Philippe Beck, p.5



XX. TO NOT TRY.

In spite of luxurious appearances, I do not sing. With concentration, the least parodic imaginable, I can take the mike and then, with the studied ease of a crooner, strike up a hit, an American hit. (Concern of the wife.) Because there’s just the right keying, unlikely intelligence, in the standard’s appealing inflections: it’s why Monk loved country. The American Monk, not the lyricist for Papadiamandis.

Scratching out the attempt, double-time.

Rough.
A customer who is not
routed, nor a servant
of the poet who says “so-and-so =
a local fly,” and thus
the customer of no poet,
critique of anyone wanting customers,
and the poet without customers.
Synthetic poet,
of lighthearded limited feeling
+ critical song
drawn magnetically to verse that
shines on large and technical surface
(office, shop,
priory).

And so a density which
takes it upon itself.