Talk Tonic II

(transcript)

Good morning and welcome to Talk Tonic on BMS
I am Abraham Noguise, today, the last lost poet speaks about the tragic end of poets. The last of what one might almost call a species is here to talk with us today. We are not going to tell you the name of our guest until later in the program. This is because we hope you will stick around to learn it and along the way discover some things you might not have known existed and it might be worth your while to know this person’s name. And later in the program our guest will perform their last work and you will have witnessed the final poem in history! And I am Abraham Noguise, your host.

In the second half of the show we ask the question, are Donald Trump voters as tourettsible as Donald Trump himself? Or, ‘which came first the cheatin or the igs’ We’re hoping you will stick around for that. But now let’s introduce the last lost poet. I’m so excited to finally talk to you and have a million questions but I’ll first ask if you think that withholding your name is not too crazy. We did talk about it briefly right before airing but I’ll give you a chance to back out now.

I think most of your audience clicked away at the word poet but I approve.

I’m just going to get right to the gist of it. When you are done that’s it. The world is rid of its last lost poet.

Yup.

How does that make you feel?

Like a million rocks.

What was it, do you think, that turned the world against poets? But actually don’t answer that yet. First let me ask you about your own beginnings…

But that’s a dead end.

What do you mean?

The only thing that matters is the culmination.

We have the culmination. You’re performing it live in a few moments.

There is nothing to know.

There is plenty to know. The whole point of this show is to introduce you to the world.

This is the prepoem moment. The transcript is the very necessary inscription . This is it. And you’re in it.

But this conversation cannot be poetry can it? At least not without an editor.

Ah well who’s to say?

Can you please tell us something about yourself. Starting with, what prompts someone to choose the occupation of lost poet? I’m dying to know why you – I look at you and you seem normal enough – took this job with its apparent vow of poverty and that isn’t to mention all the other social disadvantages?

I’m going to say something I shouldn’t and that is there just might be a few other lost poets.

No. Are we breaking some news this morning?

It’s possible, Abraham.

This is exciting. Can you tell me something more? How many and who they are?

We don’t even know who I am.

Well heh heh that puts a different spin on things doesn’t it? Uh well uh if you can’t substantiate that there exist more lost poets wandering about who knows where or why then we might have to edit that out. Let’s pick back up with that question I asked. What about that vow of poverty?

What about that I punch you in the face?

I wouldn’t like that. I’m just asking the questions. Do you consider yourself one of those tough guys like Hemingway or Mailer?

How do we know I’m not a woman?

I was just going to say or Joyce Carol Oates.

Yes.

I suppose you need to be tough. How it’s possible to reach the beauty of the artist’s subject with that kind of toughness is always something that has fascinated me.

Not me.

And what do you seek with your work?

I like it when they guffaw.

Come on, you’re sending me up. You’re telling me that you accept all the hardships that come with being a lost poet, the last lost poet, and all your aspirations amount to is to be a two bit jester!?

I don’t know. I’m lost.

Did it start out that way or did you have a loftier calling once?

I think so. Back when everything I wrote came out pinched and on stilts. I had a loftier calling then.

What were you trying to attain then?

I was hoping I could mold language into my own image and they would name a constellation after me. I feel sick. sniff.

It’s okay to start out with a selfish reason. All children do. No doubt over time you have given much to the world unselfishly long after those hopes were dashed.

sniff sniff.

Okay. The time has come to perform the last poem ever. Are you sad or happy about this?

We’re doing the world a favor.

I will tell our listeners the title is Have Some More Apocalypses. Is there anything you would like to say about it first?

Well you know how everything is an apocalypse. We’re always hearing about the next one. In addition I’m hoping this will tie in with the rest of your show. Donald Trump can be seen in that light but it wasn’t written for him. He doesn’t deserve it. It’s an apocalypse that this is the last poem.

Sigh. How did we come to this?

No one wanted to look it in the face. I mean, the shifty eyes. The aggressive stuttering. The hairy armpits.

The Apocalypse

The full lips
The Apocalyptic hip chicks
in all their empty splendor
wrapping their tiny arms around
an anatomic event.

Is this about what happened to poets?

Shh
A ‘relativisation’ to be sure. We’re all hedging our assertions
and imagining eschatological rescue feats. Esquetrology predicts we’ll be dead when Equuleus nips the seventh star of Pegasus.
This has all been clearly indicated in the fairest apocraphalyspal tradition
Mainlining a fresh set of perambulations.

Fuck this apocalypse

Have another.

Your druthers

Drubbers all

Volunteer

Have another from the recesses of guttural responses predating all columns

of molded vain roundness

Forget these artifacts “that still stand”
Have this other
Purely nonfosselized
still not organic nor growing
nonexistant
as far as tell can
see
nonetheless fortuitous
(as given on Mount Supposition)
Sacred ground sans firma
particlesplit.

It’s a glorious!place one doesn’t have to believe in
Your own potential was seen once or infinite
in one form or another
formulizing debt to a cause
Formalizing existence
only to see it all come crashing down.
Well, fuck that apocalypse!
Have yet another.

“Check, please.”

a pocket I Ching
ain’t nuthin but a series
of 64’s and 6 threes
a blurry-eyed cross
between a hotspot on the earth
and a universal first time for everything

but hey! it’s as simple as that hat and flat Rockefeller ring finger
Save your monkeys in a lilac bag of fuck you
and roll