Well, I said two more, but I want to put in another one
because I remembered that I have slighted
this audience in a special way.
I was invited to go to the University of Oregon
to take part in the Jazz Poetry Festival.
And I wasn't really fit for this.
But I realized it when I heard the first poet get up and read,
and he read some four-letter word poems
that brought the University of Oregon into the big leagues
with Berkeley and other places.
[LAUGHTER]
And I didn't have anything ready.
Except then I remembered I had one
Oregon-type four-letter word poem, which I'd like
to read before my last poem.
This is called "Fictions."
They make a song for their dogs up North,
four-letter words only, the kind real dogs
can use-- bark, bark, woof, woof, and so on, you know.
[LAUGHTER]
And every night, they go to call a big one.
"Pavlov, Pavlov," strictly home on obedient paths in the snow.
A song like that or any temporary spot pitched
cunningly to our minds can open the world again and again,
lead easily through our city the wildest stories,
make beautiful young or old, all the faces,
and send us out to rejoice, wild, even
in autumn under the free spending sycamore.
Well, the roof didn't fall, I mean
for the other four-letter word poem.
But, of course, it didn't for mine.