WEBVTT

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This one I wrote in Paris
during the Algerian revolution

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and it's called, "Against
France: On the Algerian

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Pleasures of Entity" And I still
can maintain the same position

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today in the poem by just
changing a title to read,

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"Against the United
States of America:

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on the Vietnamese
Pleasures of Entity"

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There might be some reference
to my colleague, Bly's, poem

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about the small boned people.

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"Against the United
States of America:

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on the Vietnamese
Pleasures of Entity"

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"When I died the
devils tortured me

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with icepicks and pliers and
all the other instruments

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they learned from men of faith;
they took off my genitals

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and nails, less troubles,
chained me to the wall,

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and came in shifts with
forced foods and electrodes.

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Later, after works, I tore
the chains from the wall.

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What whips chains are!

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I lashed my lashers
and escaped their cell,

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armed to my last two
teeth in search of god.

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My arms, though, were
chains chained to my arms,

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so what I touched I struck.

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I met all the animals with
beaks and offered them myself

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to rend, since as a student
of torture, I had [BLEEP -

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recording skips
backward, then continues]

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--arms though, were
chains chained to my arms,

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so what I touched I struck.

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I met all the animals with
beaks and offered them myself

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to rend, since as a
student of torture,

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I had found it fun, and
wrecked them as they bit.

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What would I have done
if I had met a smile?

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Well, I swam the river of spit.

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crossed, a plain of scorpions,
and went into the lake of fire.

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I emerged bone, dripping
the last of my flesh,

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a good riddance, and asked
whoever came to chew the bones,

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"Where is god?"

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Each answered: "Here I am, now.

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I am, in a way."

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I answered, "Nonsense!" every
time and struck with chains.

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Weary and weary, I came to
the final ocean of acid:

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pain was a friend who told
me I was temporal when

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nothing else spoke, so I
dipped in my hand-bones

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and saw them eaten.

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"It is good to be
rid of the bones,"

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I felt, "as clattering
encumbrances to search,"

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and dived in whole.

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However, instead of
being shriven or freed up

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into flight, oh
I was born again.

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I squalled for a while
to keep my death,

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that time when chains were
arms and pain a great ally,

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but I was conquered
and began my sentence

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to a child's
forgetfulness, uneager

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to collect the matter
of these dreams,

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and stared into the present
you innocent beasts."

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That's my notion of the nature
of the colonial revolutions

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going on in our time and I
think we're on the wrong side.

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It's-- I really do.

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[APPLAUSE]

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