This poem that I'll read next, and last, I guess, of my poems,
is called "Elegy for the Burned."
And I have to explain it a little bit because it
concerns some history that you might not remember.
It takes place in Prague, as will other things
that I'm going to read you tonight.
This is sort of the introduction to that part of the reading.
And there's mention in it of Jan Masaryk, who would be,
if George Washington had had a son in this country who
either committed suicide or was murdered,
that's who this person is in Czechoslovakia.
His father founded the country as a republic.
And he was active in the government himself
when it became a communist country in 1948.
He was found dead below his room.
And nobody knows whether he was killed
or whether he committed suicide in desperation.
That's mentioned.
Also, in 1968, Russia--
the Soviet Union-- occupied Czechoslovakia-- it still
occupies it-- after an attempt on the part of the Czechs
to liberalize their own regime.
In an act of great desperation and national love,
a young student named Jan Palach burned himself on the main drag
of Prague, the main street, called Václavské námestí,
which is Wenceslas Square.
And that is mentioned here.
And also, if you don't know what slivovitz is, you should.
It's a wonderful plum brandy.
And you'll find out about that.
The poem is dated, but the poem was all written at one time.
The dates refer to what's happening in the poem, not
when I wrote the poem.
"Elegy for the Burned"
January, 1969.
Anthracite sours the air.
The sun's no better than a gas lamp.
And the cocaine of the fog has confused the trees.
Later, slush chokes the gutters.
The moon will elude the oily clouds
as it rises over the russet tiles of the fluted roofs.
Icicles are dangling from the eaves of the Savarin Palace,
where Jan Masaryk jumped, or was pushed, but definitely died,
21 years ago.
On Václavské námestí, Jan Palach has lit his match.
He has breathed his last gold in the golden city.
He has become many colors.
In the emergency room of Bellevue Hospital,
my brother fights to save the melting
bodies of two other men who tried to go up in smoke
in front of the UN building.
It's the fingernails, he says.
You can't get the fingernails out of their gums.
They double over.
They crouch down and dig into their mouths one last time,
but the right words aren't there anymore.
May, 1977.
We sit around a white linen cloth stitched
with red geometric embroidery.
A tall bottle of slivovitz on the table, flecks
of caraway in the bread, a mound of codfish roe
heaped like tiny greased ball bearings.
Outside, the engaged couples move in and out
of the Persian lilacs.
One man, a doctor, tells me there was never
any hope, then or now.
Later, we raise our glasses in the high-ceilinged apartment.
Drink fast, they say.
Don't think.
We throw back our heads, our tongues
burn briefly, then our throats.
It is gone.
The colorless abstract of blue plums,
the heat distilled in dusty Moravian towns,
the forgotten villages, the narrow highways
lined with fruit trees that very soon will rush into flower,
all those flimsy pink blossoms.
[APPLAUSE]