WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:09.210 align:middle line:84% So this is a poem that I was very, very lucky 00:00:09.210 --> 00:00:12.930 align:middle line:84% to have the Poetry Center do a broadside of, 00:00:12.930 --> 00:00:14.157 align:middle line:90% in a very limited edition. 00:00:14.157 --> 00:00:15.990 align:middle line:84% And it's quite beautiful, and I hope you all 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:18.988 align:middle line:84% get a chance to see it, although perhaps it's not public. 00:00:18.988 --> 00:00:19.530 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:00:19.530 --> 00:00:20.972 align:middle line:90% Do we have one here, or no? 00:00:20.972 --> 00:00:21.472 align:middle line:90% Here. 00:00:21.472 --> 00:00:22.660 align:middle line:90% I have one here for you. 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:24.302 align:middle line:90% Oh yeah. 00:00:24.302 --> 00:00:25.260 align:middle line:90% You can go see Mildred. 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:26.177 align:middle line:90% She'll show it to you. 00:00:26.177 --> 00:00:27.390 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:31.410 align:middle line:84% So the poem's called "The Moon in Time Lapse." 00:00:31.410 --> 00:00:35.370 align:middle line:90% And this is a new poem. 00:00:35.370 --> 00:00:37.320 align:middle line:84% There's a poem of Frank O'Hara's and I wish 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:39.690 align:middle line:84% I could remember it, where he does-- 00:00:39.690 --> 00:00:40.230 align:middle line:90% oh. 00:00:40.230 --> 00:00:43.500 align:middle line:84% I can almost remember the lines, "the moon-- 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:46.367 align:middle line:90% the moon, like the river--" no. 00:00:46.367 --> 00:00:46.950 align:middle line:90% Wait a minute. 00:00:46.950 --> 00:00:51.120 align:middle line:84% "Kisses, kisses like the moon that runs like a river 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:52.590 align:middle line:90% through girls." 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:54.150 align:middle line:90% And I thought, oh, that's cool. 00:00:54.150 --> 00:00:57.430 align:middle line:84% That's almost like a triple metaphor, simile thing, 00:00:57.430 --> 00:00:57.930 align:middle line:90% you know? 00:00:57.930 --> 00:00:58.260 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:58.260 --> 00:00:59.580 align:middle line:90% And I thought, I could do that. 00:00:59.580 --> 00:01:00.990 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:00.990 --> 00:01:03.300 align:middle line:84% I think I can actually do it better. 00:01:03.300 --> 00:01:04.110 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:04.110 --> 00:01:06.810 align:middle line:84% So this is called "The Moon in Time Lapse." 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:08.940 align:middle line:84% So that maneuver happens, that kind 00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:11.520 align:middle line:84% of very difficult dismount, actually 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:13.590 align:middle line:84% happens at the beginning of the poem. 00:01:13.590 --> 00:01:15.960 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem about-- so I there's 00:01:15.960 --> 00:01:17.670 align:middle line:84% so many things in this poem to explain. 00:01:17.670 --> 00:01:23.490 align:middle line:84% My brother and I, we used to like to put pieces of metal 00:01:23.490 --> 00:01:27.150 align:middle line:84% into electrical sockets and see what would happen. 00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:28.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:31.060 align:middle line:84% And our favorite objects were these erector set-- 00:01:31.060 --> 00:01:31.560 align:middle line:90% Oh god. 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:33.750 align:middle line:84% --pieces because they were really straight, 00:01:33.750 --> 00:01:35.730 align:middle line:84% and they got really nice and black. 00:01:35.730 --> 00:01:38.480 align:middle line:84% And you know, so this is a little bit about that, 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:39.960 align:middle line:90% though this is not about-- 00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:44.350 align:middle line:84% this is-- there's a dinner fork that figures in this one. 00:01:44.350 --> 00:01:44.850 align:middle line:90% Anyway. 00:01:44.850 --> 00:01:46.225 align:middle line:84% And the other thing that you need 00:01:46.225 --> 00:01:50.460 align:middle line:84% to know about this, Fanny Ardant is the wonderful French actress 00:01:50.460 --> 00:01:52.140 align:middle line:90% who I have-- 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:54.780 align:middle line:84% so I'm going to have a whole book of poems about actresses 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:59.190 align:middle line:84% that I have crushes on, and this is the second one 00:01:59.190 --> 00:02:00.960 align:middle line:90% in a series, so Fanny Ardant. 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:05.820 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:06.440 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:02:06.440 --> 00:02:09.120 align:middle line:84% I think no-- Scarlett Johansson is nothing 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:10.259 align:middle line:90% compared to Fanny Ardant. 00:02:10.259 --> 00:02:12.827 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:12.827 --> 00:02:14.985 align:middle line:90% "The Moon in Time Lapse." 00:02:14.985 --> 00:02:19.410 align:middle line:84% "The moon in time lapse, sliding over skyline, 00:02:19.410 --> 00:02:22.980 align:middle line:84% the way a remote Frisbee might wheel through air 00:02:22.980 --> 00:02:26.220 align:middle line:84% as slowly as a banjo once floated 00:02:26.220 --> 00:02:31.260 align:middle line:84% across the wide Missouri River in my mind, when as a boy, 00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:36.810 align:middle line:84% the devil to pay permitted me to dream up my getaway from home, 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:40.020 align:middle line:84% far from my parents' witch-y vigilance 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:44.200 align:middle line:84% and the wine barrel cellars of their household. 00:02:44.200 --> 00:02:48.000 align:middle line:84% This after my experimental stuffing of a dinner 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.780 align:middle line:84% fork into a light socket in the green gazebo 00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:55.510 align:middle line:90% under backyard grapevines. 00:02:55.510 --> 00:02:58.690 align:middle line:84% That fuse box, blown and blackened, 00:02:58.690 --> 00:03:01.550 align:middle line:90% was the bliss of departure. 00:03:01.550 --> 00:03:07.150 align:middle line:84% It was thrilling, but sometimes I have to stop to touch my life 00:03:07.150 --> 00:03:10.330 align:middle line:90% and see if it's real. 00:03:10.330 --> 00:03:15.460 align:middle line:84% How surprising to find that I wanted so much, 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:17.830 align:middle line:90% and mostly got it 00:03:17.830 --> 00:03:20.530 align:middle line:90% My fantasies are fewer now. 00:03:20.530 --> 00:03:25.780 align:middle line:84% One involves living through a day without resentment. 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:30.130 align:middle line:84% The other getting seated next to gorgeous Fanny Ardant 00:03:30.130 --> 00:03:33.400 align:middle line:90% on a puddle jumper. 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:39.370 align:middle line:84% No need to see my life as a story the world has to read. 00:03:39.370 --> 00:03:45.010 align:middle line:84% No need for sentimental mooning and nostalgia. 00:03:45.010 --> 00:03:48.070 align:middle line:84% Blessed with a bit of amnesia anyway, 00:03:48.070 --> 00:03:52.210 align:middle line:84% I don't recall much of what went down. 00:03:52.210 --> 00:03:56.800 align:middle line:84% I know that it's engraved there, on some cellular level, 00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:01.020 align:middle line:84% and that I can't command the consequences. 00:04:01.020 --> 00:04:04.380 align:middle line:84% Like a spider that's climbed atop a survey 00:04:04.380 --> 00:04:09.690 align:middle line:84% stake in a bulldozed field, I feel slightly truer 00:04:09.690 --> 00:04:11.690 align:middle line:90% in any case." 00:04:11.690 --> 00:04:13.000 align:middle line:90%