WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:04.590 align:middle line:84% Well, I turn to a more serious poem. 00:00:04.590 --> 00:00:05.400 align:middle line:90% No, not really. 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:07.350 align:middle line:84% Even more-- you know, they're all serious. 00:00:07.350 --> 00:00:11.170 align:middle line:90% But this is even more serious. 00:00:11.170 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:84% It's a poem from my third book, The Color of Blood. 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:24.090 align:middle line:84% And it's called, "To Eurydice in Hell." 00:00:24.090 --> 00:00:29.760 align:middle line:84% It's a poem that tries to use the Orpheus and Eurydice 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:34.170 align:middle line:84% legend to relate to the experience of a poet who meets 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:38.460 align:middle line:84% a girl in a bookshop very shortly after she's come out 00:00:38.460 --> 00:00:40.710 align:middle line:90% of a mental hospital. 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:44.190 align:middle line:84% And he hopes that, by the power of his poetry, 00:00:44.190 --> 00:00:47.910 align:middle line:90% he can keep her sane. 00:00:47.910 --> 00:00:48.495 align:middle line:90% But he can't. 00:00:48.495 --> 00:00:51.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:57.600 align:middle line:84% Then Orpheus walked in a dark forest of books and people, 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.570 align:middle line:90% thinking of nothing. 00:01:00.570 --> 00:01:04.709 align:middle line:84% But when Eurydice came, the leaves paused on the trees 00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:06.960 align:middle line:90% to listen. 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:11.190 align:middle line:90% The wet snail cocked its horn. 00:01:11.190 --> 00:01:14.240 align:middle line:84% It was morning everywhere in the pulsing wood 00:01:14.240 --> 00:01:16.260 align:middle line:90% he called pleasure. 00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:19.320 align:middle line:90% And the sun shone. 00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:24.690 align:middle line:84% To be stones rolling in dark brooks was a new beginning, 00:01:24.690 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% and dead things broke into flower. 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:31.440 align:middle line:90% So Orpheus sang. 00:01:31.440 --> 00:01:34.090 align:middle line:90% 00:01:34.090 --> 00:01:37.540 align:middle line:84% But Eurydice walked in a close alliance 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:41.770 align:middle line:90% with nothing that watched her. 00:01:41.770 --> 00:01:45.850 align:middle line:84% Only the song of Orpheus could make her well, 00:01:45.850 --> 00:01:49.060 align:middle line:90% and that not for long. 00:01:49.060 --> 00:01:55.090 align:middle line:84% For nine days, the bad core of Eurydice rotted. 00:01:55.090 --> 00:02:00.400 align:middle line:84% But on the 10th, Eurydice died and the whole inside of her 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:08.169 align:middle line:84% moved into hell, where she lay as naked as nothing. 00:02:08.169 --> 00:02:12.910 align:middle line:84% Only the flesh of Eurydice has stayed alive. 00:02:12.910 --> 00:02:15.520 align:middle line:84% And the nothing within her came out 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:22.840 align:middle line:84% and gashed its name in her belly that bled for Orpheus. 00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:28.720 align:middle line:84% Take away the bones, there was nothing to hold Eurydice. 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:33.880 align:middle line:84% Take away the skin, she has no passport for the lonely wood 00:02:33.880 --> 00:02:37.240 align:middle line:90% where Orpheus sings. 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:39.790 align:middle line:90% Praise her in razor blades. 00:02:39.790 --> 00:02:43.390 align:middle line:84% It is only through pain that brings pleasure, 00:02:43.390 --> 00:02:45.910 align:middle line:90% that sad Eurydice lives now. 00:02:45.910 --> 00:02:48.620 align:middle line:90% 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:50.020 align:middle line:90% So Orpheus sang. 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:52.980 align:middle line:90% 00:02:52.980 --> 00:02:59.190 align:middle line:84% Then Orpheus came into hell, who had no love for the mad, 00:02:59.190 --> 00:03:03.660 align:middle line:84% and hated the blind silence there. 00:03:03.660 --> 00:03:06.330 align:middle line:84% And the darkness reached out its arms 00:03:06.330 --> 00:03:10.440 align:middle line:84% and wrapped Orpheus, too, in its chloroform. 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:13.080 align:middle line:84% And he spoke with dread mud and water 00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:17.760 align:middle line:84% to let her go, prayed to the hot bands and the wall 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:20.550 align:middle line:90% that they might leave her. 00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:23.640 align:middle line:90% Hands are a spoiled nuisance. 00:03:23.640 --> 00:03:27.540 align:middle line:90% They pull the soul out. 00:03:27.540 --> 00:03:30.450 align:middle line:90% Stay away, Orpheus. 00:03:30.450 --> 00:03:34.080 align:middle line:84% Here there was only the rule of nothing. 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.540 align:middle line:90% Eurydice has gone into skin. 00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:39.270 align:middle line:90% She is no one here. 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:44.550 align:middle line:90% Look, there is no one here. 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:46.110 align:middle line:90% So Orpheus sang. 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:48.690 align:middle line:90% 00:03:48.690 --> 00:03:53.910 align:middle line:84% Alas, there is only, tomorrow, the black nowhere to go in now. 00:03:53.910 --> 00:03:56.520 align:middle line:90% Is that it? 00:03:56.520 --> 00:04:01.380 align:middle line:84% Walk, Orpheus, by the sounding Thames. 00:04:01.380 --> 00:04:05.130 align:middle line:84% Your head, the black nurse struck from your future, 00:04:05.130 --> 00:04:07.860 align:middle line:84% sticks like a heart in the hospital. 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:11.310 align:middle line:84% You have no brain now for the world you live in. 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:15.990 align:middle line:84% It bleeds in the cold river Eurydice has dissolved into, 00:04:15.990 --> 00:04:17.610 align:middle line:90% you call hell. 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:20.550 align:middle line:90% 00:04:20.550 --> 00:04:22.740 align:middle line:90% But look, Orpheus. 00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:27.600 align:middle line:84% Eurydice is a star whose face kisses your bloody lips 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:30.030 align:middle line:90% in the water. 00:04:30.030 --> 00:04:35.700 align:middle line:84% You two are at one now in the sky. 00:04:35.700 --> 00:04:45.110 align:middle line:84% So Orpheus sang, believing nothing, to Eurydice and hell. 00:04:45.110 --> 00:04:48.000 align:middle line:90%