Here's a poem.
The title of this poem is better than the poem unfortunately.
The poem is essentially just rather a strained comic poem.
And I guess the title explains the poem pretty well.
It was dedicated to Robert Bly.
Partly in support and in satire of the kind of poetry
that he was--
that he was writing at the time that I wrote this poem.
It's called "On a Rainy Night, an Ape in Scarsdale,
New York Returns a Library Book."
[LAUGHTER]
"He pulls his car under the running street
lit leaves, 2:00 AM.
The dash light reddens his jaw and his eyes like thunder
disappear or I think that about apes.
He gets out and slams the door.
Hand in hand over the olive lawn.
Will his wife in New Jersey worry
about the lateness of the hour with a dark invitation of trees
lining roads all the way home?
The lawn sighs beneath his weight.
Damp circle start under his elbows and knees.
At a darkened doorway he stops.
He cools his head on a stone.
A book whistles down the chute.
That's all.
Back over the lawn, the trees look down.
The moon frankly looks at this.
Low moans circle his sweaty head and fly away.
What if he sang?
Robert, I mean this.
He carried the moon like a book beneath his left arm.
And before we could speak, he drives away."
That might be in great retrospect,
I just realized about some kind of simian
rejecting becoming human, rejecting Darwin's theory.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE]
Oh I did send that poem to Robert Bly
and he sent back and no, he did not accept the poem.
But he sent back a note and I think
it said something like very interesting
although I do not understand it.
[LAUGHTER]