WEBVTT

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"The Private Line."

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This is a poem that
comes from a fantasy

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that I used to have I think
when I was in high school

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when I felt very
alone and alienated

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and I had insomnia a
good deal at the time.

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And I'd lie in bed
at night and wish

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that I had a
telephone or a radio

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by which I could
speak to someone

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else, someone important,
someone metaphysical

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if the opportunity were there
who would just talk to me.

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Say things to me
like everything's

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going to be all right,
simple things like that

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but directed personally for
me so that I could rest.

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This poem is called
"The Private Line"

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and it's essentially about
that kind of experience,

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a kind of free floating
neurosis I guess

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or a free floating anxiety.

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It's me again.

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Nights I lie hot under
the electric light

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deep in my own soup.

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The personal radio I
am desiring beats back,

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Hello lover, home again.

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The anxious angel wings
in my darkest bowel.

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That's Jonathan's bed singing.

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I'm thinking maybe
it's the mad who

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circle up the bed springs or the
dead are really here signaling.

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For the sake of no one
I'm still awake hearing

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the filaments sing and no one
is here under the angel's wing,

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his irrelevant tongue in my ear.