit, hold it folks!
What about performance?  What about the art of the piece?
You are post-modern guys and gals.
We are inter-species cannibals.
If you really want to get your parents’ goats, or your brothers’ and sisters’ goats, burn money in front of them.  Just don¹t tell them I told you to.
Conformity?  Suburbanism?  I don’t know.
He’s working really hard at this.
Let’s not get off on “Clue.”
”And now, here it is” -- colon – “it isn’t there at all!”
Knowing the present is a body thing.  Knowing the present is an intellectual thing.  Knowing the present is a visceral thing.
How do you know something?  Do you just know it in your bones?
What can a meta-meta poem do that a meta painting cannot?
I’m being a teacher here:  No, the trees don’t talk, but they are trying to tell us something.
The thing that wanted to Gap-ize Jack was the sentence.
The Gap was in the box!
Jack wore khakis.  Of course he did.  The beats wore khakis.  Or blue jeans.  Levi’s.
Jesus was beat.  Be-at.  Beatitude.  Jesus was all those things.  Jesus was the original beat, man!
Does anyone have a beret?  You have potential, Ben.
They’re both as here as they need to be, because they’re not here?
They?  Who’s “they?”  The people?
What is a guide to Life?  Whatever we make up!
There’s no such thing as Billie Holiday’s death.  There’s my Billie Holiday’s death, there’s your Billie Holiday’s death, and, presumptively, there’s our Billie Holiday’s Death.
How dare you, New York Times obituary writers, use a period, while the pain endures?
Everything is a poem about poetry.

There is no natural language.

Jill Ivey