WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.352 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.352 --> 00:00:04.019 align:middle line:84% I want to read two or three poems, which 00:00:04.019 --> 00:00:06.269 align:middle line:84% are fairly difficult. They're hard enough in the page, 00:00:06.269 --> 00:00:09.030 align:middle line:84% but I think they're difficult to understand allowed to. 00:00:09.030 --> 00:00:13.950 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to intersperse between these poems, a very 00:00:13.950 --> 00:00:20.340 align:middle line:84% small piece of pornographic prose that I've written, 00:00:20.340 --> 00:00:23.010 align:middle line:90% it's satiric pornographic prose. 00:00:23.010 --> 00:00:26.490 align:middle line:84% It's not likely to offend anyone, right? 00:00:26.490 --> 00:00:29.808 align:middle line:84% [INTERPOSING VOICES AND LAUGHTER] 00:00:29.808 --> 00:00:30.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:34.540 align:middle line:84% Now describe the circumstances, it was written in. 00:00:34.540 --> 00:00:36.340 align:middle line:84% And afterwards, I read this poem first, 00:00:36.340 --> 00:00:38.300 align:middle line:84% which is also a strangely erotic poem. 00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:41.050 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Mouths of the Poor." 00:00:41.050 --> 00:00:43.690 align:middle line:84% I don't know what needs to be said about the poem. 00:00:43.690 --> 00:00:50.080 align:middle line:84% It's a vision of the somewhat erotic paranoid fear 00:00:50.080 --> 00:00:51.760 align:middle line:84% that the middle class seems to have 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:53.360 align:middle line:84% of the poor as if they have a life 00:00:53.360 --> 00:00:54.910 align:middle line:84% vitality, which-- which is greater 00:00:54.910 --> 00:00:56.160 align:middle line:90% than that of the middle class. 00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:03.888 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it's a realizable fear, you right about that. 00:01:03.888 --> 00:01:05.680 align:middle line:84% One thing I should mention that takes place 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:07.388 align:middle line:84% within the poem that perhaps isn't clear, 00:01:07.388 --> 00:01:12.280 align:middle line:84% the man who ate children in the poem is unfortunately true. 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:16.255 align:middle line:84% It's an account that I read of a little-- 00:01:16.255 --> 00:01:18.130 align:middle line:84% I think it was a bank clerk or an accountant. 00:01:18.130 --> 00:01:20.200 align:middle line:84% If I remember correctly in the 1920s, who 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:22.430 align:middle line:84% discovered that the only way that he could achieve 00:01:22.430 --> 00:01:28.780 align:middle line:84% a sexual orgasm was to kill, cut up, pickle, and eat children. 00:01:28.780 --> 00:01:30.225 align:middle line:84% Everything gets better from here. 00:01:30.225 --> 00:01:32.500 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:37.360 align:middle line:84% But what moved me was not the grotesqueness 00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:40.780 align:middle line:84% or the strangeness of that, but something pitiful in it, 00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:41.740 align:middle line:90% in that. 00:01:41.740 --> 00:01:43.810 align:middle line:84% After he was caught and put in prison, 00:01:43.810 --> 00:01:46.720 align:middle line:84% this poor guy discovered that he could achieve 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:48.710 align:middle line:84% the same sensation, he could achieve 00:01:48.710 --> 00:01:52.210 align:middle line:84% a sense of lovers his orgasm through eating almost 00:01:52.210 --> 00:01:53.710 align:middle line:90% anything that wasn't food. 00:01:53.710 --> 00:01:57.280 align:middle line:84% Bed springs pieces of his mattress, dust, et cetera. 00:01:57.280 --> 00:01:58.540 align:middle line:90% It was just too late then. 00:01:58.540 --> 00:02:00.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:00.130 --> 00:02:04.000 align:middle line:84% But I think what lastly moved me for this little bespectacled 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.340 align:middle line:84% man who there was a picture of and who 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:10.990 align:middle line:84% was such a marvelously failed sensual list was 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:12.820 align:middle line:84% his last statement before he was taken 00:02:12.820 --> 00:02:14.890 align:middle line:84% to the electric chair, which was will I be 00:02:14.890 --> 00:02:16.990 align:middle line:90% able to feel it before I die? 00:02:16.990 --> 00:02:23.230 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.230 --> 00:02:25.610 align:middle line:90% That reminds me of a-- 00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:28.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:31.000 align:middle line:84% A joke that Kurt Vonnegut tells and actually there's 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:33.730 align:middle line:84% a point to the joke, it makes a strong point 00:02:33.730 --> 00:02:35.800 align:middle line:90% about capital punishment. 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:37.730 align:middle line:84% It's again a true story about a murderer who 00:02:37.730 --> 00:02:39.723 align:middle line:84% was-- as he was being murdered in Chicago, 00:02:39.723 --> 00:02:41.140 align:middle line:84% who was-- as he was being strapped 00:02:41.140 --> 00:02:42.940 align:middle line:90% into the electric chair. 