WEBVTT

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Thank you very much.

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Writing poetry is such a
singular business in many ways.

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If the poet has any
humbleness in his soul at all

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when he begins to
write poetry he

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realizes that he
has many, many years

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ahead of him of silence and
inattention and so forth.

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It takes a long time for him
to receive any node at all

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before he has a poem
published really.

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It's really a very lonely
business in many ways,

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unless you like to
talk to yourself.

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And so that's why I'm
always amazed whenever

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I'm invited to read at a place
like the University of Arizona

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and people show up to hear me
and it's really incredible.

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So many people it's wonderful.

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I'm really very happy
to be here and very

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grateful to have this audience.

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For a number of years I
was not able to write poems

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about myself.

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I kind of spent a good
deal of my time creating

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my own mythology kind
of casting my voice out

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into various characters.

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And I'd like to read a
longer sequence of poems

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about a particular
character that I made up.

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His name is Imbellis.

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And imbellis is the Latin
word for peace and soul.

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And I wanted to kind of create
a person right from Adams

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and create him in innocence and
then show what happens to him.

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And I'll read-- it's
not too long a sequence.

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I'll read the sequence without
any comment between the point

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because I think Imbellis
tells his own story.

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The sequence is called,
"The Brief Passage and Quick

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Corruption of Imbellis."

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And it's dedicated
for Hawks from a Dove.

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Can you all hear me?

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There's no problem?

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All right.

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The masters report
their confusion

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at the sudden
existence of Imbellis.

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If he had commenced
with multiple budding

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complex but understandable,
intricate yet simple,

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we would have prevailed.

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But a cell decided to suddenly
divide and we were confused.

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It was unperceived by us.

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We could have predicted
partway down the chain

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but a single isolated cell
cleaved and split and re-split.

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And before we could control
Imbellis, he was here.

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Zimmer reports his confusion
at the sudden existence

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of Imbellis.

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I am innocent I swear
it, but delighted.

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For years I dabbled with
Perry plums and footnotes

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of gerantic men.

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I dreamt of plums in
an icebox, of globes

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of palpable fruit and
locomotives spouting violets.

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Then Imbellis suddenly
happened in some agar jar

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in my darkest corner,
untainted, trusting and benign.

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He stepped forth burying
a sequence with him

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into the world.

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Imbellis reports his confusion
at his sudden existence.

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Does everyone
suddenly awake to find

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they wholly exist knowing
that the instant before they

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had not?

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How curious to be born
in a jar of jelly.

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How strange to see terror
on my father's faces?

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I love them instantly
but they did not

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trust me save one perhaps my
mother who was overindulgent.

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They seemed angry that
I stickily was there.

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But how does one
prevent his happening?

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Imbellis strolls
out among the trees

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and imagines the world to be
as peaceful as their seasons.

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Above me the trees do
things with such simplicity.

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I walk in their shadows.

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I feel them press
up against the wind.

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Hear their leaves, flick rain,
and watch them take the sun

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completely as their due.

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They are so pervasive,
so abundant, so gentle.

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They grow giddy with
their richness in the fall

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and loosen leaves from
their tiny sockets to flash

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and clatter down to my feet.

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Then they tighten quietly
to wring another year.

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Snow clings to them
curving and angling

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in black and white
gathering and spilling

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with its weight to
tingle down on my face.

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I cannot even perceive the
time they enter the gentlest

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of seasons.

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They are buds then flowers
and small leaves and clutching

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and all this so green and
graceful before my eyes.

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I do not know what is happening.

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I have seen these
trees in day and night.

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I have passed through them
in peace and happiness.

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They have no secret
periods of ferocity.

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They do not surround
and swallow each other

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like insidious cells and jelly.

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They are strong like
meaningful through all seasons.

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Surely the world I
come to is like them.

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Imbellis strolls out
onto the battlefield.

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I step onto the
field at midnight

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and suddenly bombs fall
arrows slant and the moon

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is scribbled with tracer fire.

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By morning I have
nearly lost my life

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and assuredly my
innocence is gone.

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No primrose fingers squeeze
those triggers and pluck

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those bows and catapults, but
hands unsound with strength

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and sick with hate.

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The innocents are ground
into the Earth like leaves

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and die in mortal
terror, but still

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the captains blow their charges
and generals wring their hands

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upon the hills.

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By day's end trembling
more in rage than terror

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I have seen enough.

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I step forth from my hiding
place and change the landscape.

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Warriors turn back
meekly toward childhood.

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The ground grows whole,
blasted trees, men.

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Mangled flowers
bloom and animals

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return to dart and
fetch upon the land.

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Shells are temped with their
smoke back into cannons.

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Bombs rise and return like
eggs to droning rooms.

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Sabers dull and arrows pluck
sweet music on their strings.

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The night has returned and the
war is gone with my innocence.

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I have brought peace but I
have seen blood, hurt anguish

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and known anger.

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I sit beneath the moon
and grind my teeth.

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I have become as cunning
as these childlike warriors

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who play now like ferns
beneath the trees.

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Imbellis bellicose.

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To fuming hell with talk, let
the shriek of steel on steel

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convey my subtle messages,
give meaning to my symbols

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and place reason in my words.

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I defy innocence.

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I have seen peace and no
it is no longer useful.

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I thrash and cleave pure flesh.

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I feel purpose in
the heart of war.

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So deadened by accord
I am revived by combat.

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Peace has become intolerable.

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Blood, oh only blood excites me.

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It is worth all torture,
all pain that is not mine.

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Invincible I strike in passion
at the groveling and wincing.

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I, Imbellis, I'm King of terror
and peace is puny memory to me.

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The master's report the
mortal illness of Imbellis.

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Just as we knew it would
happen, he is dying.

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Not horribly on a cross nor
gallantly on the battlefield

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amidst the gore of his ultimate
victims, but slowly painfully

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and ignoble we of a subtle
cancerous growth, which seized

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him before we could control it.

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Soon his strange heart
will gasp upon its blood

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and his trachea will
chatter like a gourd.

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Those cells that had so
quickly multiplied to make him

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will sag and fall apart.

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His synthesis will
never reoccur.

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Having feared Imbellis once we
know his make up and will never

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let him happen again.

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The death rattle of Imbellis.

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I have been cheated
of my innocence.

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Like God, I have stumbled on
my peace and grown ferocious.

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And what is to show, a shattered
body, a rotting mind and death

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in hideous stupefying
bursts of pain.

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What I have proven
is unspeakable.

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I return in raft
to the agar jars

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and pray that all
my cells will die.

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I bequeath nothing
and leave no message.

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I wish only for
eternal darkness.

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Zimmer writes an
epithet for Imbellis.

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Now that Imbellis
is dead, I will not

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make blank statements
such as dust to dust.

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I am a poet and expected
to design bright messages.

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So I say Imbellis is
dead and that is all.

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Time that predictable
rot has taken him.

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He was good and he
was bad, that is all.

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I write no anguished
elegy for him.

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I will not sum up his existence.

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Forget him.

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A study of his life would
show things we cannot believe.

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If you insist I will
say it, dust to dust.

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Now, forget him.

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That's enough of that stuff.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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