The last poem I'm going to read to you tonight I think
might be my best.
The title is "Doors" and it's dedicated to Steve Orlen.
Doors.
You spend years looking for the door.
And one day there she is nearer than you expected.
So you want to open her up to get out whatever is inside.
Not beauty, you know that already.
But it's not there either because you didn't bring it.
You sulk for a while, feel sorry too.
Snow falls like it always does right through the seasons.
Every woman who comes from the blizzard
is a hot bath that only lasts some hours.
Your friends ask to come in and you let them.
But they leave again.
They're looking too.
A dress passes the window or a hat.
Sexual parts in the falling snow and your friends are gone.
For a time you hear their voices moths in the white wall.
You think back a lot.
Where did I go wrong?
She was there.
I was gentle.
You're still doing it wrong.
Your friends come back.
You wish it was her.
Jesus, they say, it's snowing out there.
I couldn't find her, they say.
You know about this.
Show me searching.
Show me suffering.
Of course you don't.
You want to show yourself, your own pale
face on the pillow, hands across the sheet delicate and cool.
Your friends would be there.
He was good, they'd say.
She did that to him but he was good.
Three.
You know too where I was.
One says, when something's wrong look inside yourself.
The other is frightened because he's about to find.
Four.
So you're learning about doors.
People are not doors.
It's so simple.
Could a drug tell you that?
Yes.
Could a tree?
Yes.
A man?
Only if he did not think you were a door.
Five.
Once you open the door in your head
there is no part that is first so there is no advice.
If there is no advice, your own answer is right.
It is the key.
The key opens the door in your head
and you already know what's inside.
You hope the problem then is to stop pretending
but you are already open.
If you grip and turn that circle long enough,
you see the problem is the problem
as it always was, frustrating if you make it something else.
Remember the moths on the white wall.
They were not the problem.
They were looking for the door.
Six.
Make a study of doors.
Some are stuck shut, handles pulled off.
Some are always open where the Holy men live.
Some doors are only seen moving the last 1/4
inch to the Iron thump.
Some are decoration, can't open.
And there was her door, which you wanted to open.
It was her door, which was why what was inside was wrong.
The first door to open should be your own.
Your door can't be forced open but it is vulnerable
since you can close it again.
Seven.
Go back to your friends whose doors are only sleeping.
Ask them to open.
If it is a woman hold her, see her beauty,
the strength of living bone.
If a man, massage his feet by the door.
It will happen.
You can embrace a man.
You can have peace, which is to keep learning.
Whatever is given from the door can't be wrong
and you have learned this.
If the doors are open, no man is your enemy
and no woman your bed.
Whatever is given from the door can't be wrong.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]