00:02:42.940 --> 00:02:46.450 align:middle line:84% A few years back said, well, this will really teach me. 00:02:46.450 --> 00:02:49.901 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:49.901 --> 00:02:54.660 align:middle line:90% 00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:57.490 align:middle line:90% Mouths of the poor. 00:02:57.490 --> 00:03:00.010 align:middle line:84% The mouths of the poor are grinning lasciviously 00:03:00.010 --> 00:03:02.590 align:middle line:90% from Windows as you drive by. 00:03:02.590 --> 00:03:06.160 align:middle line:84% They are making plans in doorways, and alleys, 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:09.430 align:middle line:84% under that light that sways on a long rope. 00:03:09.430 --> 00:03:13.010 align:middle line:84% Here are some plans, bread, sex, meat. 00:03:13.010 --> 00:03:16.180 align:middle line:84% Here's a new vocabulary, you aren't included for how do you 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:18.880 align:middle line:84% kill a policeman, how do you kill a poor policeman, 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:21.640 align:middle line:90% how do you know you don't. 00:03:21.640 --> 00:03:23.740 align:middle line:84% The mouths of the poor followed you home 00:03:23.740 --> 00:03:27.610 align:middle line:84% into the unlit garage, who closed the door. 00:03:27.610 --> 00:03:31.390 align:middle line:84% You found one stuck like a kiss to your Fender, 00:03:31.390 --> 00:03:34.900 align:middle line:84% the mouths of the poor are fetish, let them eat feet. 00:03:34.900 --> 00:03:37.660 align:middle line:84% How do you kill a thing like that? 00:03:37.660 --> 00:03:40.360 align:middle line:84% And your garage you beat that thing with a broom, 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:41.830 align:middle line:90% does it bite? 00:03:41.830 --> 00:03:46.330 align:middle line:84% One is not dangerous, here is the noise it makes squeak. 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:48.550 align:middle line:84% If you beat it with a broom it will run, 00:03:48.550 --> 00:03:51.550 align:middle line:84% if you push the wrong end of a broom between those lips, 00:03:51.550 --> 00:03:52.570 align:middle line:90% will it choke? 00:03:52.570 --> 00:03:54.490 align:middle line:90% Will it make its report? 00:03:54.490 --> 00:03:57.670 align:middle line:84% It's hidden behind the trash under an oily rag. 00:03:57.670 --> 00:04:00.220 align:middle line:90% Is it stuck to your foot? 00:04:00.220 --> 00:04:03.940 align:middle line:84% The mouths of the poor are moving laboriously upstairs, 00:04:03.940 --> 00:04:05.740 align:middle line:90% are you asleep? 00:04:05.740 --> 00:04:11.170 align:middle line:84% Your bedroom door is covered with kisses, are you awake? 00:04:11.170 --> 00:04:13.240 align:middle line:84% The teeth of the poor are not bone, 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:15.700 align:middle line:84% they are splintering like anthracite. 00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:19.730 align:middle line:84% They are melting down like hot cheese over those gums, 00:04:19.730 --> 00:04:22.630 align:middle line:90% can a thing like that hurt? 00:04:22.630 --> 00:04:25.810 align:middle line:84% Like a murder's wounds, let them eat vinegar, 00:04:25.810 --> 00:04:29.410 align:middle line:84% let them eat salt until they cannot whistle for help. 00:04:29.410 --> 00:04:32.590 align:middle line:84% Who asked for this moving along your flesh? 00:04:32.590 --> 00:04:36.430 align:middle line:84% The mouths of the poor exactly like the mouths of the rich 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:40.690 align:middle line:84% are hungry, pulling through the intestines and your warm bed, 00:04:40.690 --> 00:04:43.450 align:middle line:90% can they see their mistake? 00:04:43.450 --> 00:04:46.030 align:middle line:84% Like the man who ate children inducing 00:04:46.030 --> 00:04:48.760 align:middle line:84% at last that love, which had eluded him, 00:04:48.760 --> 00:04:51.640 align:middle line:84% those mouths want too much of our lives. 00:04:51.640 --> 00:04:55.060 align:middle line:84% One desires the paint from your station wagon, here's 00:04:55.060 --> 00:04:56.890 align:middle line:90% another eating television. 00:04:56.890 --> 00:04:59.140 align:middle line:84% The disappearing comedian's mouth 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:03.610 align:middle line:84% wades into that silence, which he nervously examines. 00:05:03.610 --> 00:05:05.110 align:middle line:90% How can we tell them? 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:07.690 align:middle line:90% What can we feed ourselves? 00:05:07.690 --> 00:05:12.400 align:middle line:84% My mouth on my wife's really desires speech, 00:05:12.400 --> 00:05:15.040 align:middle line:84% the man who ate children in his cell 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.430 align:middle line:84% discovered that little things, nails, and dust 00:05:18.430 --> 00:05:22.390 align:middle line:84% produce the same result, but much too late. 00:05:22.390 --> 00:05:27.010 align:middle line:84% You ought to say something small, it would save your life. 00:05:27.010 --> 00:05:30.880 align:middle line:84% The bodies of the poor like bags of damage 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:33.330 align:middle line:90% are waiting for your report.