WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.070 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.070 --> 00:00:08.298 align:middle line:84% This is a-- well, I don't really know 00:00:08.298 --> 00:00:10.590 align:middle line:84% whether some of these poems are political poems or not. 00:00:10.590 --> 00:00:13.620 align:middle line:84% In some ways, all poems seem to be political poems. 00:00:13.620 --> 00:00:20.640 align:middle line:84% But this is a poem "To Gary--" Gary Johnson-- 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.940 align:middle line:84% "--At the Threshold of The House." 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:28.950 align:middle line:84% Among other things, the first day of Pisces, his birthday. 00:00:28.950 --> 00:00:30.330 align:middle line:90% It's a birthday poem. 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:33.840 align:middle line:84% Gary Johnson, young poet, Fresno. 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:36.360 align:middle line:90% Good friend of mine. 00:00:36.360 --> 00:00:41.730 align:middle line:84% At the time I wrote the poem, he was in some torment. 00:00:41.730 --> 00:00:44.010 align:middle line:84% The government was after him, the army. 00:00:44.010 --> 00:00:47.400 align:middle line:90% He had a wife, pregnant wife. 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:50.130 align:middle line:90% He finally got out of it. 00:00:50.130 --> 00:00:54.060 align:middle line:84% He convinced them he was crazy and of no use to them. 00:00:54.060 --> 00:00:59.588 align:middle line:84% But at the time, he was trying to decide whether to go to jail 00:00:59.588 --> 00:01:00.255 align:middle line:90% or go to Canada. 00:01:00.255 --> 00:01:04.120 align:middle line:90% 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:04.732 align:middle line:90% Amazing thing. 00:01:04.732 --> 00:01:06.190 align:middle line:84% So many people came to this country 00:01:06.190 --> 00:01:10.300 align:middle line:84% from Russia, and Poland, and Germany, and countries. 00:01:10.300 --> 00:01:13.090 align:middle line:84% And they came here to escape the draft. 00:01:13.090 --> 00:01:14.090 align:middle line:90% Wow. 00:01:14.090 --> 00:01:15.340 align:middle line:90% Not to have to go in the army. 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:18.130 align:middle line:90% 00:01:18.130 --> 00:01:20.695 align:middle line:84% "To Gary, At the Threshold of the House." 00:01:20.695 --> 00:01:24.130 align:middle line:90% 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:27.160 align:middle line:84% Again, the rain thundering on the tin roof, 00:01:27.160 --> 00:01:29.440 align:middle line:90% an avalanche of pebbles. 00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:32.620 align:middle line:90% Rain fallen for weeks and weeks. 00:01:32.620 --> 00:01:36.340 align:middle line:84% The drowned fields can't hold anymore. 00:01:36.340 --> 00:01:39.280 align:middle line:84% Thousands of little rivers run through the woods 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:45.370 align:middle line:84% up here, plucking old strings, making new grass. 00:01:45.370 --> 00:01:48.850 align:middle line:84% Soon it will be the time of the blue-eyed grass, 00:01:48.850 --> 00:01:53.320 align:middle line:84% the time of the red bud, and the red maid. 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:56.350 align:middle line:84% Already the crimson head of the snow plant, 00:01:56.350 --> 00:01:59.110 align:middle line:84% a hard cock butts through the membrane, 00:01:59.110 --> 00:02:05.770 align:middle line:84% pushes aside black crumbs of Earth, breaking into light. 00:02:05.770 --> 00:02:11.740 align:middle line:84% On the shoulders of cow trails, the dead turn over again. 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:16.315 align:middle line:84% Wherever you go, your son is yawning in Anna's belly. 00:02:16.315 --> 00:02:19.840 align:middle line:90% 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:22.570 align:middle line:84% Hard to believe they could want you now. 00:02:22.570 --> 00:02:26.380 align:middle line:84% That swamped, listing, table load of red wattle judges, 00:02:26.380 --> 00:02:30.190 align:middle line:84% cadavers, undertakers, tight car dealers, doctors, 00:02:30.190 --> 00:02:33.550 align:middle line:84% well-to-do butchers spouting that incomprehensible bad 00:02:33.550 --> 00:02:37.990 align:middle line:84% poetry, running down ghostly corridors in their glad rags, 00:02:37.990 --> 00:02:41.110 align:middle line:84% flapping like the freaky echoes of some bad trip, 00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:42.430 align:middle line:90% crying all night. 00:02:42.430 --> 00:02:45.700 align:middle line:84% Gary, it's time to plant your blood flowers 00:02:45.700 --> 00:02:49.120 align:middle line:84% in the hump of Asia and other wild things that 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.950 align:middle line:90% make you laugh. 00:02:51.950 --> 00:02:53.270 align:middle line:90% I see you. 00:02:53.270 --> 00:02:57.850 align:middle line:84% I see them walking round and round where you sit naked. 00:02:57.850 --> 00:03:02.530 align:middle line:84% Lotus slowly dissolving in unearthly smiles. 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:03.850 align:middle line:90% Unmoving. 00:03:03.850 --> 00:03:07.555 align:middle line:84% Bringing everything to bear on the instant of birth. 00:03:07.555 --> 00:03:11.640 align:middle line:90% 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:13.770 align:middle line:90% What can they take away? 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:17.850 align:middle line:84% Your fancy, white belt from St. Vincent de Paul's? 00:03:17.850 --> 00:03:19.920 align:middle line:90% A pinch of Panama red? 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:20.910 align:middle line:90% Palm books? 00:03:20.910 --> 00:03:21.960 align:middle line:90% Shoelace? 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:23.700 align:middle line:90% Your cowboy shirt? 00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:25.740 align:middle line:90% Your golden hair? 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:28.260 align:middle line:90% Your big, homemade mandala? 00:03:28.260 --> 00:03:30.240 align:middle line:84% They can take you from this prison 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:34.080 align:middle line:84% and put you in that prison and say, it's time to suffer now, 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.060 align:middle line:90% Gary. 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:39.090 align:middle line:84% And swing locked the heavy echoing doors 00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:44.330 align:middle line:84% and walk away, leaving you all your possessions. 00:03:44.330 --> 00:03:47.660 align:middle line:90% Wildflowers on wet breasts. 00:03:47.660 --> 00:03:49.190 align:middle line:90% Silken threads. 00:03:49.190 --> 00:03:53.000 align:middle line:84% The silence buzzing, unceasing after vibration 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:54.800 align:middle line:90% of some great bass string. 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:58.580 align:middle line:90% A sound you were waiting for. 00:03:58.580 --> 00:04:01.340 align:middle line:84% The stars caught in a net of twigs, 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:04.760 align:middle line:84% glimmering in the darkest meat of your brain. 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:08.960 align:middle line:84% And you're already halfway through the door and away. 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:12.370 align:middle line:90% The door standing open. 00:04:12.370 --> 00:04:13.284 align:middle line:90%