This one I wrote in Paris during the Algerian revolution
and it's called, "Against France: On the Algerian
Pleasures of Entity" And I still can maintain the same position
today in the poem by just changing a title to read,
"Against the United States of America:
on the Vietnamese Pleasures of Entity"
There might be some reference to my colleague, Bly's, poem
about the small boned people.
"Against the United States of America:
on the Vietnamese Pleasures of Entity"
"When I died the devils tortured me
with icepicks and pliers and all the other instruments
they learned from men of faith; they took off my genitals
and nails, less troubles, chained me to the wall,
and came in shifts with forced foods and electrodes.
Later, after works, I tore the chains from the wall.
What whips chains are!
I lashed my lashers and escaped their cell,
armed to my last two teeth in search of god.
My arms, though, were chains chained to my arms,
so what I touched I struck.
I met all the animals with beaks and offered them myself
to rend, since as a student of torture, I had [BLEEP -
recording skips backward, then continues]
--arms though, were chains chained to my arms,
so what I touched I struck.
I met all the animals with beaks and offered them myself
to rend, since as a student of torture,
I had found it fun, and wrecked them as they bit.
What would I have done if I had met a smile?
Well, I swam the river of spit.
crossed, a plain of scorpions, and went into the lake of fire.
I emerged bone, dripping the last of my flesh,
a good riddance, and asked whoever came to chew the bones,
"Where is god?"
Each answered: "Here I am, now.
I am, in a way."
I answered, "Nonsense!" every time and struck with chains.
Weary and weary, I came to the final ocean of acid:
pain was a friend who told me I was temporal when
nothing else spoke, so I dipped in my hand-bones
and saw them eaten.
"It is good to be rid of the bones,"
I felt, "as clattering encumbrances to search,"
and dived in whole.
However, instead of being shriven or freed up
into flight, oh I was born again.
I squalled for a while to keep my death,
that time when chains were arms and pain a great ally,
but I was conquered and began my sentence
to a child's forgetfulness, uneager
to collect the matter of these dreams,
and stared into the present you innocent beasts."
That's my notion of the nature of the colonial revolutions
going on in our time and I think we're on the wrong side.
It's-- I really do.
[APPLAUSE]