I'm going to begin with a poem that usually
doesn't get much response, so I thought I'd get it over with.
[LAUGHTER]
It's a poem I like.
It's called "The Crushing Rose."
And it's a poem-- even though it seems
to be I'm particularly still interested in it,
I don't have any preparatory remarks,
so I think I'll just go.
It's in sections, and I'll just pause between the sections
rather than give you the finger or anything.
[LAUGHTER]
"You must be the fool.
When they say you are guilty, say innocent.
And when they say innocent, demand
guilt. When you hunt the elephant, take a feather.
Tell the doctor it doesn't hurt, except when he kisses it.
You were lost in your own house.
The drawer full of light bulbs is locked,
and the key is in Florida attached to a kite.
What you invent each night is the mystery of life.
You tell the wrong man, and he hangs you with your own hands.
You can't die, though.
The world needs you.
Out of the hunger and chaos, a tired voice calls for a donkey,
and you know he needs you.
They exist almost always on a bed of roses,
and frequently dance the foxtrot.
At night, they listen to the bread in the cupboard's sigh.
A nail is like a requiem.
Then there is the need to destroy a bird's nest.
Oh, the poor blinded flies, all they
can do is wrangle with pigs about the quality of oranges.
In life, never do as others do.
Though the odds were in your favor,
the figure in the doorway has chosen
you, an expedient conclusion to the strife of evil,
a raid on glad tidings.
How do you maneuver now with the recurring
dream of love fleeing toward meaninglessness
like a white deer?
The dark is an available religion.
Come forward and kneel before your television.
There are the airplanes with folded wings.
There is the snow which comes down on us like a shadow.
Everyone wins a prize in the theater of the crushing rose.
I would as lief have loved you.
Nothing is what it seems.
For instance, these legumes, beans.
I certainly do not know what it all means,
the alterations occurring to my pants
leg in the middle of the night, the candle that follows me
through the downtown diner.
I could cry.
An Erik Satie sweatshirt delivered anonymously,
an address book that can kiss exactly as you like to,
should one call the police and report the stolen thief's ring?
It hurts, it stings.
My books are melting.
They are the first and last ingredients
of the terrible birthday soup.
All night, I stand outside my window and watch myself sleep.
He knew better.
The coffee needed him.
So what?
There are stones to read, trees to zipper.
There is the rim forever on the sill I must croon to.
It makes me nervous.
The thing gets done.
The telephone book is memorized.
I am encouraged to swallow the Scotch tape, which
has nothing to do with bliss.
If you do not understand that, an execution of the toy heart
must follow.
As you say, business is business.
I only write the damn things for you to bleed them."
[APPLAUSE]
There are two more sections to this.
[LAUGHTER]
Keep your bloody hands out.
[LAUGHS]
"We were so hungry, we collapsed under the spyria.
A couple of fierce hounds examined us.
We spoke their language.
It just came to us.
They said to be patient.
A big surprise was on its way.
The white one put his foot by mistake in the water.
The brown one thought this a great joke,
laughed and laughed, and finally fell over the cliff.
The white one said, the only surprise
was the last one, though a red dog in the center of the bush
violently disagreed.
All the time, we were quietly dying.
We did not speak the language of the squirrels, though.
We thought it was funny."
This is the last section.
"The sail was torn to ribbons and a bug
kept hitting me in the eye.
We had one piece of toast between us.
We thought we should try to signal.
I made a kind of flag out of her blouse.
How long could we go on floating that way?
The iris view toward dusk was a soft thorn to our rule.
On her finger, she balanced the pill.
It was the fatal toilet of understanding.
It had been nibbled at.
She had no right to row with her hair."
[APPLAUSE]