WEBVTT

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This next poem is called
"The Russian Poem."

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I just got back from Russia.

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I was there traveling
with another poet,

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named Jim Harrison.

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He was here last June.

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And I read Russian
poetry, and it

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has a kind of grandeur and
sweep to it that I really envy.

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And I'll read enough
of it, and then I'll

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think, god, I want to write a
poem like that about America.

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And I put down the book and
I go off and I write a poem.

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You know, a great wind is
sweeping across America.

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My hands are full of nettles.

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And, you know, it
goes on like that.

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And it never works.

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And it's always the poem
that I wanted to write

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and not the poem that
was there to be written.

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So this is my revenge,
"The Russian Poem"

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I was very impressed in
Russia, one thing about it,

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that there were statues of
poets all over the place.

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You know, we usually see
generals or politicians

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or whoever it was.

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And I really freaked out a cab
driver going through Moscow.

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And had just gotten
there and I saw a statue,

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and I said, ah, Mayakovsky.

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And he didn't speak English, of
course, but he recognized that.

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And he was really freaked
out that an American,

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you know, Mayakovsky,
ah, well, Mayakovsky.

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Mayakovsky, ah.

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Pushkin, you know,
and the same thing.

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You could talk with
anybody about poetry

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if you could speak Russian
or they could speak English.

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But you just end up saying the
poet's name back and forth,

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appreciatively, many times.

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But it got the idea across.

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Anyway, I'm not usually able
to write when I'm traveling.

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This is one exception.

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This poem is in four
parts, "The Russian Poem."

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And it begins with a quote
from Jim Harrison, which he

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wrote after he read the poem.

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And it's, "What a
challenge it would

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be to translate 'The Brothers
Karamazov' back into Russian."

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That'll give you some idea
of the tone of the poem.

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Some of the references
to food in it

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were because I lost about
10 pounds in Moscow.

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Not because the food wasn't
bad, it was very good.

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But just trying to get
it was a good trick.

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I'd go to three or four
restaurants every meal

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and be met with nyet.

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So I missed a lot of meals.

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Sometimes you'd get
in the restaurant,

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everything you'd point
to on the menu, nyet.

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So you end up living
on brown bread, which

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is pretty good brown bread,
and vodka and caviar.

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That's kind of tough.

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But, anyway, "The Russian Poem."

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Copious Natashas
walk in the garden.

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My summer palace
of white marble,

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each a triple Orpheus
for my delight,

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container of divine praline.

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With 10 Natashas, I would
have 30 places to go at night.

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Or come.

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How would you say it?

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Her long hair gleamed.

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A man could be happy
with a place like this.

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6 million books,
600 girls, a cellar

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of wine and endless shashlik,
a few simple pleasures.

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When leaves fell and
the sky turned somber,

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I would roam to
purge my boredom.

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I would turn from my
fire and my paintings,

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from the glory of the State,
from my overstuffed soul,

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from the 20th
century and the 19th.

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A man's a fool to live one life.

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I have a five-year plan,
subject to revision,

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the consequences of ennui.

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I'll erect a flagpole
for each Natasha.

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Use your imagination.

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They change the guard in
Red Square, a goose step

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and fallen arches,
dancing in the Kremlin,

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and a thousand Volgas
grind their gears.

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But I was speaking of Natashas
and the gates of paradise.

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It's really quite simple.

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Applied physics and a
little inventiveness,

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forward, backward, upside down.

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Natasha, Natasha,
in her empire dress,

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forgive her if
she's a little thin.

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I have a life planned for her.

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And I taught her to use
the most charming farewell

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in the American idiom.

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Buzz off, you chintzy bastard.

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We are children grown strange,
sleeping on airplanes,

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in cities, on farms.

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I'm the last poet
of country roads,

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but there'll always be another.

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The wind will take
up my singing,

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the snow cover my tracks, when
life grows impatient and stalks

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from the room like
a spoiled child.

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Here I am, watching
the snow coat

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the golden domes of
cathedrals, falling 5,000 miles

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from home, where the
apples are barely ripe.

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I've come to Moscow to
justify the Russian names

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I would write and have written.

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I walk by the river
and through Red Square,

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lights dramatic on the Kremlin
wall, reader of too much

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Yesenin and Mayakovsky.

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But this isn't my country.

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It isn't Christmas.

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I can't live in this
play I've contrived.

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I want a burger and shake.

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It's snowing in Moscow.

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The Russian at my table
eats a cube of sugar

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and slurps the tea
from his saucer.

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We all have our
disgusting habits.

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I eat my peas with honey.

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I've done it all my life.

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Makes the peas taste funny,
but it keeps them on my knife.

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Suddenly, I see a map of Asia.

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This isn't a movie set.

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What am I doing in Moscow?

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Napoleon couldn't hold out here.

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A girl in a tracksuit
sits next to me.

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She has eight sausages, six
eggs, and four cups of tea.

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I grow faint.

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The lights burn.

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The flag waves.

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Lenin sleeps in state.

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I'll take the next
plane to Leningrad

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and recite the
poems of the Neva.

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I've had enough
decrepit morality.

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From my windows on Brodsky
Street, the last yellow leaves.

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At last, at ease, a human place.

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Cold autumn on Nevsky
Prospekt, the Winter Palace,

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the Neva spread out like Venice,
columns of St. Isaac's, lapis

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and malachite, colors
of perpetual Earth.

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And across the square,
a broken window,

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balcony where
Yesenin hung himself.

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Isidora laughing in Paris.

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Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol,
Gorky, globes of a street lamp,

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a little rain.

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Somewhere through the
walls, a violin tuning.

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Voices drift from the street.

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I've slept away the afternoon.

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Gray Moscow is another world.

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The collective mind hums.

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The woman in the window
reads Henry Miller,

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looks down at the
street and smiles.

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People say, what
was Russia like?

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It's hard to capsulize.

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I suppose that's the best
sort of way to begin.

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You are given an interpreter
when you're in Russia,

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to interpret for you.

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And they're supposed
to keep an eye on you.

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But, in Moscow, we had a
young girl who was about 25

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and is a member of the Komsomol.

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And she was kind of
curious about the West

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but very guarded.

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And all her answers sounded
pretty well-rehearsed.

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I asked her why
Khrushchev wasn't

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buried by the Kremlin wall.

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"Well, he was retired, you
know, and the party decided,

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and, uh."

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But in Leningrad, we
had an older woman

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who'd traveled around quite
a bit and was quite literate.

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And I gave her all the
books that I had with me.

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And she was thrilled,
particularly

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with the Tropic of Cancer, which
she'd heard a great deal about.

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But things get around
there quite well.

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