Now I'll read a couple of a little more surrealistic,
a little crazier perhaps, from the book The Dolphin
with a Revolver in its Teeth.
Here's a poem which was first published
on Robert Bly and a number of other poets,
including myself, Louis Simpson.
I gave readings in the Northwest against the Vietnam War
about four years ago, in front of the American Writers
Committee against the Vietnam War, which is subsequently
at least given a lot of readings,
and the poets have participated in a number
of mass demonstrations against the war.
At that time, we brought out a little volume called A Poetry
Reading against the Vietnam War, in which this poem was
included.
I still like it.
It's called "Scattering Flowers."
It's also in that Where is Vietnam?
anthology that Doubleday-- that somebody brought up.
And it's proceeded with a little epigraph, a little quotation.
"It is our best and prayerful judgment
that they, the air attacks on North Vietnam,
are a necessary part of the surest road to peace."
The author being Lyndon B. Johnson.
"There is a dark tolling in the air, an unbearable needle
in the vein.
The horizon flaked with feathers of rust.
From the caves of drugged flowers,
fireflies rise through the night.
They bear the sweet gospel of napalm.
Democracies of flame are declared in the villages.
The rice-fields seethe with blistered reeds.
Children stand somnolent in their crutches.
Freedom, a dancing girl, lifts her petticoats of gasoline.
And on the hot sands of a deserted beach,
a wild horse struggles, choking in the noose of diplomacy.
Now in their cane chairs, the old men
who listen for the bitter wind of bullets,
spread on their thighs maps, portfolios, legends of hair,
and the photographs of dark Asian youths
who are already dissolving into broken water."