You can hear me well?
Mhm.
This next poem is titled "Venice Beach 2008."
If you thought I was going to stay
in Eastern Europe for the rest of the evening, you're wrong.
The poem was originally titled "Venice Beach,"
and then there was a major breakthrough my writing career,
And I thought that "Venice Beach 2008" was the right, title.
And I'm listening to Mendelssohn's piano concerto,
a kites distance from the ocean.
And there's a bottle of ketchup, and enough orange marmalade
for a family of 12 next to my elbow.
And I'm feeling older than my years.
And herein lies what I'm being told
to write by the academy of important poets, who
take their toast buttered with 18th century symphonies,
and string quartets that float out to sea in a Claude Monet.
As the milk stands by the salt, but the pepper is forlorn,
and the Formica is the truth, and truth is a word.
Where have you gone Walt Whitman?
Come have breakfast with me now.