WEBVTT

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There's no, well-- well
that's the nicest introduction

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I think I ever heard.

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It's not-- I don't think
true either all of it.

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I know all of it can't be except
I'm glad if it is for Steve.

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I really appreciate the
kindness of the introduction.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Excuse me.

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I would like to begin
by reading an old poem.

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I want to end with
new poems if I may.

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But one of the reasons
I like to read this poem

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is because although I started
writing it as long ago as 1952,

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it's not finished yet.

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And yeah it's been published.

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It's been around
for a long time.

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And so people unless
I'm able to tell them

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that it's not finished
might be under the illusion

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that it is finished.

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I had to leave some things out.

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I believe in leaving
things out of poems

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but I don't believe in
leaving the kind of thing

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out that I had to
leave out in this one.

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And every now and then I still
go usually in some summer

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I go back to it and try
to write the last stanza.

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It's in 3 stanzas
and it should have 4.

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I like unfinished poems really.

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It's interesting to me that
this should have remained

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unfinished all this time.

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But there is a
piece of information

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that I like to provide
too if I read it.

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It's called "On a"--

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It has a long title so there
should be everything in it

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that's missing from the
poem know but it isn't.

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It's called "On a Painting by
Patient B of the Independent

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State Hospital for the Insane."

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Now, that's a place in Iowa.

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And as in many states
that I've come across,

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the towns that I suppose
it's the state legislature

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just chooses to
situate such hospitals

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and have names that
themselves have a meaning.

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In Iowa I remember Independents
as being one of the places

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and Mount Pleasant as
being another of the places

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and so on.

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Well, that was
interesting to me.

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But this point comes
out from a-- comes out

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of an exhibition of paintings
done for therapeutic purposes

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by the patients at
Independence, which

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I saw in the summer of 1952.

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And later on after the
exhibition was taken down.

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I remember this
particular painting

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and tried to describe it as
best I could remember it.

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The patients had been required
to attach to the paintings

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an explanation of them, which in
some cases did seem necessary.

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Not only did they lack
talent frequently as painters

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but the paintings were
so strange in some cases

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that unless you had an
explanation you might not

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have guessed what was going on.

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Now, patient B was gifted
in a very amateurish way

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as a painter and very
gifted as an explainer

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of what he was doing.

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And this particular
scene in the painting

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that I'm trying to
describe he said

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was a painting of Beverly
Hills which he had never seen.

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And it was a very small
town in the painting.

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And of course, it doesn't look
like the Beverly Hills you

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and I usually see.

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But it's I like to think
that it's the Beverly Hills

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within Beverly Hills.

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And near the end
of the poem, this

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is what I have to explain
because this is what is part

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of what's left out of the poem.

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Near the end of the
poem I talk about clouds

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that hang over the
town and the fact

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that names are given
to the clouds, which

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are sort of the godlike
in the way the clouds hang

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over the town.

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And the patient B explained
that the names of the clouds

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were rabbit, bear, and hyena.

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And I wasn't able to
get that in the poem.

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But you have to imagine a yet
unwritten fourth stanza which

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begins with those words,
rabbit bear and hyena

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and then you finish the
poem however you like.

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OK.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I couldn't do it.

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On a painting by patient B then.

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These seven houses have
learned to face one another

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but not at the expected angles.

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Those silly brown
lumps that are probably

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meant for hills and
not other houses

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after ages of being themselves
though naturally slow

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are learning to be
exclusive without offending.

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The arches and entrances
down to the right out of site

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have mastered the lesson
of remaining closed.

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And even the skies keep a
certain understandable distance

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for these are the
houses of the very rich.

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One sees their children
playing with leopards,

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tamed at great cost.

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Or perhaps it is
only other children.

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But none of these objects is
anything more than a spot.

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And perhaps there are not
any children, but only

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leopards playing with leopards.

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And perhaps there
are only the spots.

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And the little maids
from the windows

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hanging like tongues
calling the children in,

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admiring the leopards
are the dashes

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a child might represent
motion by means of,

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or dazzlement possibly the
brilliance of solid gold

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houses.

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The clouds resemble
those empty balloons

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in cartoons which
approximate silence.

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These clouds if clouds
they are and not

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the smoke from the seven
aspiring chimneys, the more one

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studies them, the
more it appears

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they too have expressions.

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One might almost say
they have their habits,

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their wrong opinions, that
their impulsivity masks

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an essentially
lovable foolishness.

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And they will be given names
by those who live under them

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not public like mountains
but private like companions.

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