WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.340 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% This next poem is called "Death and the Pineapple". 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:15.480 align:middle line:84% And I read this poem at Stevens College in Missouri 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:17.357 align:middle line:90% a week or two ago. 00:00:17.357 --> 00:00:19.440 align:middle line:84% And when I finished, I acknowledged a certain debt 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.615 align:middle line:90% to Ecclesiastes. 00:00:21.615 --> 00:00:23.490 align:middle line:84% And some girl in the audience raised her hand 00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:25.200 align:middle line:90% and said, what's Ecclesiastes? 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:27.780 align:middle line:90% 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:30.345 align:middle line:90% Well, never mind. 00:00:30.345 --> 00:00:31.470 align:middle line:90% I'll have a drink of water. 00:00:31.470 --> 00:00:36.850 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:37.960 align:middle line:90% "Death and the Pineapple". 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:40.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:44.350 align:middle line:84% "The fruit itself, a giant pine cone. 00:00:44.350 --> 00:00:45.940 align:middle line:90% Texture of an apple. 00:00:45.940 --> 00:00:49.840 align:middle line:84% The taste-- an apple flavored with pine. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:53.200 align:middle line:84% If I died, I couldn't eat pineapples. 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:56.410 align:middle line:84% Couldn't slice them with a large knife or say the word 00:00:56.410 --> 00:00:57.790 align:middle line:90% that conjures the taste-- 00:00:57.790 --> 00:01:01.000 align:middle line:90% pie-napple, pine-apple. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:03.160 align:middle line:84% Couldn't run my hands down the rough sides 00:01:03.160 --> 00:01:07.060 align:middle line:84% or over the bushy top, let its juice drizzle down my chin 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:10.720 align:middle line:84% or wipe it away with the back of my hand, rub it in my hair, 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:13.810 align:middle line:84% gargle it, ponder the origin of its name, 00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:16.480 align:middle line:84% throw it at a strange and beautiful woman on the Rue 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:20.710 align:middle line:84% Saint-Jacques, imagine a trip to Hawaii. 00:01:20.710 --> 00:01:22.930 align:middle line:84% The pineapple is what we give up when 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:28.570 align:middle line:84% we die, along with strawberries, coffee, and sun. 00:01:28.570 --> 00:01:31.630 align:middle line:84% The room hovers about me, one more skull. 00:01:31.630 --> 00:01:35.020 align:middle line:84% The trees around the house, the sky around the trees, 00:01:35.020 --> 00:01:37.360 align:middle line:90% the stars around the sky. 00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:40.900 align:middle line:84% How could I escape so many enclosures? 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:42.010 align:middle line:90% What would I see? 00:01:42.010 --> 00:01:44.350 align:middle line:90% What tastes, what sins? 00:01:44.350 --> 00:01:48.250 align:middle line:84% And if existence exists in space, what space? 00:01:48.250 --> 00:01:50.920 align:middle line:90% I can't imagine nothing. 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.140 align:middle line:84% A house I once visited at a pineapple 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:57.130 align:middle line:84% over the door, a pineapple on the newel post, a pineapple 00:01:57.130 --> 00:01:59.050 align:middle line:90% in the center of the table. 00:01:59.050 --> 00:02:01.150 align:middle line:90% Surely these people had lived. 00:02:01.150 --> 00:02:03.100 align:middle line:84% They said it was their family crest. 00:02:03.100 --> 00:02:07.240 align:middle line:84% It's my family crest, my sign, my life, and yours-- 00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:09.789 align:middle line:90% a galaxy of pineapples. 00:02:09.789 --> 00:02:12.580 align:middle line:84% I considered all the pineapples growing under the sun 00:02:12.580 --> 00:02:15.370 align:middle line:84% and will enjoy the good of my labor, all the days 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:18.520 align:middle line:84% of my pineapple for there is a wicked man who 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:21.460 align:middle line:84% prolongeth his pineapple and his wickedness. 00:02:21.460 --> 00:02:26.160 align:middle line:84% And not a just man on Earth that doeth good and sinneth not."