WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.880 --> 00:00:07.890 align:middle line:84% I want to move to this new book that should be out any day now 00:00:07.890 --> 00:00:09.990 align:middle line:90% from Arte Público Press. 00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:11.970 align:middle line:90% It's a book of love poems. 00:00:11.970 --> 00:00:17.760 align:middle line:84% It's a book all of love poems, love poems and anti-love poems. 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:21.270 align:middle line:84% In the world today it seems the most revolutionary thing 00:00:21.270 --> 00:00:27.600 align:middle line:84% you can do is love and love passionately and love well. 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.220 align:middle line:84% Anyway, like I said, these poems move from love poems 00:00:32.220 --> 00:00:33.940 align:middle line:90% to anti-love poems. 00:00:33.940 --> 00:00:35.490 align:middle line:90% This is one of the latter. 00:00:35.490 --> 00:00:39.360 align:middle line:84% And the book is called From the Cables of Genocide, 00:00:39.360 --> 00:00:41.520 align:middle line:90% Poems on Love and Hunger. 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:45.450 align:middle line:84% And at the time I was newly divorced and facing something 00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:47.580 align:middle line:84% they call the feminization of poverty. 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:51.270 align:middle line:90% 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:57.390 align:middle line:84% Not a new concept but anyway so this 00:00:57.390 --> 00:00:58.830 align:middle line:90% is what this book comes out of. 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:01.350 align:middle line:90% And this is a poem-- 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:04.620 align:middle line:84% this is also a bus poem, a Greyhound bus poem. 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:08.580 align:middle line:84% If any of you have taken a Greyhound bus across country-- 00:01:08.580 --> 00:01:12.780 align:middle line:84% I recommend it by the way as an educational experience. 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:18.150 align:middle line:84% But anyway, you know that the bus stops at Salt Lake City 00:01:18.150 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:90% and stays there. 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:23.370 align:middle line:84% Going one way, it stops at 6 o'clock 00:01:23.370 --> 00:01:25.440 align:middle line:84% in the morning in Salt Lake City, 00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:28.740 align:middle line:84% and it doesn't leave until 7 o'clock that evening. 00:01:28.740 --> 00:01:32.370 align:middle line:84% And the time that I hit it was on a Sunday. 00:01:32.370 --> 00:01:35.460 align:middle line:84% So nothing was open except for the Tabernacle. 00:01:35.460 --> 00:01:37.020 align:middle line:84% And I'd already seen that, right? 00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:39.270 align:middle line:84% Nothing was open at the same time. 00:01:39.270 --> 00:01:42.150 align:middle line:84% I had decided that I wanted to move 00:01:42.150 --> 00:01:44.250 align:middle line:90% from California to Colorado. 00:01:44.250 --> 00:01:46.860 align:middle line:84% So I very bravely got all the money 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:50.340 align:middle line:84% I had and bought this bus ticket, one-way bus ticket, 00:01:50.340 --> 00:01:51.450 align:middle line:90% and I got on. 00:01:51.450 --> 00:01:53.963 align:middle line:90% And I didn't have any food. 00:01:53.963 --> 00:01:55.380 align:middle line:84% I didn't have enough money to eat. 00:01:55.380 --> 00:01:57.340 align:middle line:90% I was waiting until I got there. 00:01:57.340 --> 00:01:58.630 align:middle line:90% So I didn't have any food. 00:01:58.630 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:84% I was stuck in Salt Lake City fasting, right? 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:02.770 align:middle line:90% I was very hungry. 00:02:02.770 --> 00:02:04.440 align:middle line:84% I didn't have anything at all to eat 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:06.720 align:middle line:84% except for a little box of raisins 00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:09.570 align:middle line:84% that I found in the bathroom in Salt Lake City. 00:02:09.570 --> 00:02:11.009 align:middle line:90% So I didn't have anything to do. 00:02:11.009 --> 00:02:13.740 align:middle line:84% So I sat there and relished my raisins 00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:16.170 align:middle line:84% and wrote this poem called raisins. 00:02:16.170 --> 00:02:21.190 align:middle line:90% 00:02:21.190 --> 00:02:27.820 align:middle line:84% "Raisins are my currency to date, slightly seedy, 00:02:27.820 --> 00:02:32.320 align:middle line:84% prickled as my nipples, black as pubis, 00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:36.700 align:middle line:90% colored as my opened eyelids. 00:02:36.700 --> 00:02:41.410 align:middle line:84% I tongue you, fricatives, into vowels. 00:02:41.410 --> 00:02:49.960 align:middle line:84% I suck you to the scabs you were forbidden fruit reminders. 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:56.020 align:middle line:84% Never mind the way I found you deserted in the Depot stall. 00:02:56.020 --> 00:03:04.600 align:middle line:84% No matter how this small red box was once a child's lost wonder. 00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:09.670 align:middle line:84% You're the gift of grace swept up off the bathroom floor. 00:03:09.670 --> 00:03:13.210 align:middle line:84% You're my only food today, the day 00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:19.780 align:middle line:84% I left you paper husband, widow name. 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:23.050 align:middle line:90% Our final meal was sweet. 00:03:23.050 --> 00:03:28.420 align:middle line:84% You hovered over me an open package beating blades 00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:33.010 align:middle line:84% to froth, teething me the way I like it, 00:03:33.010 --> 00:03:40.690 align:middle line:84% both lips bit and shriveled as our last fuck you. 00:03:40.690 --> 00:03:46.270 align:middle line:84% You are black with rust and will restore my blood. 00:03:46.270 --> 00:03:50.950 align:middle line:84% You're my prize of faith stave against starve. 00:03:50.950 --> 00:03:57.040 align:middle line:84% I eat it, grateful for the brief exchange. 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:01.600 align:middle line:84% 28 tips of fate, three good sweats 00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:07.810 align:middle line:84% they soaked in sun as you now soak my spit. 00:04:07.810 --> 00:04:17.350 align:middle line:84% Sweet as acid, damp as rot, this hunger as your memory 00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:20.340 align:middle line:90% feeds by chance." 00:04:20.340 --> 00:04:21.000 align:middle line:90%