This next poem is--
it's a sort of a serious poem so don't think it's not.
[LAUGHTER]
| mean I sort of hesitate to read it
because it's misleading.
It seems like it's not a serious poem but it is.
It's called "Fire Dance."
And it's written in response to a friendship I was--
I am still I guess making with a young nun up in Oregon
whose about 25 years old, a poetess.
I think she's just a terrific poet.
A woman by the name of Sister Michelle Birch.
And we met each other and liked each other a great deal.
She's very intense.
And started this correspondence.
And I was very pleased to have this friendship
because I thought so much of her as a poet and as a human being.
And she seemed to really love me.
But it was unfortunate because I thought she--
it was one of those unfortunate things
because she thought I was something other than I was.
And I realized that.
I knew that even as the friendship was forming
I could tell that she thought I was something other than what
I was.
And so that's a bad basis on which to build a friendship.
So I guess at some point I finally
had to answer her with a poem.
And it's about writing too.
It's called "Fire Dance."
In your eyes I am a wealth of sin.
You see me with kegs of cognac, harems of nubile lovers
bathing me in sweet smelling oil.
You see me smoking opium in the early hours,
drowsy, nibbling at a quail's wing and a naked girl.
Oh, once in a while I roll over and dictate a poem.
[LAUGHTER]
I smiled graciously that this charming act
of condescension and my 33 wives applaud quietly.
[LAUGHTER]
The next day it appears in The New Yorker.
[LAUGHTER]
And I donate the paltry reward to the veterans
of the Turkel Cuban Civil War.
[LAUGHTER]
For the survivors of the Flemish fire sale.
Yes, Sister Michelle it is all true.
The fire dance you were waiting for in the next life
happens every night on my living room floor.
[LAUGHTER]
I rise and read and write until almost dawn
until there is not a light left on in the world
and the ghosts of beauty have disappeared
and my pride has crossed over into complete shame
and emptiness.
And the thrush says, sleep, you goddamned fool.
[APPLAUSE]