I want to read two or three poems, which
are fairly difficult. They're hard enough in the page,
but I think they're difficult to understand allowed to.
So I'm going to intersperse between these poems, a very
small piece of pornographic prose that I've written,
it's satiric pornographic prose.
It's not likely to offend anyone, right?
[INTERPOSING VOICES AND LAUGHTER]
Now describe the circumstances, it was written in.
And afterwards, I read this poem first,
which is also a strangely erotic poem.
It's called "The Mouths of the Poor."
I don't know what needs to be said about the poem.
It's a vision of the somewhat erotic paranoid fear
that the middle class seems to have
of the poor as if they have a life
vitality, which-- which is greater
than that of the middle class.
Perhaps it's a realizable fear, you right about that.
One thing I should mention that takes place
within the poem that perhaps isn't clear,
the man who ate children in the poem is unfortunately true.
It's an account that I read of a little--
I think it was a bank clerk or an accountant.
If I remember correctly in the 1920s, who
discovered that the only way that he could achieve
a sexual orgasm was to kill, cut up, pickle, and eat children.
Everything gets better from here.
[LAUGHTER]
But what moved me was not the grotesqueness
or the strangeness of that, but something pitiful in it,
in that.
After he was caught and put in prison,
this poor guy discovered that he could achieve
the same sensation, he could achieve
a sense of lovers his orgasm through eating almost
anything that wasn't food.
Bed springs pieces of his mattress, dust, et cetera.
It was just too late then.
[LAUGHTER]
But I think what lastly moved me for this little bespectacled
man who there was a picture of and who
was such a marvelously failed sensual list was
his last statement before he was taken
to the electric chair, which was will I be
able to feel it before I die?
That reminds me of a--
[LAUGHTER]
A joke that Kurt Vonnegut tells and actually there's
a point to the joke, it makes a strong point
about capital punishment.
It's again a true story about a murderer who
was-- as he was being murdered in Chicago,
who was-- as he was being strapped
into the electric chair.
A few years back said, well, this will really teach me.
[LAUGHTER]
Mouths of the poor.
The mouths of the poor are grinning lasciviously
from Windows as you drive by.
They are making plans in doorways, and alleys,
under that light that sways on a long rope.
Here are some plans, bread, sex, meat.
Here's a new vocabulary, you aren't included for how do you
kill a policeman, how do you kill a poor policeman,
how do you know you don't.
The mouths of the poor followed you home
into the unlit garage, who closed the door.
You found one stuck like a kiss to your Fender,
the mouths of the poor are fetish, let them eat feet.
How do you kill a thing like that?
And your garage you beat that thing with a broom,
does it bite?
One is not dangerous, here is the noise it makes squeak.
If you beat it with a broom it will run,
if you push the wrong end of a broom between those lips,
will it choke?
Will it make its report?
It's hidden behind the trash under an oily rag.
Is it stuck to your foot?
The mouths of the poor are moving laboriously upstairs,
are you asleep?
Your bedroom door is covered with kisses, are you awake?
The teeth of the poor are not bone,
they are splintering like anthracite.
They are melting down like hot cheese over those gums,
can a thing like that hurt?
Like a murder's wounds, let them eat vinegar,
let them eat salt until they cannot whistle for help.
Who asked for this moving along your flesh?
The mouths of the poor exactly like the mouths of the rich
are hungry, pulling through the intestines and your warm bed,
can they see their mistake?
Like the man who ate children inducing
at last that love, which had eluded him,
those mouths want too much of our lives.
One desires the paint from your station wagon, here's
another eating television.
The disappearing comedian's mouth
wades into that silence, which he nervously examines.
How can we tell them?
What can we feed ourselves?
My mouth on my wife's really desires speech,
the man who ate children in his cell
discovered that little things, nails, and dust
produce the same result, but much too late.
You ought to say something small, it would save your life.
The bodies of the poor like bags of damage
are waiting for your report.